Materials of Spent Light: Israeli Architecture Now
“I sense Light as the giver of all presences, and material as spent Light. What Light makes casts a shadow and the shadow belongs to Light.”
— Louis Kahn
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Benjamin Marcus
Benjamin Marcus is an architect, graphic designer, and illustrator in private practice in NYC. In addition to his writing on architecture, Benjamin writes about film and its relation to architecture, and has been a guest educator on film at Portland State University. With a lifelong interest in Judaica, he is currently working on the illumination with his original artwork of the Five Megillot (the Biblical books of Esther, Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and the Song of Songs), in a multi-year private commission, as well as research into the architecture of the Tabernacle. Benjamin earned his BA in Philosophy from NYU and his Masters in Architecture from SCI-Arc.
Sacred Freedoms
“FOR it is this – the ‘positive’ conception of liberty: not freedom from, but freedom to – which the adherents of the ‘negative’ notion represent as being, at times, no better than a specious disguise for brutal tyranny.”Isaiah Berlin 1958 Two Concepts of Liberty “Hell is other people.” -Jean-Paul Sartre 1944 No Exit Of the […]
Read Article »Sharia’s Westward March
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Read Article »Caliphate: A Warning from History
Mohammedan Expansion622–632 Patriarchal Expansion632–661 Umayad Expansion661–750 Ottoman Empire1683 Ottoman Empire1914 Islamic-Governed Nation2023
Read Article »Beloved Renegades
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” - Mark Twain
Read Article »A Light Unto the Nations: Gordon Gallery Opens in NYC
On display for this opening exhibit is a group show of work by four artists, Yaacov Dorchin, Moshe Kupferman, Gilad Efrat, and Alima.
Read Article »How to Remember
It will no doubt fall to the success or failure of any memorial to these events to say whether we have awakened from our slumber or not.
Read Article »Sleepwalking toward the Precipice
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Revenge by (Mis)Interpretation
The promise offered by the Liberal Arts—to expose young minds to the enduring questions and lasting ideals that have made possible society’s greatest achievements—has today been brought into doubt by a generation of students too young even to know what they repudiate. Motivated not by experienced consideration, but by ideologically based social trends, our once-stalwart […]
Read Article »A Hatred Outside of Man
There is no rationality in the Nazi hatred: it is hate that is not in us, it is outside of man.. We cannot understand it, but we must understand from where it springs, and we must be on our guard. If understanding is impossible, knowing is imperative, because what happened could happen again.
Read Article »The Act of Seeing
Trips to Israel began for me in the 1970s, when I traveled with family for my brother’s and later my own Bar Mitzvah, at the ancient site of Masada. I’ve returned numerous times to marvel at the prolific development of the country as well as witness the unfolding history and varied, natural beauty of her […]
Read Article »Escape from Nihilism: The Promise of Classical Education
Benjamin Marcus discusses the value of classical education, focusing on the opening of Emet Academy, a Jewish preparatory school in Manhattan. Emet Academy's curriculum emphasizes Western civilization, Jewish history, and a strong moral foundation, contrasting with the prevailing trends in modern education.
Read Article »Architecture of Film: The Conformist (1970)
In director Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 Il conformista (“The Conformist”), based on Alberto Moravia’s 1947 novel of the same name, we follow the life of Marcello, an ordinary if psychologically damaged man in Italy in the 1930s.
Read Article »White Rose: The Musical
A new theatrical production devoted to telling the story of the White Rose—from their inception to their demise—has come to Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York City for a 12-week run.
Read Article »Just Because You’re Paranoid
The show is Rabbit Hole, the first and closest update I’ve seen to the paranoia flicks of the last golden age of movie-making.
Read Article »The Persistence of Wonder
This is the unlikely report of survival—of an artform, of the methodologies that inform it, and the body of knowledge, that it gives form to. It’s a report about the persistence of illumination: the decorative illustration of religious manuscripts, but also the endurance of interpretation in an age that often claims to be beyond history. […]
Read Article »Making History in Manhattan
“…there is a surprisingly rich and layered heritage of modern buildings proving our connection to contemporary architectural thinking which makes me wonder why we have so lost touch with this spirit. So many current new buildings can’t make up their minds what they want to be other than parochial regionalism… the meek wallpaper contextualism of […]
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