Poetry, pavilions and perfection
- Source: Global Times
- [09:47 August 13 2010]
- Comments
The cover of After the rain Photos: Courtesy of Haim Dotan
One of Dotan's most charming poems, Forest, casts its lens on the forest floor, where the light filtering through the trees creates small patches where new plants can grow.
The text reads: "Softly walking between precious drops of light," and is accompanied by photographs that seem to capture the delicate balance between life and death (or nothingness) in the undergrowth.
"The pictures are not about National Geographic photography. They are about feelings," he explained.
The notion of "respect" is a central feature of the work: "Why Hebrew? Because I was born in Israel, so I give tribute. Why Chinese? Because of my grandparents and mother being born here, so I give tribute. Why English? Because my mother was an American citizen and my wife is American, so I give tribute. It is like saying, 'I thank you because I get something from you,'" explained the author.
Dotan's creative impulses were partly motivated by his experiences in China. A trip to escape the madness of city life in the winter of 2005 took him to Yellow Mountain, where the bitterly cold landscape provided the context for life-altering realizations.
"I was sketching the forms of the mountains and found myself aware that my thoughts on design needed to be profoundly changed. All my philosophies began to change at this point," he said.
This architectural philosophy, the subject of his second book, Echo in the Desert, is a broad though interconnected set of sentiments.
His "manifesto" is sometimes written in the same terse, pretty poetry, giving voice to an aesthetically engaged, environmentally aware and thoughtful conception of design. Urban design is considered as inherently connected with all parts of life, affecting happiness, the environment and social order.
Dotan believes that architecture reflects the way society wants to treat people, citing the building of the garden at the Israel Pavilion (one of his major projects) as an example of doing things right: "It's inhumane. Millions of people, children and old people, queuing for hours in the blistering sun. Why not build a garden for them to protect them while they queue?"
