Zvi Hecker

Zvi Hecker was born in Kraków, Poland in 1931 and lived and worked in Berlin from 1991, where he died in 2023. He immigrated to Israel in 1950 where he finished his studies in architecture at the Technion (Institute of Technology) in Haifa and studied painting at the Avni Institute of Art and Design in Tel Aviv. He subsequently started his architectural career and set up his own architectural studio in Tel Aviv in 1968. In 1991, he established a studio for architecture and urban planning in Berlin. He received the Rechter Prize for Architecture in Tel Aviv in 1999 and in 2013 the Honorary Fellowship of the America Institute of Architects (AIA). His major project KMar Complex Schiphol Amsterdam Airport was completed in 2013. Hecker represented Israel in the 5th Venice Biennale of Architecture (1991) and also participated in its 6th (1996) and 7th (2000), 9th (2004) and 10th (2006) editions.

He has had solo exhibitions at Fondazione Pescarabruzzo, Pescera as well as Die Möglichkeit einer Insel and Mitte Museum in Berlin (all 2022), the FUGA Budapest Center of Architecture in Budapest (2020), Villa Winternitz, Prague (2019), Villa Tugendhat, Brno and Museum of Architecture, Wrocław (both in 2018), the Jewish Museum in Berlin (2016), Museum of Architecture, Wrocław (2015), ABC Architecturcentrum Haarlem, Haarlem (Netherlands, 2003), Deutsches Architektur Zentrum (DAZ), Berlin (1998), Kunsthaus Hamburg (1997), Jewish Museum/Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv and Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (all 1996), at Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York (1989) and The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1976).

Hecker has taught at universities in the United States, Canada, Israel and Austria and frequently writes on architecture. The publication Sketches. Zvi Hecker (Hatje Cantz, 2012) gives a comprehensive overview of his drawing process.