On the Way to the Beach, by Derman Verbakel Architecture. Photo: Yuval Tebol.

The global cycle of recurring architecture exhibitions—biennales, triennales, and expos—has a nearly impossible balance to manage. Installations can be dismissed as too artsy, but technical presentations aren’t exactly crowd pleasers.  To make matters worse, these exhibition programs send projects hurtling through a flash-in-the-pan lifecycle: design, build, exhibit, deconstruct, and, in many cases, discard.  Even works that are now considered iconic—Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion or Le Corbusier’s Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau—could not escape the forced obsolescence of this cycle.  

Tel Aviv landscape architect Yael Moria-Klain and cultural theorist Sigal Barnir have short-circuited this dilemma, proposing an alternate model for exhibitions with the  recent International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism in Bat Yam, Israel.  Now in its second year, the program doesn’t ask architects and landscape architects for projects to be displayed temporarily.  Instead, the organizers ask participants to design site-specific installations for the city of Bat Yam with a big caveat: no one takes them down once the Biennale is over.  To layer on added significance, the projects are not meant to remediate challenges facing the city.

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