To the Eightieth Birthday of Zvi Hecker

Israeli architect Zvi Hecker celebrated a significant life milestone at the end of May. Hecker was born on May 31, 1931, in Krakow, Poland, and grew up in Samarkand, in what is now Uzbekistan. He began studying architecture after World War II in Poland, and after emigrating to Israel at the age of nineteen, he graduated from the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) in Haifa. In the first half of the 1950s, he studied painting at the Avni Academy in Tel Aviv, and after completing his military service, he established a joint architectural office with his former professor Alfred Neumann and a military friend Eldar Sharon. In the newly emerging Israel, Hecker quickly received commissions that immediately attracted international attention and invitations to America, Asia, and Europe. As a visiting professor, Hecker taught at Laval University School of Architecture in Quebec, Canada, University of Texas School of Architecture in Arlington, Washington University School of Architecture in St. Louis, and several others. Even in his most famous early buildings (Club Mediterranee in Achziv, the officer school Bahad 1, or the town hall in Bat Yam), his affinity for the organic metabolic branch and fascination with spiral forms are evident. Since 1966, when he already had his own office, he created a whole series of remarkable experimental buildings, with the spiral house in Ramat Gan ranking at the highest level. This circular structure was created over many years without a project directly on the construction site, often being compared to Gaudí's buildings. After the reunification of Germany, Hecker opened his branch in Berlin and built several structures for the Jewish community there. According to information on his blog, he continues to design, travel, and lecture around the world.

“Zvi Hecker is a distinctive person with interesting views. He seems to have an overview of almost everything happening around him, which is indeed the supreme privilege of architects.
We talked about politics: he, although himself a Jew, argued that Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories, and he recommended reading the British historian of Jewish origin Eric Hobsbawm.
We talked about architecture: he raved about Plečnik's masterpieces at Prague Castle, while he considered Calatrava's universally acknowledged buildings to be old-fashioned.
We spoke about art. I asked, what is art actually for? Zvi replied: 'a true artist must never cease to be naive, namely, he must always believe that through his art, he will save the world.'
Such is Zvi Hecker, still designing in his 80s, an active person, uncompromising in architecture, and nearly intolerable in personal dealings…”

“His attack comes from the heart, the brain and the pencil simultaneously.”