Arch-chic

The Industrial Design Course – HIT Holon Institute of Technology

The architectural arch was first conceived not far from Jerusalem, in Mesopotamia, some 4,000 years ago. The Romans adopted it and placed it in buildings throughout the Roman Empire. Thus the arch was disseminated into far of places as a foreign element, incorporated into the local architectural construction, where it blossomed to become the basis for eclecticism.

The arch has undergone change and development over the past centuries, and has even returned to its earliest origins – the Middle East. Such an arch is found in this very building, Hansen House, constructed in 1887 by the architect, archaeologist and cartographer Conrad Schick. Schick’s building style was an inspiring combination of European splendor with Middle Eastern and Ottoman architecture, in a city that is a symbol of hybridity – a crossbreed of the sacred and profane, religion and state, faith and land, and among religions.

The arch as an object is an architectural way of bridging two sides. As it set out on a journey around the world, affected the places to which it came and was influenced by them as well, this work too seeks to unite elements of East and West, tradition and progress, craft and technology, soft and hard, delicate and coarse.

The work invites its visitors to contribute to the creation of the structure by joining the embroidery work that will constitute its walls, thus integrating into the mixture of cultures, techniques, ideas and actions, weaving thread and metal one hand at a time.

Design: Shir Avraham
Curator: Galina Arbeli
Text: Anat Becker, Galina Arbeli