Yuval Yasky is the Chair of the Department of Architecture at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem and co-curator of the exhibition "Kibbutz: Architecture Without Precedents" at the Israeli Pavilion in the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennial 2011.
The Kibbutz, the most prominent form of cooperative agricultural settlement in Israel, started developing over a hundred years ago by Jewish immigrants that wished to incorporate three social ideologies - Zionism, Socialism and Communalism - promoting a voluntarily way of life based on equality, mutual aid and full partnership in all the social and economic aspects of life, including property and land. The combination of creating a society based on social equality and of one that idealizes the ethics of "working the land," demanded a distinctive spatial implementation. The Kibbutz posed a unique architectural challenge of realizing a Utopian ideal.
The lecture by Yuval Yasky revisits the elements of architecture and planning of the Kibbutz, the intricate formal and social issues they raised in the local and broader contexts of the Israeli society over the years, and the lessons to be learned from this unprecedented experiment that is now facing radical transitions.
University of Kentucky College of Design
209 Pence Hall
5pm
Free and open to the public.
