Invitation: the symposium Jewish-Romanian Architects in Bucharest of the Interwar Period and book launch Harry Stern and Architectural Modernism in BucharestMarch 3rd, 15:00-19:00
Venue: Faculty Council Hall, Segoe Bd. Floor 2, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion, I.I.T., Haifa.
The invitation is an entrance permit to the Technion on March 3rd, 2014.
Program:
15:00 Coffee and Refreshments
15:30 Welcome and Opening Remarks
Prof. Yehuda Kalay, Dean, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion Dr. Gina Pana, Director, Romanian Cultural Institute Ms. Danna (Stern) Davis: Bridges16:00 Dr. Raphael Vago, Tel Aviv University: The Jews of Bucharest in the Inter-War period: agents and victims of “Modernization”17:00 Coffee and Refreshments
17:30 Prof. Iris Aravot, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion: The Bercovici School Arch. Simona Or Munteanu: Fragments of life - Architect Harry Stern Dr. Felicia Waldman, Center for Hebrew Studies, Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest: Urban legends of Jewish Bucharest Dr. Anca Ciuciu, Center for the Study of Jewish History in Romania - Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania: Lost places of Jewish Bucharest
19:00 Farewell
Harry (Herman) Stern (1909-1954) was a Romanian-Jewish Modernist, who developed an architectural language and a professional approach that were both rational and lyric. His works formed a significant contribution to the well tempered Modernism that flourished in Bucharest as a counterpart of the raising urban bourgeoisie of the interwar period. As an educator, Stern had a major impact during WWII, when he chaired and led the Architecture Department at the Bercovici Jewish College (1940-1944). After the war he became Dean of the Faculty of Architecture in Bucharest. Stern was a gifted professor and practitioner, who never gave up on his profession of architecture, even when his right to sign his work was taken away. Throughout that dark period in history, he never stopped his involvement with Modernism, in both pedagogy and practice.
