Israel Lessons

The Middle East is the birthplace of the Neolithic revolution that came to humanise and domesticate the planet. It is also considered the cradle of civilisation as it saw some of the very first developments in human social and technological inventions, such as cities, class-based societies, monumental architecture, writing, the wheel, and irrigation. The 2016/17 research campaign of EPFL’s Laboratory Basel (laba) took a critical look at the part of this region that today forms the state of Israel and the role agriculture there played in territorial appropriation and domestication, in structuring the development of urbanisation, in creating a national homeland narrative, and in changing the climate. The research explored the three major types of Israeli agricultural development: the vernacular Palestinian/Bedouin, the socialist utopian Kibbutz/Moshav, and the contemporary high-tech desert farming. Israel Lessons: Industrial Arcadia presents the findings as text as well as visualised in striking images, graphics and maps. It also demonstrates how facts and narratives related to agriculture and the climate crisis are intertwined with geopolitics and sectarian ideals of earthly paradises. Proposals for architectural interventions designed by laba’s students round out the book.