Tel Aviv Bauhaus Walk

31/12/2024

15/12/2024

Thank you Hagit Peleg Rotem for your comprehensive and in-depth article in Portfolio about the exhibition:
Negative and Narrative: the Photographers Who Built the Myth of The White City
A new exhibition at Liebling Haus -The White City Center - בית ליבלינג - מרכז העיר הלבנה is dedicated to photographers who have been fascinated by Tel Aviv City for 100 years, on the way to international recognition by UNESCO

״ישנן יפות יותר ממנה, אך אין יפה כמוה״ כתב נתן אלתרמן, ולא במקרה רבים בטוחים שהשיר, והמשפט הזה במיוחד, נכתבו על העיר תל אביב. אלתרמן לא היה היחיד שהבחין ביופיה השנוי במ...

21/11/2024

It is a real pleasure to receive such compliments on my book 'form and light | from bauhaus to tel aviv' on the opening night of the exhibition 'Negative & Narrative - The Photographic Story of The White CIty', at 'Liebling Haus' in which I participate. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AcDHUmVy2/

"פרק מרהיב בסיפור הצילומי של העיר הלבנה: ספר הצילום "Form and Light" של יגאל גבזה.
צילומיו המופשטים, הפשוטים והאופטימיים של יגאל גבזה מהווים חלק מהתערוכה "נגטיב ונרטיב: הסיפור הצילומי של העיר הלבנה" שנפתחת ביום חמישי בבית ליבלינג.

גבזה למד אדריכלות באוניברסיטת טורונטו וצילום ב-ENSAD בפריז, והחל לצלם את בנייני העיר הלבנה עוד בטרם הוכרזה כאתר מורשת עולמית. בספרו - שהוגדר כאחד מ"עשרת ספרי החובה על הבאוהאוס", קובצו מאה צילומים המתעדים את המפגש בין הקווים הנקיים והמינימליזם האירופי לבין האור הבוהק של הלבנט.
הספר "Form and Light" ניתן לרכישה בחנות בית ליבלינג: https://www.lieblinghaus.org/product-page/form-and-light-from-bauhaus-to-tel-aviv

אוצרת: אדריכלית לימור יוסיפון גולדמן
ניהול אמנותי: שירה לוי בנימיני
ייזום ורעיון התערוכה: יגאל גבזה

Shira Benyemini
Limor Yossifon Goldman
Avisar Goldman
Yigal gawze
Noa Simhayof Shahaf
Avigail Paytan

21/11/2024

This evening at Liebling Haus -The White City Center - בית ליבלינג - מרכז העיר הלבנה - opening of the exhibition 'Negative & Narrative - the Photographic Story of the White City', in which I'm happy to take part alongside 4 iconic photographers: Itzhak Kalter, Judith Turner, Irmel Kamp and Günther Förg, whose work has formed the image of the White City.

28/05/2023

Dunkelblum House at the corner of Yael and Ruth streets is adjacent to Ruth Garden – a charming public garden in the heart of a “home block”, exemplifying the successful implementation of the 1925 Geddes Plan for Tel Aviv. The building which attracts immediate attention is sitting on a podium, and in a way, ‘commanding’ the street.
The theatrical touch of the 1935 building derives directly from the rich career that its architect Oskar Kauffmann had in Berlin during the 1920s, as a designer of theaters and cinemas, some of them to become local icons. In 1934 Kauffman immigrated to Palestine, and with his Berlin partner Eugen Stolzer designed the building of Habima – the national theater, and later on the Ora cinema in Haifa.
Preservation Architect Amnon Bar Or chose to describe the Dunkelblum House, at the Open House בתים מבפנים events, as “a special mixture, reminding of a theater with its symmetric design, but at the same time using the modernist language”.
Kauffman’s mastery is revealed here in a few original features like the rounded windows which are sliding sideways, the interplay between the smooth plaster and the decorative (Blumenputz) one, the softly rounded corners of the balconies and the main building volume, down to the design of the outdoor staircases and balconies balustrades elegantly enhancing the horizontal flow.
The semi oval balconies on the lateral façade facing Ruth garden which remind of theater loggias, add richness to this unique composition which breaks away from the cubic articulation, so typical of Tel Aviv’s 1930s modernism.

Amnon Bar Or - Tal Gazit Architects Ltd
UP Architects

Tel Aviv City
Liebling Haus -The White City Center - בית ליבלינג - מרכז העיר הלבנה

04/01/2023

Pour les francophones intéressés par l'architecture Bauhaus en général et à Tel Aviv en particulier -
Une courte interview (08:30 min) à l'occasion de la présentation de l'exposition 'forme et lumière | du bauhaus à tel aviv' en décembre 2022 à Montpellier. Merci à Camille Tabet pour l'agréable conversation, et à Radio Aviva pour l'hospitalité.

Ville blanche de Tel-Aviv – le mouvement moderne Patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO 2003 :
"Tel-Aviv fut fondée en 1909 et s’est développée comme une ville métropolitaine sous le mandat britannique en Palestine. La ville blanche fut construite à partir du début des années 1930 et jusqu’aux années 1950, selon le plan d’urbanisme de sir Patrick Geddes, reflétant les principes de l’urbanisme organique moderne. Les bâtiments furent conçus par des architectes qui avaient immigré après avoir été formés dans divers pays d’Europe et y avoir exercé leur profession. Dans ce lieu et ce nouveau contexte culturel, ils réalisèrent un ensemble exceptionnel d’architecture du mouvement moderne".

Radio locale indépendante et associative de Montpellier, Radio Aviva diffuse depuis ses studios du quartier des Beaux-Arts. Créée en 1982, la station agit comme un média très impliqué dans la vie loca

31/12/2022

The exhibition hall of the ‘Maison Des Relations Internationales Nelson Mandela', in Montpellier, is housed in a building surrounded by a garden, which was originally an urban villa (hôtel particulier) built in 1900.
On 12/2022, my exhibition FORM AND LIGHT was presented there. The venue excels in its period design and plaster decorations which created an interesting contrast between it and the minimalism and functionality of Tel Aviv’s modernism depicted in the exhibition’s photographs.
Interestingly, the architect Edmond Leenhardt who had designed the villa, was also the one who designed the Collège des Écossais (Scots College) - a Center for International Studies in Montpellier for .
Geddes, who settled in Montpellier in 1924, is the father of the urban plan for Tel Aviv from 1925. Which gave the city its unusual urban fabric qualities, one of the main reasons that granted the "White City" the title of UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Tel Aviv City Ville de Montpellier
Israël en France Chambre de commerce France Israël Languedoc-Roussillon

28/06/2022

One of the city’s bauhaus jewels stands at the gateway to the southern quarter of Neve Sha’anan - until recently a neglected neighbourhood (despite an impressive number of eclectic and modernist buildings), that now shows first signs of gentrification.
The meticulously restored ‘Shalem House’ designed by arch. Arieh Cohen in 1935 (preservation: Mester-Gal Arch. & Meirav Sudai Arch., 2022), was opened to the public last month on Tel Aviv Yafo’s event of Open House בתים מבפנים .
Cohen designed a few other buildings in this area, typified by their curved lines and strong plasticity, among them is the iconic “Ship House” at the corner of Levanda and HaRakevet streets.
Designated for preservation with strict restrictions, Shalem House finely exemplifies the qualities of Tel Aviv’s Modified Modernism. Sitting on a podium, the building has two distinct facades, each one relating differently to the street it’s facing. One has recessed balconies gently curved at their edges, reminding of a ship, the other has cantilevered balconies. They are connected by a prominent vertical element of the “Thermometer Window” running along the staircase above the entrance door.
Visiting the interior one discovers the original floor tiles, and, even more surprising, the original space division of the apartments – a local rarity, credited to the fact that the building was in the possession of the same family from 1937 until 2020.
The attention to details is present everywhere, and tells of the entrepreneur’s sensitivity to the valuable heritage embodied in the structure (one more noteworthy rare fact).

10/04/2022

Two exceptional elements which stand out in the Jerozolimski House, designed in 1935 by Arch. S. Flato and built on a double plot at 24-26 Balfour St. , are included in my book 'form and light' https://bit.ly/formandlight_hirmer.
Due to its size, the building has two entrance halls which are surrounded by opaque glass walls, and are impressive in the attention given to the materials and design of the staircases.
In the entrance hall of number 26, a unique detail (I haven’t seen it elsewhere in the city), welcomes you - a thick shelve, covered in terrazzo, attached to a round column at the center of the hall. Kind of a ‘welcome gesture’ – a place to put your bag, before you continue upstairs, or leave the place.
On your right, outside the entrance to 24, there's a round ornamental pool in which golden fish used to swim. You can find similar pools in other buildings of the period. What singles out this one, is the vertical column like element, covered in green ceramics. Impressive as well is the way the architect used 3 kinds of ceramics, in slightly different hues, to cover this component. It stands out in its elegance emerging from the sand stones wall of which the pool is made.

More (in Hebrew) about this building, on Michael Jacobson’s blog https://bit.ly/michaelarch_balfour

#הסגנוןהבינלאומי #מיכאליעקובסון

12/09/2020

One of the fascinating things behind the story of the White City, is the decisive and rapid transition from the 1920s Eclectic style to the International style of the 1930s.
In Tel Aviv, behind a number of Bauhaus-style structures, hide stories of eclectic buildings that were torn down.
This was mainly due to the city engineer of the time – Yaacov Schiffman Ben Sira, who required that all new buildings be built in the modernist style. His uncompromising stance has made Tel Aviv into the ‘Bauhaus Capital’ that it is, with 4,000 buildings to its list.
Today, when you see some of the eclectic buildings which have survived, standing next to the modernist ones, you are struck by the contrast between the two periods.

While looking into the work of one of the photographers who documented that period – Hans Casparius, I was surprised to see the photograph he had taken of Tel Aviv’s Magen David Square.
It appears in a book published in Vienna in 1934 - The Palestine Picture Book, in itself a unique document *.
It shows the eclectic building (arch. Y.Z. Tabachnik, 1922) which used to stand at the corner of Allenby and Nachalat Binyamin streets, on a central crossroad of Tel Aviv. The photo is accompanied by a caption telling us that the newly arrived German immigrants, who came in the 30s, referred to Magen David Square as Potsdamer Platz (with a degree of irony, no doubt).
In 1934 the building was torn down and replaced by the modernist Polishuk House designed by Liaskovsky and Ornstein. The bustling crossroad is still one of Tel Aviv’s focal points, and the mixture of eclectic and modernist buildings surrounding it, makes for a very Tel Avivian collage.

* See on the site of Yoav Avneyon - a very interesting item on Casparius’s photobook The Palestine Picture Book -
http://www.yoaview.com/Yoaview/SITE/?action=showobject&sn=2_908 (Hebrew)
http://www.facebook.com/yoav.avneyon.7