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I want to say a few words before I begin.
I expect some of you know me and probably some don't,
as you can hear I don't have an accent,
I think that most people here do have an accent.
My non-accent if of course a New York accent.
Although I'm in Israel since 1975
this is probably something which will not go away.
It will remain with me.
You can't see the colors
it's not so good...
Yes? Ok. If you can see, becuase its very important to me,
becuase the most important thing about this sketch is its color.
I came at... the sketches I will present today
if we go back to the [talk] title
are my sketches from 1975 and until 2012,
actually that's an exaggeration, becuase the sketches of 2011-2 will go to the exhibition.
so actually my sketches... I'm stopping before that date.
I cam to Israel in 1975, actually the first time I left North America.
And I came... and I want to connect to a kind of a circle closing yesterday and today
that actually [architect] Ram Karmi came to New York
that same year looking for young architects
to come with him to the team of the Ministry of Housing.
He was in London and New York, and returned with one architect.
And since then
I came to Israel and I'm here since then.
And the... it came to my mind, as I was going through the sketchbooks,
actually the sketchbooks tell the story of my life
in a certain way.
And this is what I will try to show today through the sketchbook and the sketches.
I think that as Sagi said, it is very intimate,
It's something that I actually think that I can't present
and I don't even look at them with my partners
and present the sketches. I present them here.
And I'll try and present it in a way that the sketches remain
personal and intimate, and not bit proclamations.
They are very small statements,
and very very... usually for setting the mind free.
The dream with the eyes open.
To leave the humdrum daily work
the need to provide solutions, to give answers,
It's just something completely different, and I hope I'm able through the slides
to present it, simply... what's important in this sketch, a sketch from 1975,
I guess it's in Yafo,
I guess I was in the old city,
and saw for the first time the physical structure
of ancient cities, which I hadn't known in New York,
and also the skies. And actually the only color
is the color of the skies, as in New York we don't have skies like this.
And from there I go to a sketch which I actually took from New York,
but the idea I took from New York took on a different expression
and I call this Top Down.
The skies are so important that... and so strong, that
you have to find a way of building a world underneath which is more protected
to live under these skies, and there's here... and it repeats itself in the sketches
it's one of the repeating themes
This is another sketch from 1975 or 1976, when I came to Israel,
where we see some expression of [...] which is
protected underneat the strong skies
or the very strong light that we are familiar with in Israel.
And another example of... Again, a section, of light entering from above
and going downwards.
I didn' say, I'll present in a certain way about three different types of sketches,
sketches which are just... sketches without foundations, they are just feelings,
the other [type] are sketches which are an attempt
to intrepret something which I see with my eyes
and there are one or two, I think at the end, just one sketch of a building
a building I worked on, a sketch I made in my sketchbook
and not on my table or during my work
and I thought about the building, and somehow also
the [building of the] Ministry of Foreign Affairs also fits into this.
But I come back to this, this is still Top Down,
here, probably with Ada Karmi, I came for the first time to Jerusalem
still 1975
I understood, becuase in New York there's not much topography,
I understood there's something called topography, and
different vegetation from what I knew from Brooklyn or Manhattan.
Another sketch, I can only guess it's possibly the old city in Jerusalem
or perhaps Yafo, there's no way for me to remember where it was.
But again like the first sketch, this sketch is an attempt to understand
the space and materiality
of the new world I'm encountering.
Just a... I have no way of explaining this.
The rooftops of Jerusalem,
again an attempt to
grasp the new physical structure,
the new light and also the new colors.
Again, another version of Top Down, possibly
I walked around Jerusalem and grasped the building in layers.
Those who know Jerusalem, there's the skies,
the rooftops, the middle levels, the history beneath,
so here we see another example of building in layers.
I hope you can see colors, I can't see the colors here,
I just hope you can see the colors [audience: perhaps turn the spotlight down]
I don't need the spotlight.
Now I can see the colors a little better.
And another example of [...] of Top Down.
And this is an already somewhat different statement, of a combination
between what I call my background, Cooper Union, John Hejduk,
morphology. land, the topography of Jerusalem, a kind of
call it.. I call it a campus, without it combining into anything.
And another one like it.
And this... this is called Mykonos, it says Mykonos on the right hand side,
and those who know Mykonos, you can identify the cliff here,
and what... I've never been to Mykonos... I have no idea
I... but it's a nice sketch
I can't explain it... And there another Mykonos
Proably I went around with Mykonos in my head, it got into the sketchbook
I guess I imagined Mykonos
And a bit... A kind of statement on building on a slope
This is, it is not connected to any specific project
I just, I guess I sat on a nice day in a nice place and made
a sketch which expresses some ideas, some feelings
Again, in my eyes very much connected to Jerusalem
Another section of Top Down, land below, olive trees on levees and ropes below,
also this is not connected to any project
Again a very clear and simple statement
lucky for me this is not a building and has not been built,
but at least a clear statement
This is actually a very early sketch of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [building]
I don't even remember which stage
we have here parts of what we know from the Ministry building,
and some not
Another sketch not connected to any specific building
And another unconnected, pehaps, sketch,
but I liked the statement, the...
and another similar one, I guess I was then in a day of
underground things and prisons, but I think that all in all it's a nice sketch
And another sketch from the same period
And then I made a visit to Prague.
And Prague did something to me. I made a series of sketches in Prague.
This is a sketch I made in the rain.
A winter's day, I think you can see it in the light of... in the colors,
but it was a kind of a blow, and then I returned to Israel
and started drawing landscapes, actually the Jerusalem landscape because that's the
landscape I had near me.
This is, those who know, the area of Lifta,
by the colors I assume it's autumn
And another sketch of Lifta.
And another sketch of an area of... I think this is already in the north,
probably the area of Kfar Tavor
probably [...] in the Golan Heights opposite
And this is the final slide.
There's another slide which I won't show I think it's better to stop here.
When I studide architecture, the school was a school of architecture and art.
And I, of course I studied architecture but
I was able to take courses in any other direction
all.. also in art,
and I got to painting, and I remember coming to
the first studio
took a paintbruch, and made one line, one mark, one stroke on the cloth
another one, and then the teacher came up to me and said 'stop,
you'll only ruin it for yourself.'
And I... This is probably the painting that I stopped at the right moment,
because it says a lot without doing a lot.
I thought... I assume that this is Ein Kerem
I think that I'm sitting in [...] Hadassah
looking back, beautiful landscape, and I took a part and painted it.
Thank you.