154 In Elhanani’s case, this public was identified as city citizens. In the case of Hashimshoni, he invoked the
image of an anonymous public, in which architecture, in terms reminiscent of several strands of postwar civic discourses, is called on to define an expression of smaller groups of association.
83
David Remez, “Preface: The Measure of Construction,”20 Years of Building, Workers’ Settlements, Housing and Public Institutions (Tel Aviv: The General Federation of Jewish Labour in Palestine, 1940). 4.
The craft of construction, with its complexity and simplicity, stood in front of us in 1918 as a miraculous kingdom, veiled by a secret mist, just as diverse agriculture stood in front of us in 1908, with the first settlers to Kineret.
The hired worker is not capable of penetrating the mysteries of his profession due to his lack of patience, the quality of the contractor. He may barely envision his own self, the very edge of which he is confined to by force. The people of the second and third immigration waves have penetrated this kingdom—through their own contractors’ means, through contractors’ offices and the workforce (Gdud Ha’avoda), through groups and collectives of contractors, through hunger and deficit and insistence of the will to conquer the pioneer economy. Afterwards construction was deciphered to its depth (lerochba
uleomka) with a firm and trustful hand—the construction used in height, digging,
layering, irrigation, excavation, chiseling, metal bending and concrete molding, the layering of bricks and of stone, construction of housing and institution, from bottom to top (min Ha’massad ve’ad Ha’tfachot) and into the foundation of magnificent city districts and all that they include—and, it goes without saying, settlements and farmsteads [meshakim, standing for kibbutz and farmsteads, m.h.]. And also in depth: for the construction of a jetty for Tel Aviv port, for the laying of pipes in deep sea, for diving as in a song, enormous building complexes will rise by themselves in a short time, like Reeding power station in Tel Aviv— with the same hands doing the work [ossot ba’melacha] and might be again unemployed, are not yet satiated—and so will rise and glimpse, as does the field in the agricultural farmsteads, apartment houses, production houses, and public buildings, built by the hands of the settlement members themselves. Here, a cowshed; here, a house; here, a school. Of one founded in Mizra, one of the pages [in the book, m.h.] says, “The building was begun at the time of emergency prices, but was executed in a very economical manner, in comparison with similar programs in other places, thanks to the experienced management of the kibbutz members themselves, who were well versed in construction, in technical aspects and in economic conditions.”
A person who is familiar with the execution of our settlement construction
(bnyia Hitayshvutit) will see how many blessings the knowledge of the
construction craft [mela’acha Banayit] has brought to our agriculture. The measure of the building and the blade of the plough are bound together!… …Construction at face value - means dealing with real materials and real problems: slatted roof or concrete roof? A rectangular or fragmented form for the modest rural house? Full western orientation of the face or partial orientation? A waiting area for a health-care clinic open on both sides, or mono-oriented? etc.… …The best of construction for the need of the public and people in the past twenty years in the country is in the book in front of us. It is a construction endeavor,
84
using public administrators and planners: settlement buildings, housing, and public institutions. The typical examples, organized by category, are a means to explain and to make known the major problems, the comments and criticism, written by every surveyor and surveyor, which are not final judgments on the wellspring [used as a metaphor referring to the totality of the Federation production, m.h.]. This volume, the first in assembling multifarious material and indicating problems and solutions, is a useful companion to the settler and dweller, to those responsible for public institution buildings, each debating his specific questions, and for the construction workers in the thousands.
Staff correspondent. “Beth Brenner Represents New Labour Achievement— Simplicity is a Dominant Keynote.” Palestine Post, Jerusalem, Thursday, August 21, 1935.
Beth Brenner [designed by Arieh Sharon, m.h.], which was formally opened in Tel Aviv on Tuesday afternoon, represents an unusual achievement on the part of urban workers of this country. Built at a cost of about LP. 20.000, it is an impressive and practical monument to organized labor. The workers of Tel Aviv themselves have contributed from their daily wages to pay for the building. Its stark simplicity, in which the only decorations are the construction elements themselves, is effective and impressive. There is a complete absence of all ornamentation and at the same time the total effect is most attractive. There is a pleasant harmony between the furnishings and the building, which is decorative without being gaudy and plain without being monotonous. The Co-operative Workers Kitchen will occupy one part of the building and will, when fully equipped, be one of the most modern and attractive restaurants in the country. About 350 people will be accommodated at a time in the main hall and on the balcony and the shaded terraces. Hidden lamps and fixtures made in this country will provide indirect lighting throughout the building, and all its equipment and materials, from the metal window frames and metal cabinets to the electrically refrigerated room in the kitchen, were manufactured locally. The building will house the offices of the various unions of the Federation, such as the Carpenters’, the Painters’, the Plasterers’, the Needle Workers’ and others. Like so many undertakings in this country, the organization has already outgrown the capacity of this building, and some of the newer sections of the Federation unfortunately will not find room there.
Aba Elhanani, Excerpt from The Struggle for Independence of Israeli Architecture. Tel Aviv: Misrad Ha’bitachon, 1996. pp. 26-27. [Notes on Yohanan Ratner’s 1927 design of the Jewish Agency headquarters in Jerusalem.]
The last architect in the opening five [the five Jewish architects with which his narrative opens, and the fifth that in fact attests to the correct direction in which architecture should go, m.h.] is my professor and rabbi (mori ve’rabi) Yohanan
85
Ratner. The Jewish Agency building in Jerusalem that Ratner designed after winning a competition in 1927 is not only a building of high architectural achievement, but also and maybe primarily—a highly important didactic model whose lessons have not yet been sufficiently assessed. Yohanan Ratner, who was born in Odessa in 1891, immigrated to Israel in 1923 after he finished his studies in Germany (and even served in the Red Army). Even if Ratner respected Baerwald and appreciated his inquiries, he negated his path. He did not believe in the renewal of past styles so much as he refuted a non-critical import of present styles. He battled in both speech and writing against the adoption of modern mannerisms from foreign countries and embraced a pursuit to consolidate a local architecture. However, he did not believe in the compromise explored by Baerwald; Ratner knew that a local architecture has to assimilate the achievements of the thought of the modern movement and its human and social aspects. His revulsion for monumentality, which was characteristic of the new architecture in Europe [Elhanani’s footnote points to Siegfried Giedion’s post- war revision of this approach, m.h.], and his consistent and ardent functionalism prove that he non-reservedly belonged to the camp of the moderna… …Ratner, who was well versed in the history of architecture, apparently noticed that the modern movement did not inaugurate a new definite architectural style, but only created a basis on which different architects could cultivate local versions… …As he created the design for the Jewish Agency building, Ratner sought to lay the foundations for a new way that he deemed right and fitting. In this building he expressed his beliefs for a desirable direction in which Israeli architecture should march in order to mature as an authentic architecture, appropriate for its time and unique to its country. Ratner was by nature a modest person, a man of understatement [in English and italicized in the text, m.h.]. This personality was in line with the avowed modesty of the modern movement. Ratner understood that in the Jewish Agency building—the seat of the future government—there was a need to integrate both formality and festivity. According to Ratner this did not necessitate “outdated” monumental solutions. It seems that the curved court that he designed for the entrance of the Rechavia neighborhood [the neighborhood in which the building is located, m.h.] served for him as a court of ceremony (COUR D’ HONNEUR) [capitalized and in English in the original, m.h.] á la Europe, and as a reminder of the oriental court—the one in front of the mosque—or the help in the synagogue. Both were meant to “create a distance,” to serve as a preparation to people coming from the “secular” street into the “sacred” atmosphere of this building, with its important national status… …With few means and impressive restraint, Ratner created a building with a measure of dignity, one for which the fact of being set in Jerusalem is part of its essence. There is no doubt that this building offers a legitimate formula for the design of modern public buildings in a country rich with history.
Aviah Hashimshoni. Excerpt from “Architecture.” Art in Israel. Benjamin Tammuz, Ed. London: W. H. Allen, 1966. pp. 227-228.
86
The interesting buildings of Haifa Technion also include the students' dormitory, the prize-winning plan of which was drawn up for a competition by Khavkin. Here the relationship of the individual to the entire building has been emphasized, and to that end some individual comforts have been sacrificed. The general result recalls Le Corbusier. This approach is more equable in its application in the smaller scale of the dormitory than in large buildings, where the end result seldom justifies such humanistic pretensions. …In our survey of Israeli architecture we have tried to focus attention on the central problem, that of establishing a proper proportion between planning for the individual and planning for the anonymous public. In between these two extremes is an intermediate area in which the individual comes into contact with the small group. In this area relationships are subject to chance and difficult to define. The new understanding of the importance of this factor—the small social group—in architecture is expressed in various ways. On the one hand, designers try to emphasize the aesthetic qualities of building masses that avoid banality and to create centers of interest that add variety to the urban landscape. This emphasis may be criticized when it is not based on an analysis of real needs. On the other hand, a solution is posited by the creation of several types of private dwellings and public buildings in a single complex, where an attempt is made to express various group needs in the social structure. Special notice must be given to the growing importance attached to relating a building to its surroundings; that is, the need for a bond between the architect's creation and the circumambient light, air, and landscape. With this approach, natural surroundings become an integral part of the architectural creation and constitute a link between the individual and the group. In order to fully present the architectural values either of a single work or of the work of a whole country, as this survey attempted, a literal description, or even one fully documented with photographs, is insufficient and can be misleading. A proper grasp of the subject can be secured only by seeing the buildings and gaining direct impressions of their scale, their details, and their relationship to their environment.
Only in this way can the artistic merit and special attributes of Israeli architecture properly be gauged. We are prompted to ask ourselves if Israeli architecture exists on its own, as a distinct style. It is a reasonable question, since we associate the concept of style with a sureness of consistent creation, free of futile gropings. But equally, we used to associate the concept of style with such factors as special design requirements for parts of buildings, and especially with external decorative elements. The tendency to create a style by the deliberate use of decorative elements is not at all new. Ever since the Renaissance, there have been long periods of time in which superficial manifestations derived from a literary or romantic decorative approach have been accepted in the place of a true style. Therefore, when we ask ourselves whether Israeli architecture has reached a maturity of artistic style or not, we must first determine whether we mean by “style” a certain sophistication of decorative externals or comprehensive
87
manifestations shows that many recent works by Israelis display decorativeness. But since these Israeli architects are students of the practical modern school, this decorativeness is expressed in pseudo-constructivism in which various buildings are divorced from simplicity and directness by the almost systematic use of forms borrowed from larger, industrially-fabricated structures. This accounts for the use of rhythmical repetitions, natural to large buildings in industrial centers, on small buildings; the use of walls with huge openings for small buildings; forms derived from prefabricated techniques on ordinary buildings; dramatization of structural and spatial frames out of proportion to the building's content. In terms of the development of Israeli architecture, these manifestations, to be found also in the work of many other world-famous architects outside Israel, are undesirable and constitute a fashion destined to pass. It is to be hoped that this practice will leave behind, however, a desire for formal completeness, which is its only justification.
88