Israeli architects dissect flashpoint structures in Venice
The curators say that their goal in creating this year’s Israeli architectural exhibit for the Venice Biennale was to offer up an honest and evocative model of five flashpoint Middle Eastern sites.
The Israeli Pavilion at the Venice Biennale's International Architecture Exhibition looks different this year.
Rather than focus on Israeli giants of architecture like Moshe Safdie or Ron Arad or present structural examinations of Israeli scientific achievements — the theme of both the 2016 and the 2017 exhibitions — this year’s pavilion takes a long, unwavering look at five major holy sites.
“In Statu Quo: Structures of Negotiation” explores “the Status Quo, which functions as an informal and fragile system of coexistence within shared holy places.”
The five contested sites being explored at the pavilion, which opens to the public May 26, are the Mughrabi Ascent (the only point of access for non-Muslims to the most contested holy site in the Middle East, the Temple Mount), Rachel’s Tomb (the West Bank gravesite that is hallowed by Jews but disputed by Palestinians), the Cave of the Patriarchs, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall Plaza, a regular flashpoint for protests not between Jews and Arabs, but between religious and secular Israelis.
