A Creative Guide by Pitsou Kedem

Architect Pitsou Kedem‘s projects mirror his way of life: a constant search for light, silence, and matter. From his studio, which he founded in Tel Aviv in 2000, he explores a profound and expressive vision of minimalism defined by rich materials, respect for context, and a desire to bring order to chaos. His buildings are an invitation to pause and a balm for the senses. In an enlightening conversation, he shares with us his sources of inspiration, the principles that guide his work and the routines that shape his life. Through his eyes—those of a photographer and architect—we discover a way of seeing and understanding light as raw material, as an element that shapes reality and gives it depth.

Pitsou Kedem tells us how, from the moment he set foot in the monument erected by Israeli sculptor Danny Karavan in the Negev desert, everything changed. It was in that habitable sculpture made of concrete, with geometries drawing a play of light and shadow, that his love for architecture was born.

In his buildings, Pitsou gives space for the materials to breathe, and in his mind, he does the same with his thoughts. That’s why he always carries a book in his backpack and every day finds time to sit in a café and read. By immersing himself in the lives of others, he is able to disconnect, clear his head, and sharpen his focus.

James Turrell and his artistic approach to light and space helped Pitsou reconcile two facets of himself: the need for order and the search for warmth. His first encounter with Turrell’s work was at the Israel Museum, home to “Space that sees,” an environmental sculpture that opens up to the sky and invites meditative contemplation of the movement of clouds and light that bathes the space. In his projects, he seeks to recreate such material and formal restraint that leaves room for emotion and thought.

He feels the same way when he contemplates Turrell’s work as he does every time he visits his greatest source of inspiration: nature. Climbing in the Norwegian fjords, the silence allows his thoughts to wander as he observes the light “painting on the blank canvas that is the landscape”. Back in the studio, he pours that feeling into his projects, designing them so that they do not impose themselves, so that they allow those who inhabit them to express their inner beings.

A strong belief guides their work: light is to a space what raw material is to a structure. It is used to build, to shape. In the studio, he approaches each building as an opportunity to let light penetrate and bring meaning and textures alive, highlighting volumes. For him, architecture is “the human experience in space” and light is his ally in enriching it. That is why he considers that his 25-year career can be summed up in a minute in cinema: the scene in the film The Brutalist in which the protagonist uses a flashlight to show how light will fall on the future building.

His language is made up of dichotomies, tensions, and well-resolved balances. He is well aware that without darkness we cannot appreciate light. That is why he pursues a kind of minimalism that is neither neutral nor cold; it is exciting, expressive, enriched by the contrast between light and shadow, between colors and textures. If he had to choose just one piece of advice to give to a young architect: “Find your language and stay true to it until the end. Even if there is noise out there. Even if others tell you that it is extreme, that it is exaggerated. Believe in your architectural truth”.

In a profession often dominated by ego, Pitsou runs in the opposite direction: he seeks to work with people who are eager to share their ideas because, for him, teamwork is essential to awaken a kind of creativity that only comes from dialogue and diversity. Just in the same way emotion arises from the dialogue between light and matter within a space.

“I am not an architect who also takes photos; I am a photographer who also builds.” This is how Pitsou defines himself, and that way of looking at the world—and architecture—through the lens that was the origin is still present in his work today. And it is not just the gaze, it is the whole process, what precedes and follows the shot. The wait for what is seen to be exposed: by the light that falls on the building just before capturing it, by the light that penetrates the negative and imprints it, by the chemicals that will gradually print that snapshot in the darkroom. With the attitude of a photographer, he draws the building: little by little, letting it reveal itself.