Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

This exhibition at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History  in Tel Aviv presented the main installation from the Life Object: Merging Biology and Architecture exhibition, which was chosen to represent Israel at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition dealt with the interface between architecture and natural sciences in its broader contexts: from the cellular scale through architectural structure to the urban space and global environmental phenomena. The exhibition examined the accepted differentiation between nature and culture in parallel to the architectural approach to the environment within the framework of a broad and multilayered ecological approach. Alongside the central exhibit were seven projects based on collaboration between architects and Israeli scientists, with the aim of forming a basis for creating a dialog between architecture and science as a constitutive process in Israel and serving as a source of future studies.

The exhibit is based on studying the structural principles of the nest of a bird breeding in Israel (Dead Sea sparrow) that is found in the Museum’s collection. It demonstrates a range of methods for applying the principles of nature in architectural space. This is an example of the great potential of the study of natural phenomena as inspiration for architecture in particular and for other fields related to a range of aspects of human life in general. The Museum’s permanent exhibitions, that demonstrate evolutionary processes in nature, and the comprehensive work of the Museum on issues related to the environment, are echoed in this exhibit.