Perhaps best known for their extraordinary 2009 solar-powered night garden installation in Jerusalem, or their creative street branding cooperation with Castro, Israeli designers OGE were entrusted as the creative directors of the largest flower exhibition to ever take place in Israel.
19 years after the original Haifa International Flower Exhibition, the self-described “Creative-Young-Workaholics” helped to ensure that this year’s program would be completely unforgettable. Included in the 30 acres of Hecht Park exhibition space were nine geodesic domes, each featuring a different world of flowers enhanced by ethereal designs. Check out OGE’s beautiful images after the jump.
Balancing act
OGE’s co-founder Gaston Zahr explained to us that their small firm is very concerned to keep a balance between art and commerce, which is a worthy goal for a small team of three.
Their recent project in Haifa may well be one of their biggest, and demonstrates their incredible diversity.
Among the numerous features that we love are the geodesic domes. Temporary structures made popular by visionary Buckminster Fuller, they each feature a unique and playful thematic collection of flowers including the secret garden, the upside down garden and underwater paradise.
Included are dangling origami creatures and giant blow-up flowers and lighting that imbues the entire installation with an otherworldly sense of fantasy and magic.
Re-thinking tradition
Flower festivals celebrate nature’s remarkable diversity and inspire people to adorn their lives with these naturally-ocurring spoils, but we would be remiss if we didn’t at least mention that they can also be wasteful.
For the Passover exhibition, according to the Times of Israel, 500,000 flowers were shipped to Israel from all over the world in order to be displayed alongside Israel’s own produce. We don’t have calculations or exact numbers, but this process obviously involves plenty of carbon emissions that we can scarcely afford.
Like the Saudi Parrot Fish Festival that wipes out whole populations of migrating fish, it seems to us that some cultural practices and traditions have to reviewed in the context of our dangerously-compromised planet. As much as we appreciate color and life and nature, above all, our penchant for grandeur has to be curtailed if we hope for our grandchildren to have any kind of life at all.
Nonetheless, OGE’s work is unparalleled, including such green contributions as eco water towers and cosy nest beds, and we can’t wait to see what they pull off next.
More on Israeli Design:
Israeli Students Deign a Solar-Powered Water Treatment Plant for Home Use
Paper Made From Sewage Rolls off Israeli Shelves
Hanging Laundry Photographs Help you Toss Your Dryer
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
