Paste your essay in here…Noah Ruttenberg
12.11.17
Sara Hayat
Tel Aviv’s Bauhaus
In 1909, the city of Tel Aviv was established on the Mediterranean Sea situated 40 miles northwest of Jerusalem, a religious world capital in what was the British Mandate of Palestine. Originally, the city was meant to be a suburban outlet for the ancient port city of Jaffa.1 However, the cosmopolitan product that arose from the sand dunes far surpassed all expectations and its label as a suburb and became an epicenter for notions of modern architecture and urban planning. As Hitler rose to power in Germany, the Jews sought refuge in Palestine. Among the Jews who fled came some of the great thinkers of modern architecture and urban planning.1 Moreover, the recently established Bauhaus School as it existed in Germany was eradicated and replaced by a more oppressive style of architecture by the fascist regime. Alas, the Bauhaus/International style movement found a new home on the Mediterranean Sea. This was a situation of manifest destiny as the Bauhaus School would not have been able to thrive in Germany. Furthermore, the novelty of Tel Aviv provided an ideal locale to experiment with the Bauhaus/International style and to establish new notions of modern architecture and therein urban planning. Lastly, the climate of Palestine/Israel complimented and expanded the horizons for Bauhaus/International architecture ultimately allowing it to perfectly fit Le Corbusier’s ideal for a modern garden city. The desert climate and novelty of the White City of Tel Aviv provided the perfect area for a garden city allowing it to become the epitome of early twentieth century architectural notions and the capital of the Bauhaus/International Style movement.
The Bauhaus/International style and more generally, the modern architectural and urban planning movements, were attempts to provide the masses with an improved quality of life. The Bauhaus School was at first established in Weimar, Germany in 1919 by Walter Gropius. The Bauhaus School “and [the] International style it advocated was built on the premise that it was possible to sculpt a better and more just world.” The larger international style to which it refers is the architecture of Europe after World War I characterized by, “by an emphasis on volume over mass, the use of lightweight, mass-produced, industrial materials, rejection of all ornament and color, repetitive modular forms, and the use of flat surfaces, typically alternating with areas of glass.” The underlying social implications manifested itself in notions of a “Garden City.” As the populations of the world were rising and cities were becoming overcrowded, the garden city was intended to contest these norms to create a higher quality of life for all and provide all classes with refuge from the crowded city environment. Essentially, modern architecture and city planning movements were a means to this verdant end.
Fundamentally, the Bauhaus style was not able to flourish and manifest itself as a garden city in Germany and moreover Northern Europe because of the cold and more inhospitable climate. Le Corbusier helped pioneer the modern architectural movements, the international style and its social undertones of improving the quality of life for the masses. He assembled a group of architects to display this emerging style at the Weißenhofsiedlung as an exhibition piece in Stuttgart, Germany in 1929.2 Participating architects included the forefathers of modern architecture and the Bauhaus movement including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, Pierre Jeanneret, and Peter Behrens among many others. Each building was meant to incorporate pilotis, roof gardens, free ground plan, horizontal windows and a free design of the façade. These qualities are what Le Corbusier named his “Five Points Towards a New Architecture.”
The locale of the exhibit in conjunction with the expositions purposes contradict a fundamental aspect of Le Corbusier’s “New Architecture.” The exhibition was meant to display the benefits of the International Style, a style in which form follows function and is identifiable by a lack of ornamentation. Therefore, by including all of Le Corbusier’s five points of modern architecture, the roof gardens in particular, the architects were contradicting the very premise of the International style which was to liberate buildings from ornamentation. Essentially, the cold climate of Germany makes the roof gardens impractical and by nature of being impractical, they become unnecessary ornamentation and at odds with their very purpose.
For example, the Weißenhofsiedlung Houses 14 and 15 were designed by LeCorbusier and Pierre Jeanneret (figure 1). The Bauhaus/International style building is on an elevated platform and is supported by pilotis. The entrance is made evident through the use of stairs that leads up to the main floor. The horizontality of the house is accentuated by the thin line of windows. A roof garden rests on top of the building. A portion of the roof terrace is shaded by an overhanging strip of concrete which seems to be supported by the same pilotis from below. Essentially, both the ground plan and the façade are free from structural elements. The building exhibits all of the guiding principles.
However, the inclusion of a roof garden of that size is impractical in such a cold climate and the space could have been used more effectively essentially turning the terrace into some form of unnecessary ornamentation (figure 2). While although this is the only guiding principle that contradicts the building’s premise, its flaws point to the idea that the International style/Bauhaus School has a more appropriate home elsewhere where all five components would coexist and complement one another.
Furthermore, the International Style/Bauhaus Movement was expelled from Germany as it posed a threat to the Nazi rise to power and therefore would have not been able to thrive under a fascist regime. The International style/Bauhaus School promoted notions of socialism as it was intended to provide less expensive housing through the use of cheaper materials and elimination of ornamentation. From a structural standpoint, the Bauhaus School also promoted free movement within a given space essentially eliminating the control and hardhandedness that the Nazi regime envisioned for its architectural style. The rising fascist regime wanted a more stark and brutal architectural landscape to promote authoritarian control and eliminate all notions of equality. Furthermore, “Jewish persuasion of many Bauhaus artists made it a prime target for the Nazis, who saw the school's internationalist philosophy as ‘anti-German.’ Several Bauhaus artists were arrested and killed by the Nazis.” When Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, he shut down the academy and “Its teachers and students were forced to disperse in all directions. The Jews among them fled to “Little Tel Aviv,” ‘a small city with few people’, filled with ‘eclectic’ architecture, where they revived the Bauhaus style and built themselves a White City.”
The novelty and lack of a pre-established architectural style in Tel Aviv provided architects with a new and blank canvas on which they could establish a Garden City built from the Bauhaus/International style. Before the large Jewish emigration to Palestine, Theodor Herzl outlined his vision of Israel and its Zionist state in his book The Jewish State (1896). Herzl became a pioneer for modern Zionism as it exists within the Jewish faith. His manifesto establishes his utopian visions for the new state of Israel and prescribes the land a garden city. He says:
Wherever the moderns appear with our inventions, we transform the desert into a garden… The workmen's dwellings (which include the dwellings of all operatives) will be erected at the Company's own risk and expense. They will resemble neither those melancholy workmen's barracks of European towns, nor those miserable rows of shanties which surround factories; they will certainly present a uniform appearance, because the Company must build cheaply where it provides the building materials to a great extent; but the detached houses in little gardens will be united into attractive groups in each locality.
Sixty-Six Jewish families left the crowded streets of Jaffa for what would become Tel Aviv but what was a series of desolate sand dunes. A photograph documents the unofficial inauguration of what would become the Bauhaus movements new home (figure 3). Patrick Geddes was hired to design the urban infrastructure of the new city. The lack of any pre-established architecture and roads provided Geddes with the opportunity to fulfill Herzl’s utopian image for a garden city in the young nation.
As a result of its intrinsic values, Bauhaus architecture is the most fitting style to create a true garden city. Although Geddes was officially charged with planning the city, the founding families of Tel Aviv had already established a garden city in their plans for Ahuzat-Bayit. A plan for the neighborhood shows great attention to fulfilling Herzl’s image of a Garden City (figure 4). For example, the famous Rothschild Boulevard doubles as a garden in which residents can take refuge from the hot sun adding to the city’s verdant cityscape (figure 5). In 1925, Geddes presented a plan to expand the rapidly growing city of Tel Aviv in which “the model and ideal before us is that of the Garden Village. But this no longer as merely suburban; but as coming into town; and even the very heart of the city block.” Essentially, notions of a garden city are engraved in the veins of Tel Aviv.
In addition to the garden city oriented urban planning, a choice to use Bauhaus/International architecture compliments and magnifies Herzl’s image for the city. As is also outlined in The Jewish State, Herzl says, “The Temple will be visible from long distances, for it is only our ancient faith that has kept us together.” Naturally, the Bauhaus buildings embrace a free design of façade resulting in very clean and modest buildings. Essentially, the Bauhaus architecture doesn’t detract from the holiness of the land but instead emphasizes, accentuates and prioritizes the true soul of the young nation.
Moreover, Herzl established his physical desires for the Jewish State in his book Altneuland (1902). The book focuses in on the secular Jewish city which would eventually become Tel Aviv. He discusses a type of manifest destiny and belongingness of the Bauhaus style to the Altneuland:
the Bauhaus style seemed to blend the spark of utopia with the patina of tradition, and fuse the radiant whiteness of the European avant-garde with a dazzling Mediterranean light. It enabled many Tel Avivians to conduct wealthy bourgeois lifestyles, and at the same time to expose a socialist and progressive façade, to take solace in the assurance that while their city was clearly grey and faded, it was actually white and clean; that although it was no more than a provincial wester outpost, it was as international as the International style; and that although it was modern, it was historic. In this sense, The White City and the Bauhaus Style narratives with all their contradictions were a perfect extension of Herzl’s own oxymoronic vision for Tel Aviv – Altneuland the ‘Old–New Country’.
Herzl attaches a fitting irony to the Bauhaus’ new found home in Tel Aviv. The Bauhaus school, similar to the name and history of its new home, looks back to its past while progressing simultaneously. Moreover, the white color of the buildings reflects the light sands from which they are built providing the Bauhaus school with a sense of belonging in its new home as opposed to its lack of belonging in Germany.
The Bauhaus movement thrived in Tel Aviv because of a more fitting and welcoming climate that more appropriately fit the architectural style. The architects who brought the Bauhaus School/International Style to the British Mandate of Palestine implemented it with adaptions to its new locale. Essentially, the different climate and culture of Israel forced the immigrants to reconsider their architectural designs. For example, the European-Jewish architects who implemented the Bauhaus style included, “horizontal slits in this balcony… The idea was to let the air through increasing circulation in the dry and hot climate. The people came from Germany, where it's cold, and [Tel Aviv] gets really hot in August, so they wanted to adapt the houses to the climate."
Slowly, architects created a Bauhaus style that responded to the needs and climate of Tel Aviv and its inhabitants. For example, the roof garden started to play a more central role in Israel than it did in Germany. The roof garden, which belonged to all tenants of a building, was used as a multi-purpose space throughout the year to dry clothes or entertain guests. Moreover, “the communal roof concept fit not only the weather, but also the socialist ideology many had brought with them. They wanted to create a new society where wealth was fairly distributed and everyone the right to lots of light and air in their living environment.”15
Furthermore, the roof garden, intrinsic to the Bauhaus/International Style, allowed for the Garden City to transcend its existence in the streets and let it expand into the private roof terraces of Tel Avivans. Unlike in Germany where the less forgiving climate is not conducive to year-round greenery, the roof terraces of the Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv provided citizens with access to a more private garden city experience. That said, the social mission of the Bauhaus movement was to provide a more hospitable and egalitarian living experience for the masses. In that vein, these private gardens were not reserved for the elite. As a result, everyone who occupied a Bauhaus building added to the verdancy of the cityscape.
An analysis of two of the Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv exemplify why its new Israeli locale allowed for it to truly embrace the five pillars of modern architecture as per Le Corbusier. Ben Gurion Avenue in Tel Aviv is lined with constructions in the international/Bauhaus style including the Beit Hana house (figure 6). The building was built and designed by Jacob Pinkerfeld, a Polish born Jewish immigrant, in 1936. Originally, the building was a women’s center but now functions as a community health and fitness center. The white building is supported by pilotis essentially freeing up the façade and the ground plan from structural functions. Furthermore, “The rooms are thereby re- moved from the dampness of the soil; they have light and air; the building plot is left to the garden, which consequently passes under the house. The same area is also gained on the flat roof.”
Beit Hana also has horizontal windows and an expansive and verdant roof garden. However, the decreased size of the windows, and the open-air roof terrace exemplify an architectural adaption to the arid climate of Tel Aviv. As opposed to the long windows more typical of the Bauhaus/International style as it existed in Germany, Beit Hana exhibits a feature of Tel Aviv architecture tailored for a new climate. The decreased size of the windows reflects an effort to keep the interior of the building cool and out of the sun (figure 7). Furthermore, the slits in the terrace walls promote the flow of air and allow the building’s tenants to catch a breeze on hot days (figure 8). These slits provide the plants on the roof gardens with more exposure to sun essentially allowing the greenery to grow even when the sun is not directly overhead.
The building at sixty-one Rothschild Boulevard was built by Salomon Gepstein, a European born Jewish immigrant, in 1932 (figure 9). The building is composed of “three masses, each set back in relation to the other. In this way, the continuity of the street facade is broken and a large space remains for a garden in front of the building.” The large garden that sits in front of the building is complimented by another overgrown and lush garden on the flat roof. Both of these green areas strictly adhere to the Le Corbusier’s principle that, “The flat roof demands in the first place systematic utilization for domestic purposes : roof terrace, roof garden.” These two elements of the building are integral to the Garden Cityscape of Tel Aviv. Moreover, the building also exhibits the other four pillars of modern architecture including pilotis, horizontal windows and a free design and façade.
In addition to the large garden in front of the building, the house at sixty-one Rothschild Boulevard also demonstrates some other Tel Avivan adaptions. First, a visor protrudes above each of the corner windows to provide shade for the inhabitants (figure 10). The vertical slits in the terraces also promote a refreshing breeze (figure 11). These adaptions flawlessly fit into the Bauhaus aesthetic and provide these buildings with a sense of belonging to its locale unlike the buildings at the Weißenhofsiedlung.
The history of Tel Aviv and Israel combined with the aesthetics and story of the Bauhaus/International Style demonstrate how the school of design found its home on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Bauhaus School was able to fill the Herzl’s vision for Israel as a modern utopia and Tel Aviv as a garden city. The tenets, social structure and urban planning of the Bauhaus provided each of Tel Aviv’s inhabitants with access to a verdant escape whether that be on a rooftop or in the middle of one of its many tree-lined boulevards. Essentially, the Bauhaus existed in Germany with compromise, it wasn’t until its arrival in Tel Aviv that it was really able to thrive.
Figure 1
Weißenhofsiedlung Houses 14 and 15
Pierre Jeanneret and LeCorbusier.
1927. Stuttgart, Germany.
Source: AD Classics: Weissenhof-Siedlung Houses 14 and 15 / Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret
https://www.archdaily.com/490048/ad-classics-weissenhof-siedlung-houses-14-and-15-le-corbusier-and-pierre-jeanneret
Figure 2
Weißenhofsiedlung Houses 14 and 15
Pierre Jeanneret and LeCorbusier.
1927. Stuttgart, Germany.
Source: AD Classics: Weissenhof-Siedlung Houses 14 and 15 / Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret
https://www.archdaily.com/490048/ad-classics-weissenhof-siedlung-houses-14-and-15-le-corbusier-and-pierre-jeanneret
Figure 3
Building Parcel Lottery.
Avraham Soskin
1909. Tel Aviv, British Mandate of Palestine.
Source: Rare Historical Photos
Figure 4
Plan of the "Ahuzat Bayit"
1909. Ahuzat Bayit.
Source: Zionist Archives
http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/en/datelist/Pages/achuzat-bayit.aspx#!prettyPhoto[horizontal]/3/
Figure 5
Rothschild Boulevard
Rudi Weissenstein.
Year n/a. Tel Aviv, British Mandate of Palestine.
Source: Culture Trip
Figure 6
Beit Hanna
Yaakov Finkerfeld
Year n/a. Tel Aviv, Israel.
Source: Yoav Messer Architects
http://www.messer-architects.co.il/beit-hannah.html
Figure 7
Beit Hana, Ben Gurion Blvd.
Yaakov Finkerfeld
Year n/a. Tel Aviv, Israel.
Source: Günther Förg Photographs
Figure 8
Beit Hana, Ben Gurion Blvd.
Yaakov Finkerfeld
Year n/a. Tel Aviv, Israel.
Source: Günther Förg Photographs
Figure 9
61 Rothschild Boulevard
Salomon Gepstein
1932. Tel Aviv, Israel.
Source: Dezeen
https://www.dezeen.com/2016/08/24/10-tel-aviv-best-examples-bauhaus-residential-architecture/
Figure 10
61 Rothschild Boulevard
Salomon Gepstein
1932. Tel Aviv, Israel.
Source: Google Maps
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Rothschild+Blvd+61,+Tel+Aviv-Yafo,+Israel/
Figure 11
61 Rothschild Boulevard
Salomon Gepstein
1932. Tel Aviv, Israel.
Source: Google Maps
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Rothschild+Blvd+61,+Tel+Aviv-Yafo,+Israel/
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