Context
The "Bauhaus Buildings" in Tel-Aviv
Jean-Lucien Bonillo
In July 2003, the heart of the “White City” (a term used to describe Tel-Aviv’s extension between 1930 and 1960) was classified as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. This award underlines the coherence and uniformity of a large urban group of buildings heavily influenced by 20th century modern architecture. There are very few equivalent groups of buildings of this sort in the world. Perhaps at Chandigarh, Brasilia or at Le Havre. Although very real, the influence of the famous German school the Bauhaus (1919-33) on the White City’s architecture will be combined with many factors and other influences.
First there is the urban model, which owes much to the Reform period (around 1900), that of the Garden City. Begun by Richard Kauffman, the urban planning of Tel Aviv was continued by Sir Patrick Geddes in 1925 (his plan was approved in 1927) within the context of the British mandate in Palestine. It was supported by British and American zionist organisations. A Scottish biologist and botanist, Geddes was also one of the creators of urban study, which he defined as a multi-disciplinary science, giving a lot of importance to the social and environmental aspects. Adapting to this hillside site, his plan is organised according to a layered composition of streets, classical in conception, which outline residential islands (home-blocks). The blocks are placed in alignment with the streets which are invariably planted with rows of trees and are themselves surrounded by vegetation which flow right into the heart of the residential blocks, making gardens both private and public. The result is an osmosis between these blocks and nature, although we are a long way from the more radical European urban models of the 1920’s. One thinks of those in the German and Dutch siedlungen (W. Gropius, E. May J.J.P. Oud....) in line with the Bauhaus spirit and also of the “functional town” advocated by Le Corbusier which were discussed in the Athens Charter of 1933/1941.
In the same way, the modernity of the buildings will be defined in an original way, an adaptation of imported models. Geddes himself had recommended the use of habitable roof terraces, one of the most obvious identifying signs of modern architecture. He also advocated the great expanses of glass which characterise the Dessau Bauhaus and the new architecture be abandoned for small openings, which are better adapted to the hot climate of the country.
Between 1930 and 1960 a real architectural school was created in Tel Aviv, beginning when architects who had left to study in Europe ten years earlier came back to Israel: they had gone to study in Germany (4 or 5 of them were students at the Bauhaus), Austria, Belgium, France and Italy. This school developed from the collective energy of the Houg group (the circle) and its magazine Habinyan (the building) created by Arieh Sharon, Josef Neufeld and Ze’ev Rechter, who were later joined by many of their colleagues. They all followed the common architectural language of the “international style”, while each maintained an individual vision. Half-way between Art-Deco and the most radical rationalism, the architecture of the White City is marked by the recurrent, though not systematic, use of stilts, reinforced concrete, filled bricks plastered over with smooth, whitened plaster, simple, ordered volumes (asymmetry of the mass, overhanging balconies, free-running horizontals). Like counterpoint, curved and cylindrical shapes balance the rigour of the orthogonal lines. Tradition attributes these to Erich Mendelsohn’s influence, one of the best German architects, among the many who fled Nazism. He was mainly active in Haifa and Jerusalem.
Brief bibliography, but to the point
- Coll. L’Influence du Bauhaus sur l’architecture contemporaine, actes du colloque, centre interdisciplinaire d’études et de recherche sur l’expression contemporaine, travaux XVI, ed. Université de Saint-Etienne, 1976.
- Payton N., “Patrick Geddes (1854–1932) & the Plan of Tel Aviv, Modern Architecture and Traditional Urbanism,” in edited by Jean-François Lejeune, New City (Modern Cities 3), Coral Gable, University of Miami-School of Architecture, 1996.
- Metzger-Szmuk N., Des maisons sur le sable : Tel-Aviv, mouvement moderne et esprit Bauhaus, Tel-Aviv/Paris, ed. de l’éclat, 2004. Ouvrage bilingue français/anglais.
- Droste M., Bauhaus-1919-1933-Réforme et avant-garde, ed.Taschen, 2006.
- Site Internet de l’UNESCO :
