A gift of gratitude

• Source: Global Times
• [09:38 July 21 2010]
• Comments

The Israel Pavilion Photo: Courtesy of Haim Dotan

Designing the Israel Pavilion

Dotan employed Chinese ideas about balance in his design of the Israel Pavilion. Located next to the 76-meter-high China Pavilion, the Israel Pavilion was designed to be 24 meters high as a way of balancing its neighbor's size, he said.

The seashell-shaped pavilion has three sections: a garden, a hall of light that is made of glass and a hall of innovations, which is made of stone.

Dotan explained that the garden represents nature. The other two sections are remi-niscent of two hands clasped together, which from above, looks like the symbol for yin and yang.

"When visitors are waiting outside the glass section of the pavilion, they can see inside, and the people inside can see out," Dotan said. "This is also a dialogue between the two forms. The glass symbolizes technology and the future and the stone is a symbol of ancient culture and the family."

The design is supposed to represent the traditional and the modern, the past and the future, and the thousands of Jewish families like Dotan's and the city that sheltered them, he said. But Dotan also wants to show the balance of yin and yang, the influence of traditional Chinese philosophy, and his own personal feelings about Shanghai, which are the legacy of his family's stay in the city.

This year, Dotan took a job as a professor teaching architecture at East China Normal University. He hopes to use the job to teach students how to connect traditional Chinese culture with design.

Still, Dotan acknowledged that he has a lot to learn about China. "The longer I am here, the more I see that I know very little," he said. "I know some things about Confucius and balance. Maybe I know more than other people, but I know very little compared with China's long history."

Dotan has already decided he will stay in China for at least the next decade. "I want to give back what China gave me," he said.