Art and architecture

Stroll down a Tel Aviv pedestrian mall and experience 80 years of Zionist history.

By AVIVA BAR-AM
Rehov Hacarmel 521 (photo credit: Shmuel Bar-Am)
Rehov Hacarmel 521
(photo credit: Shmuel Bar-Am)
Near the end of the 19th century, a group of well-heeled Jews established a brand new neighborhood outside the walls of Old Jaffa. A few decades later, 66 wealthy Jewish families founded Ahuzat Bayit, the original core of today’s thriving Tel Aviv metropolis.
Watching from afar as their landsmen moved out of the crowded, filthy Old City were several dozen small craftsmen, laborers, shopkeepers, a baker and a laundress. According to knowledgeable tour guide Yona Wiseman, the group saw no reason why they, too, shouldn’t have a nice little neighborhood of their own. But there was a problem: Not only did they lack the money necessary to build themselves houses, they didn’t have what it took to purchase the property on which they would sit.
Obviously, the group – called the Nahalat Binyamin Association – would need some help.
But the Jewish National Fund, which had acquired the land for Ahuzat Bayit, refused to assist, while the bank turned down repeated requests for money – until 1911, when a journalist who went by the pen name of “Rabbi Binyamin” wrote a scathing article accusing both bank and JNF of favoring the rich over hardworking common folk.
Soon afterward, they were able to get their hands on a long north-to-south strip of sand dune. The first houses began going up in 1914, along a dirt road they called Nahalat Binyamin.
Laborers – mostly women – paved the street a decade or so later.
This week’s street stroll, in Tel Aviv, follows today’s Rehov Nahalat Binyamin. Its simple structures, wild art-deco, eclectic buildings and 1930s Bauhaus houses are an exceptionally exciting mix, with every kind of architecture Tel Aviv has to offer.
Begin on Kikar Magen David (Magen David Square), where six streets intersect: Sheinkin, King George, Hacarmel, Allenby (in two directions) and Nahalat Binyamin.
Wiseman, who introduced us to the marvels along Rehov Nahalat Binyamin, has heard often from old timers that ambulances once raced noisily along the road on their way to the nearby Hadassah Hospital. Indeed, that’s how the square became nicknamed Kikar Magen David Adom.
In 1939, demonstrations against the British White Paper limiting Jewish immigration took place at the square; less than a decade later, thousands danced for joy here when the State of Israel was proclaimed in May 1948. This was also the site of the first escalator in Israel. It was called a dragnoa, a combination of the words for “moving” and “steps.”
At just about the time that the first houses were going up in Nahalat Binyamin, a passionate Zionist named Arthur Ruppin traveled to Russia and convinced a number of rich Jews to purchase land near the sea. The buyers considered it an investment, one they could bequeath to their children and grandchildren.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, many of the group fled to Palestine with nothing but the shirts on their backs. So destitute were they, says Wiseman, that they couldn’t afford to build houses on the land they had acquired.
Instead, to eke out a living, they established a little fruit and vegetable market behind Rehov Nahalat Binyamin on Rehov Hacarmel. The market grew by leaps and bounds and is today one of Tel Aviv’s most colorful attractions.
There was no coherent plan for the streets in Tel Aviv’s ever-growing new neighborhoods, and the result was a plethora of Tel Aviv traffic jams. Indeed, before Nahalat Binyamin became a pedestrian mall in the mid-1980s, up to 60,000 vehicles passed through daily.
And now for your street stroll. Children who grew up in Tel Aviv during the 1940s and 1950s have fond memories of the shop on the ground floor at No. 1 Rehov Nahalat Binyamin. It was called Na’alei Pil (Elephant Shoes), and was the first enterprise in the city to bestow balloons and yo-yos on its delighted young customers.
Constructed by Yehuda Polishuk in 1934-35, the building is one story higher than the legal limit at the time. When handing in plans for the structure, Polishuk claimed that its location on a square that was the heart and center of Tel Aviv demanded special consideration, and promised that the fourth story would never be utilized for commerce.
Like Beit Polishuk, most buildings dating only back to the 1930s can be hugely extravagant.
Take the Palm Tree House (Beit Hadekel) at No.
8. Built in 1922, this is a terrific example of fancy Art Nouveau design.
Architect Y.Z. Tabachnik was intent on creating a unique Jewish type of architecture, and even asked for his style to be copyrighted.
Indeed, says Wiseman, when he sent his plan in for approval, he wrote: “All rights reserved, original Jewish style.”
Tabachnik received permission for almost everything he wanted, with one exception: tablets on the roof bearing the Ten Commandments.
See how many Jewish symbols you can find, including abstract trumpets at the top and menorot woven into the railings. The original palm tree in the middle was stolen a few years ago, and was replaced during the house’s recent restoration.
You can see another Tabachnik across the street, at No. 5. There was a restaurant called Cavalier on the second floor, but it was too far from street level to succeed. The colored windows have remained in place, but much of the rest of the original building has crumbled.
Unfortunately, plans to restore this once stunning beauty have been held up for years.
Wiseman calls the creation at No. 9 one of the street’s many “dream houses.” You can see why, for No. 9, with rounded turrets, fluted pillars, designer railings and a gable with plaster reliefs, looks for all the world like a medieval castle.
Walk around to the side, where a Roman-style entrance leads to a lovely little courtyard.
Returning to the sidewalk, you have a great view of No. 12, a startling edifice composed only of angles and rounded balconies. Even more unusual is the entrance, which would look perfect as the door to a synagogue.
Turn onto Rehov Hashomer, full of eyecatching homes that most people don’t notice because they are in a hurry to get to the market at the end of the street. You might want to stop at the Basta restaurant, open Sunday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., and with a menu that changes daily according to what fish and vegetables have made an appearance in the market.
On your return to Rehov Nahalat Binyamin, look up and across the road to see a simple house at No. 11. Sitting weirdly on top of a second story, it is a good example of one of the neighborhood’s older homes.
Next door, the wildly eclectic Shmuel Levy house from 1926 is famous for its ceramic tiles with biblical themes. They were produced by a graduate of Jerusalem’s Bezalel School of the Arts, and are yet another expression of a passionate desire to integrate Jewish themes into new construction.
Below the house, a sign at the entrance to one of the shops reads, in Hebrew, “If you absolutely don’t want to look like everyone else, this is the store for you!” As soon as the House of Jugs appeared in 1927, people worried that the amphorae sitting on its edges would fall off and kill someone.
Almost a century later, they still remain stuck to the building. The immense dome-topped edifice, located on the corner of Rehov Rambam, was designed by Ze’ev Rechter.
Across the street at Nos. 12-16, the House of Pillars designed by Yehuda Megidovitz was once one of the city’s largest structures. Aptly named, it features a variety of pillars from pseudo- Corinthian to plain Doric, some of them not only decorative but also serving to support the upper floors. The open balcony is rimmed with bottle-shaped balustrades and ironwork railings.
Diagonally opposite the House of Jugs is an odd building designed by Joseph Berlin and constructed out of unplastered silicate bricks. Not only does the pattern resemble half-zippedup zippers, but the windows have little “eyebrows” to shade them. Berlin was convinced the bricks would hold up better than the sandstone often used in Tel Aviv construction, and he was right: the top stories, dating back to 1931, have remained in excellent condition.
RAMI MEIRI, the Tel Aviv artist whose paintings on kiosks and exterior walls have brightened up the city, outdid himself at No. 18. The beautiful painting on the rounded corner is so lifelike that you have to look twice at the man searching for something on the sidewalk before you realize he isn’t real. For decades, this was also the corner where you got the best hot dogs in the city.
Originally known as the Spector Hotel, this stunning light-colored building at one time took over for Tel Aviv’s Hadassah Hospital. The cornerstone for the hospital had been laid in Rehov Balfour in 1914. But construction was halted with the onset of the First World War, after the ruling Turks confiscated the building materials for use as barricades.
Thus, when a horrendous Arab riot broke out in Jaffa in 1921, there was no suitable venue in which to care for the many Jewish casualties. The Spector Hotel, built during the war but as yet unoccupied, functioned as a hospital until Hadassah Tel Aviv was completed in 1925. Later on, a portion of the former hotel served for a while as a base for Tel Aviv’s gay community.
Today, it is a delicatessen named AHS, for the owners.
Although the outside of the edifice has been repainted, the original building still stands. Note how it spreads all the way down the street and, like several other buildings you’ve seen, bears a noticeable resemblance to a ship. If you look hard, you will make out a fish scale decoration on top, along with a balcony whose beam support features a Star of David. Step inside to view an impressive, harp-shaped staircase, whose railings were painted an outlandish green.
The Nordau Hotel at No. 27, on the corner of Rehov Gruzenberg, is a wholly eclectic Megidovitz creation sporting the silver dome that eventually became Megidovitz’s trademark.
Completed in 1927, this is the oldest continuously functioning hotel in Tel Aviv, and the façade has been restored but not significantly altered. If you examine the bottoms of the balconies carefully, you will discover little wrought-iron triangles that held lights at night.
No. 22 Nahalat Binyamin features another enormous corner edifice. The Joseph Dinitz building is typical Bauhaus, with rows of horizontal windows to cut the glare of the Mediterranean sun. Originally a clothing store, it now hosts a coffee shop boasting one of the original walls and a large photo of Rehov Nahalat Binyamin in the 1930s. Stop in for a look, and compare the street 80 years ago with the wonderful pedestrian mall of today.
A good time to take this tour is on a Tuesday or a Friday, to enjoy an unusually high-quality art fair in which craftspeople display their own works.
Of course, if you come on Shabbat, you will be able to examine the buildings with little disturbance – and even be able find parking spots on the side streets.
Yona Wiseman can be reached at 050- 326-7277, e-mail yonawise@013.net.
www.yonawise.net.