2025 אוגוסט 142 עד מתי רשעים יעלוזו אדריכלות ישראלית 61 | | | food for thought how long shall the wicked rejoice while the righteous weep? Architect Dr. Ami Ran I have no doubt that any architect who has experienced the grueling, insulting process of applying for a building permit is undoubtedly nodding in agreement. The question remains - what led us here? If one were to define a dominant social phenomenon of the early 21st century, it would arguably be addiction. Not because it didn’t exist in earlier times, but because today it is ruthlessly exploited by corporate powers that enslave us to indispensable apps, and no less by bureaucrats who wield their authority as a weapon, intending to making our lives unbearable. Where addiction was once the sign of clearly defined groups - drug users, alcoholics, sex offenders - today, nearly all of us are addicted to social media, television, computers, and mobile phones, without which we can barely recall anything. In practice, our professional lives as architects are now dictated by nonarchitects - decision-makers who, with no regard for private property while undermining Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty, profoundly shape architectural output. Decisions are dictated by a multitude of consultants - safety, accessibility, fortification, environmental design, HVAC, lighting, urban planning, transportation, green building, insulation, waterproofing, ventilation, etc. etc. Each field is undeniably important, but previously were in the architect’s hands as the initiators. One way to classify architectural evolution is by comparing its relevance to human needs and desires as opposed to styles, which obsessively base design on surface aesthetics and visibility. Against this backdrop, it’s worth noting architectural approaches grounded not in visual organization, but rather on structural logic. Chief among these is modernist architecture, which, arose out of the Industrial Revolution and its defining trait: mass production. Based on machine ability to reduce production cost, it did not hesitate to compare housing units to “Machines to Live In”. To avoid sliding (once again) into a Modern Architecture from which we have yet to recover, we might instead look to the Renaissance Era, between the 14th–17th centuries. Like the modernists, Renaissance architects sought to improve efficiency, but not at the expense of broader human experience, while embracing art, science, and philosophy, and reviving the ancient ideals after a thousand years under the Church ecclesiastical puritanism regime. Much like modernism, the Renaissance was marked by technological motifs which advanced architecture, such as linear perspective, natural light calculations and compositional depictions of human beings that aimed to reflect reality more accurately. Among the period’s most iconic figures was Leonardo da Vinci - scientist, engineer and inventor, whose restless pursuit of functional design led to early concepts of the airplane, a multi-directional tank, and, crucially, the pistol, without which crowd control - or Hitchcockian plot lines - would be hard to imagine. But much more significant than these was da Vinci’s effort to understand the human psyche, grounded in the ergonomics described by Vitruvius in De Architectura (1st century CE), which inspired his famous drawing, Vitruvian Man. Indeed, the ideological roots of modern democracy lay in Renaissance thought, rather than in the modernist world. A key concern of that period was the relationship between the individual and society; that is, the tension between self-interest and public needs. And returning to addiction, the rising addiction to AI can be compared to a laxative; in both cases one can get a great amount of output, with relatively little effort. The problem is, that most of that output cannot be identified. Apps that exploit AI for gimmicky visuals blur the line between fantasy and reality, truth and fabrication. This poses a serious challenge, especially when AI is applied to The main reason for the current dismal state of architecture in Israel is the unchecked harassment by local authorities of Building Permit applicants. One needs only to count the endless amendments and revisions of the Planning and Building Laws to understand that architecture here is in serious crisis. The reason for that is that continuous legal changes are written by clerks and lawyers who have never designed a building and possess a near-zero understanding of architecture. They primarily serve to strengthen municipal control and create ongoing jobs for legal advisors, many of whom operate in blatant violation of regulations, cynically exploit their authority, restrict creative freedom and degrade the quality of architecture to humiliating lows
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