Prefabrication experiments - 60 - Ramot Housing Complex by Zvi Hecker

In the latter half of the 20^th century architectural practise continued a steady shift from craft to representation. Modernism’s social principles were challenged and the architectural project became about iconography. The post-modern need for symbolic differentiation and legibility signalled an end to the confluent relationship between housing, industry and architecture, which underpinned avant-garde modernity. However, a defiant industrial – based architecture fused representation and geometric combinations in a wide range of materials toward abstract, formal and typological innovation. From bubbles to capsules, units were superimposed, juxtaposed and arranged in variable living structures aiming to completely detach from traditional imagery. 

The period following World War II saw a baby boom and a building boom promoted to revive stagnant military-based economies. The relationship between mass-housing and architecture was articulated to a plug and play variable social infrastructure containing individualized living units. This Industrialization suggested a lack of site specificity. The capsule building related to a futuristic aesthetic and a colonizing architecture that to some extent ignored its setting.

A particularly fascinating exploration that attempted to relate formal composition and place was built in Jerusalem by Polish born architect Zvi Hecker in the 1970’s: a 720-unit aggregation of dodecahedrons. In reaction to the capsule aesthetic and the lack of formal innovation in housing, Hecker proposed a rigorous and modular assembly of 12-faced polyhedra. He researched, explored and coined the term «polyhedric» architecture. His objective was formal innovation showcasing architecture’s potential for more than traditional cubic shapes. Controlled by a post six-day war(1967) housing program, the new Israel territory demanded a formal challenge to traditional forms. The Ramat Polin housing project was articulated to this demand for innovation.

Inspired by the recognizable stone unit shapes in a traditional aggregated stone opus, the overall composition speaks to traditional dry-stone walling.  Each dodecahedron unit was put together with prefabricated reinforced concrete panels. As in a polyhedron folded paper or cardboard model, edges were simply joined together to identify each shape and its relationship to the whole volumetric massing. Hecker's aggregation of polyhedra has been linked to a pleasing beehive aesthetic but the liberties taken by the project's inhabitants reveal its lack of success or repeatability as a housing concept.

From the Cube and the Dodecahedron in My Polyhedric Architecture