Up until the mid-1980s, Bauhaus-style buildings could be torn down and turned into new developments.
By JOHN BENZAQUENTel Aviv’s Bauhaus buildings(photo credit: COURTESY SIVAN OZEN/TEL AVIV MUNICIPALITY)
The historic center of Tel Aviv is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, signifying a place with a special physical or cultural significance.Tel Aviv is the third World Heritage Site in Israel after Masada and the walled Crusader city of Acre; Jerusalem’s Old City is also a world heritage site .The fact that there are only four such sites in a region that has a civilized history going back more than 3,000 years is puzzling. Spain, for example, has 14. But perhaps the reason is that although we have a sense of history, we are less willing than the Spaniards to devote the resources to preserve and enhance our historical landmarks.Tel Aviv only recently made it to fame. Up to the mid-1980s, real-estate developers had a field day tearing down any building that got in the way of making money. Then, when a particularly beautiful apartment building was torn down on the corner of Ahad Ha’am and Hahashmonaim streets, there was a public outcry, and the municipality decided to preserve whatever was worth preserving.The historic center of Tel Aviv was declared a World Heritage Site thanks to the large number of buildings that were built in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s in the international Bauhaus style. An architectural school that flourished in Germany in the ’30s, Bauhaus has clean functional lines and aesthetic beauty. Most of the buildings constructed in the style were built in Germany, but during World War II, the Royal Air Force and the US Air Force bombarded German cities. As a result, most of the world’s remaining Bauhaus buildings are to be found in Tel Aviv.They are located in the area bordered in the east by Ibn Gvirol and Yehuda Halevi streets, to the west by the Mediterranean Sea, to the north by the Yarkon River, and to the south by Allenby Street.This area of Tel Aviv was built in the 1930s and ’40s by architects who either came from Germany or were educated there. The result is a wealth of Bauhaus buildings that were adapted to Tel Aviv’s Mediterranean climate, featuring many large windows and balconies.Tel Aviv was also declared a World Heritage Site because the municipality had the good sense to preserve the unique garden city planned by Patrick Geddes. He was the British Mandate head of planning in the 1920s and ’30s, laying out a city of boulevards and gardens as well as small green areas and places of rest around the city.One of the important aspects of the plan was parceled buildings, which means that each building was a standalone on its own green plot as opposed to the row houses that were current in Europe. Tel Aviv is a major example of a Geddes garden city.Tel Aviv was declared a World Heritage Site because of the Bauhaus and Geddes elements, but in the citation the UNESCO committee also mentioned the city’s varied and unique mix of architectural styles in the historic center. They named the area the White City because the buildings’ original facade was that color. The architectural style is eclectic Mediterranean and Central European; it is doubtful whether such a mix of styles exists anywhere else in the world.The Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality has declared more than 1,000 buildings historic landmarks that cannot be torn down but should be renovated.Of these, 150 cannot be touched at all and can only be restored to their original form.Many of these buildings are in a dilapidated state because their owners cannot afford even the most rudimentary maintenance. The cause for this is a law passed in 1940 in all parts of the British Empire that froze rents for the duration of the war. In the UK, this law was not removed from the statute books until the 1960s; in Israel, it is effective to this day.The result was catastrophic for landowners.Rents were frozen, inflation was rampant; consequently, rents dropped to nothing; landlords who were not earning any income had no money to make repairs or maintain their buildings. Many of the original landlords have since died.Today, new owners – aware of the potential value of their property – are busy trying to buy out tenants who probably purchased their tenancy rights via key money. The new owners refurbish the building and sell the apartments; as units in historical buildings, they fetch premium prices, even in the current slack real-estate market. Old mansions in the vicinity of the lower part of Rothschild Boulevard are being purchased by law firms, financial houses and corporations, and refurbished as plush offices.One reason for the popularity of Bauhaus in Israel was that it was closely associated with the social-democratic movement in Central Europe.Since the mid-1920s, the dominant political ideology in the Jewish Yishuv was social democratic; with the establishment of the State of Israel, it was still very much so. In the 1950s very few apartment buildings were built in the Bauhaus style, but many public buildings were.One of the most striking examples of Bauhaus architecture is in Dizengoff Square; all the buildings facing the square are in the Bauhaus style.Public Bauhaus buildings include the Mann Auditorium, ZOA House, the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion and the headquarters of the Histadrut labor federation.
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