Sharon Rotbard (Hebrew שרון רוטברד) (born October 2, 1959), is an Israeli

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

and

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

, senior lecturer at the Architecture department in the

Bezalel Academy Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design ( he, בצלאל, אקדמיה לאמנות ועיצוב) is a public college of design and art located in Jerusalem. Established in 1906 by Jewish painter and sculptor Boris Schatz, Bezalel is Israel's oldest ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

Biography

Sharon Rotbard was born in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

. He studied fine arts between 1982 and 1984 at HaMidrasha Art College with

Raffi Lavie Raffi Lavie art education, educator and music/art criticism, critic. Lavie's work is a cross between graffiti and abstract expressionism. Biography Rafael (Raffi) Lavi was born in Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine, Mandate Palestine. He began teachin ...

, Tamar Getter and

Michal Na'aman Michal Na'aman (born 1951, Kibbutz Kvutzat Kinneret), is an Israeli painter. From the point of view of values, her work is characterized as conceptual art and deals with such subjects as the limitations of language and sight, the possibilities f ...

. Between 1985 and 1991 he studied architecture in Paris at the

École Spéciale d'Architecture The École spéciale d'architecture (ÉSA; formerly École centrale d'architecture) is a private school for architecture at 254, boulevard Raspail in Paris, France. The school was founded in 1865 by engineer Emile Trélat as reaction against the ...

with

Bernard Tschumi Bernard Tschumi (born 25 January 1944 in Lausanne, Switzerland) is an architect, writer, and educator, commonly associated with deconstructivism. Son of the well-known Swiss architect Jean Tschumi and a French mother, Tschumi is a dual French-S ...

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...

and

Paul Virilio Paul Virilio (; 4 January 1932 – 10 September 2018) was a French cultural theorist, urbanist, architect and aesthetic philosopher. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with divers ...

Architecture and publishing career

After returning to Israel in 1993, Rotbard worked until 1997 as a project architect a
Yasky and partners
a leading Israeli architectural firm. In 1995, with his wife Amit, he founde
Babel publishers
one of Israel's first independent presses. Since 1998, he has directed the first architecture book series in Israel at Babel and published major architectural classic titles such as

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

's ''Toward A New Architecture''. In 2000 Rotbard launched the press' website, Israel's first cultural Hebrew website, known today a
''readingmachine''
That same year, Rotbard and Babel moved to a concrete house he designed and built in Shapira neighborhood at the south of Tel Aviv. Since 2004 Rotbard has been directing ''The Library of Babel'', the fiction series of Babel, in which he has published translated titles by

Georges Perec Georges Perec (; 7 March 1936 – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. His father died as a soldier early in the Second World War and his mother was killed in the Holoc ...

Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognized as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writin ...

Michel Houellebecq Michel Houellebecq (; born Michel Thomas, 26 February 1956 or 1958) is a French author, known for his novels, poems and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker and singer. His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer ...

Marie Ndiaye Marie NDiaye (born 4 June 1967) is a French novelist, playwright and screenwriter. She published her first novel, ''Quant au riche avenir'', when she was 17. She won the Prix Goncourt in 2009. Her play ''Papa doit manger'' is the sole play by a ...

Thomas Bernhard Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilizati ...

, R.K. Narayan,

Atiq Rahimi Atiq Rahimi ( fa, عتیق رحیمی) (born 26 February 1962 in Kabul) is a French-Afghan writer and filmmaker. Life Atiq Rahimi was born in 1962 in Kabul to a senior public servant and attended high school in Lycée Esteqlal. Following the So ...

, Marek van der Jagt,

Harry Mathews Harry Mathews (February 14, 1930 – January 25, 2017) was an American writer, the author of various novels, volumes of poetry and short fiction, and essays. Mathews was also a translator of the French language. Life Born in New York City to an ...

, as well as young Israeli authors. In 2008, Rotbard founded a new architectural practice collective, ''Babel architectures'', which was selected as one of the teams of the Ordos 100 project in Inner Mongolia (China).

Published works

* * * * * * Rotbard's first book ''White City, Black City'' (Hebrew ''עיר לבנה, עיר שחורה''), on

Jaffa Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...

and

's histories appeared in 2005. The book challenges the official historiography of Tel Aviv and traces its relationship with Jaffa. His second book ''Avraham Yasky, Concrete Architecture'' a monograph on the work of Avraham Yasky, was published in 2007. The book traces the history of Israeli architecture through Yasky's career and shows its development from the concrete social architecture of the early Fifties to the commercial architecture of the 21st century.

Awards and recognition

Rotbard is a recipient of the

Graham Foundation The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts is a 501(c)3 non-profit that “fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realize ...

2008 grant and was selected to the Ledig House international writers' Residency program.

Selected projects

* 1991, Europan2, cited project * 1994, Ramat gan Museum of Israeli Art, with Efrat-Kovalsky (unbuilt) * 1997, Rubinstin Towers, with Avraham Yasky and Yossy Sivan * 2000, town houses in South Tel Aviv * 2003, Tel Aviv Museum of Art competition * 2005, Hadera Democratic school competition (2nd prize) * 2009, ORDOS 100 Villa * 2010, South Tel Aviv urban strategic plan, in association with local residents and planners

References