Exhibition Opening: Liquid Stone

In an era where crisis has become routine and our immediate surroundings feel more fragile than ever, the question of resilience (spatial, community, material, and cultural) lies at the heart of architectural thought and practice. Israel's concrete industry has accompanied the nation-building enterprise from its inception, deeply interwoven with the local ethos. Concrete in Israel has taken on a unique significance and intensified production in light of the growing demand for fortification, sheltering, and defense.

Concrete, often dubbed "the liquid stone," is one of the most influential building materials shaping the modern landscape. Its structural and formal plasticity once associated it with design freedom and technological progress, yet also turned it into a symbol of duplication, mass production, and infrastructure. At the same time, the concrete industry is among the most polluting in the world and a major contributor to the climate crisis.

The Liquid Stone Lab views Israel’s concrete spaces as a mirror reflecting these complexities and contradictions. By analyzing architectural case studies, local typologies, and landscapes, it identifies ideological and ecological cracks, offering material experiments and future scenarios for the built environment. The exhibition invites us to imagine an alternative future for "the liquid stone," a future that integrates nature-based solutions and sustainable thinking, transforming concrete spaces from grey elephants into catalysts for change.

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of architect Israel Goodovitch, who passed away during its preparation. His masterpiece, the Hazeva Field School, which is a milestone of concrete architecture in Israel, serves as a site of inspiration, research, and intervention for the lab. Through a re-reading of this project, alongside Beit Hayotser, Neve Zohar, designed by Arch. Shmuel Mestechkin, the exhibition seeks to advance the discourse on local concrete heritage and its potential for the future.

The Liquid Stone exhibition invites visitors to view concrete not merely as a building material, but as a political, cultural, and ecological agent: one that carries the memory of the past, shapes the reality of the present, and exposes the tensions between construction and destruction, permanence and change, protection and vulnerability. Through the cracks in both the material and the ideology it embodies, the exhibition opens a renewed debate on the future of the Israeli built environment.

Instructors:

Arch. Osnat Tadmor

Arch. Omer Canani

Participants:

Mika Blumenstein, Netanel Grazi, Noah Dreyblatt, Mariah Hubert, Amit Chen, Guy Caspi, Gili Katz, Din Levi, Yuli Lesser, Ella Sitton, Yonatan Hay Arad, Yael Palti, Tal Krasnopolsky.

Curating & Exhibition Design: Arch. Noam Shar Shalom

Graphic Design: Ran Malul

Exhibition Setup: Liquid Stone Lab, Bezalel School of Architecture

Exhibition Production: Liebling Haus Research Lab in collaboration with Liquid Stone Lab, Bezalel School of Architecture

Editing: Arch. Osnat Tadmor