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Prof. Moshe Margalith

School of Architecture

Unesco chair on Modern Heritage,

Head Tel Aviv Institute

Tel Aviv University

Tel Aviv- Learning from Modernism:

1. Introduction:

A hundred years after the beginning of Modernism,

at is time when lessons from the Modernists are

relevant for today's changing urban communities and

environments, many of its manifestations in

architecture across the world are at risk.

To assess its relevance, Modernism will first be

redefined in viewed of present realities, through the

examination of the evolution of Modernists' ideas

behind the architecture and urbanism of Tel Aviv.

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 In contrast to common beliefs reducing modernism

to appearance, aesthetics and style, Modern could be

seen primarily as that which is new, not in line with

past understandings. It is a search to express, in a

variety of realms as well as in architecture, common

prevailing moods and aspirations of time and place.

Modernism from the late nineteenth century to the

mid-sixties of the twentieth century has been reflected

in the life styles of individuals, communities and

places, within a social and political context.

2. Tel Aviv and the Two Phases of Modernism:

Tel Aviv and Modernism developed

simultaneously. The city has experienced the full

evolution through the two phases of Modernism. The

first phase, between the two World Wars, largely

influenced by social and political changes following

the Russian revolutions of 1917 and by the end of the

First World War. The second phase, from World War

II to the mid 1960s, as influenced by the search to

cure existing societies and their ruined and damaged

environments and build new utopian urban models.

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The first phase of Modernism:

In the first phase of Modernism, after the First

World War, and under the British Mandate in

Palestine, social and political ideas were applied in

Tel Aviv both to urban scale and buildings, to shape

the city from its start.

Tel Aviv, as well as Jerusalem and Haifa, were all

planned along British and German theories of Garden

Cities. In Tel Aviv these theories were later on

partially adopted in Sir Patrick Geddes' Master Plan of

1929, offering a modern urbanism which has

influenced the city's development for years to come.

In this period, Tel Aviv had seen a large variety of

Modern buildings, harmonizing together to evolve

with a rich ensemble, as had been built only in places

like Brno in Slovakia, and in the colonial Modern

architecture of Casablanca in Morocco, and in Hanoi

and Saigon in Vietnam.

It is the work of a group of young architects,

educated in Europe along Modern theories of the

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Bauhaus and other trends of Modernism, had

dominated the development of the city till the end of

the Second World War and the British mandate.

The Second Phase of Modernism:

In the second phase of Modernism, after World

War II, Modernists' theories and practices in

architecture had been adopted in the new State of

Israel and in Tel Aviv in particular. In its accelerated

development, Tel Aviv experienced a unique

evolution of Modernism becoming the major modern

city in the new state.

Place and time had provided the grounds for post-

war Modern experiments, in the design of

neighborhoods, housing and institutions.

The extensions to Geddes' Master Plan provided the

needs for large masses of public housing, civic and

cultural buildings. New Public housing followed

themes of Le Corbusier's Marseilles block of the

Unité d'Habitation, expressing the change in the

counterplay between the individual and the city, from

a garden city of small scale private developments to

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massive public developments and a new urbanism.

The eclectic design of public and civic buildings was

gradually replaced by Modern architecture as

established in Chandigarh and in Brasilia,

emphasizing public institutions carefully integrated

into the modern urban schemes.

Through the two phases of Modernism in Israel,

ideas and dreams of building a new society were

exemplified in the design of rural settlements, and in

the new urbanism of which Tel Aviv is a living

laboratory. For this evolution of Modernism and its

evidences, Tel Aviv has been declared a City of

World Heritage in May 2004.

Tel-Aviv's "White City" represents an assemblage

of architectural motifs reflecting ideologies regarding

relationships between the individual and the

community, the private and the public domains, as

well as between buildings and the city.

Yet, beyond the apparent form and style, it is

primarily the social agenda, in ideas and practices of

Modernism that is the significant heritage to be found

in Tel Aviv.

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 A close examination of the evolution of modernism

in Tel Aviv would hopefully reveal lessons to be

learned from the modernists, provide a better

understanding of present and future urbanism in Tel

Aviv and around the world.

3. Tel Aviv's Evolution of Modernism:

3.1. The Neighborhoods of Neve Zedek and

Achuzat Bayit, 1887-1909:

Towards the turn of the nineteenth century, under

the rule of the Ottoman Empire, in the relatively small

but rapidly growing port city of Jaffa, emphasis was

already given to the development of new streets,

parks, and public buildings. This practice had been

further emphasized in the design of the first Jewish

neighborhoods, marking the first stage in the

development of the modern city of Tel Aviv.

In 1887 a small group of upper middle class

community leaders, established the new association

and neighborhood of Neve Zedek.

Twenty-two years later, in 1909, the corner stone

for the new neighborhood of Achuzat Bayit was laid,

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to mark the foundation of the new city of Tel Aviv,

the first Hebrew city.

Both neighborhoods were founded to serve the

needs of the upper middle class. Middle class

urbanism was respected and not sacrificed as in the

case of the Zionist collective settlements, the Kibbutz

and the Moshav.

In both neighborhoods, emphasis was given to

gardens and public buildings, representing the desire

of a community to share experiences, institutions for

learning, meeting and well being as discussed 60

years later by Louis Kahn.

All buildings, in spite of their different eclectic

styles, were of modest design, as a part of an overall

assembly, paying tribute to shared public spaces and

institutions.

3.2. Florentin Neighborhood in South Tel Aviv,

1920s-1930s:

Following the development of Neve Zedek and

Achuzat Bayit, and in parallel to the "White City" in

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the 1920s and 1930s, a new pattern of development

took place in the south fringes of Tel Aviv.

These developments, by and for the lower middle

class, are characterized by the densely built Florentin

neighborhood, composed of long, narrow city blocks,

parceled into small lots. The mixed-use commercial

and residential buildings, mostly of a Modern

architectural vocabulary, up to four storeys high,

aligned along streets and property lines, shared

common party walls and enclosed small courtyards in

the heart of the block.

The rigidity of the land parceling with varied

building elements, such as staircases, balconies, bay-

windows and cornice-lines, has resulted in a visually

rich urban texture. This traditional urban scheme is

unique in the entire urban texture of Tel Aviv.

After the foundation of these first neighborhoods,

Neve Zedek, Achuzat Bayit, and Florentin,

Modernism in Tel Aviv was dominated by two

parallel developments: Tel-Aviv's first master plan

prepared by Sir Patrick Geddes, with the development

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of the architecture of the "White City", and the

construction of Workers' Cooperative Residences.

3.3. Sir Patrick Geddes' Master Plan and the

"White City" - 1927-1948:

In the early 1930’s, parallel to the new

neighborhoods in south Tel Aviv, private

development took place in line with Sir Patrick

Geddes' Master Plan, approved in 1929. The plan was

strongly influenced by Ebenezer Howard's theory of

"Garden cities", which influenced as well the design

of new neighborhoods in Jerusalem and the port city

of Haifa.

Reflecting public interests, the intricate yet simple

Geddes' plan proposed hierarchical, layered urban

structure, which delicately combined individual and

communal realms. The continuous texture of the plan

is composed of a grid with main north-south

commercial streets, and west-east connectors, creating

street blocks, which Geddes called "Home blocks",

into which public gardens and buildings were

inserted, generating a sense of neighborhood within

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the larger urban system. The plan's skeleton, the grid

of streets, is weaved into a network of boulevards,

public open spaces and public institutions; Rothschild

Boulevard, with a block designated for the major

cultural buildings, and the circular Dizengoff Square,

are two of the city's major urban spaces ever since.

This infill of basic city blocks consisted of detached

buildings of a modest scale, with three to four storey

high, surrounded by gardens. However, in the late

1930s, the large increase in Jewish immigration and

the accelerated growth in the city's population have

produced a new building type, four storeys high, with

eight units, known as the shared private apartment

building. This change generated a much more densely

built environment than that conceived by the Geddes

plan, yet it generated a special continuity between the

rich urban texture and cityscape of Tel Aviv.

This unique combination between the apparently

rigid yet flexible Geddes plan and the search for new

and free ways of architectural expression in the design

of buildings produced the "White City" of Tel Aviv, a

new urbanity in the Modern fashion of the time.

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3.4. The Workers' Cooperative Residences - 1930s

to the 1940s:

In the Workers' Cooperative Residences of the

1930s and 1940s, echoing similar housing

developments in Europe, social ideas were translated

into new physical entities. Semi-public "community"

open spaces were presented in modest row housing

schemes, arranged around courtyards. Buildings were

partially elevated on pilotis to create large shaded

open spaces, and community facilities such as

kindergartens, whereas flat roofs were used for

laundry and meeting rooms. Building elements, such

as ground floors, rooftops, circulation areas and other

communal systems, were accentuated on the simple

facades.

A closer examination of Geddes' plan and its

extensions and the evolved overall pattern of the

architecture of the 1930-1940 in the "White City",

presents a delicate balance between the structured

overall plans and the simple yet flexible and

expressive buildings.

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 The rich and varied architectural vocabulary in the

"White City" bridges between what is public, the

street, and the private, the apartments. The

asymmetrical composition of building elements has

given to these buildings place and identity in their

surroundings. This composition, emphasizing

circulation and other building elements, i.e., partly

open ground floors and entrance lobbies, (influenced

by Le Corbusier's architecture) together with

projecting stairs and covered balconies, was all

expressively presented on the façade. The horizontal

layering of apartments in a vertical assembly has

resulted in rich, simple and coherent buildings

maintaining diverse yet pleasant street environments.

3.5. The Post-War period and the New State,

1950s-1960s:

From the Second World War and the establishment

of the State of Israel and until the mid 1960s, Tel

Aviv has expanded noticeably, in a paradoxical

manner, in a vast scale yet in a modest style, typical

of most postwar Modern architecture in Europe and

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elsewhere. Two buildings typologies represent this

period. The first, built on individual lots almost

identical, simple, symmetrical, large four to five

storey buildings were arranged in repetitive street

pattern. These buildings were again typified by raised

ground floors, public entrance halls, and larger street

façades of balconies screened for privacy with

shutters and sun protectors.

Resulting from the enormous growth in population,

a second type of building evolved in vast repetitive

housing projects. In a short period of time, it began to

dominate sections of the city. Here again, buildings

were designed modestly, respecting function, use and

place in the overall surrounding, emphasis given to

the public and semi-public domains. Thus, this

evolution in Tel Aviv's second phase of Modernism

best presents Modern architecture as had been

promoted by its masters, reflecting modesty and the

search for honesty in form.

In all, Tel-Aviv's Modernism is the manifestation of

the desire to produce the essence of urbanity, the

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balance between the private and public domains,

emphasizing the public domain as the stage for human

interaction. The study of Tel-Aviv's Modernism and

its relevance could bring innovative proposals, to

which our city is entitled.

4. Lessons from Tel Aviv's modernism:

An assessment of the relevance of Tel Aviv's

modernism to its present and future development

could shed light on other urban centers around the

world. Some of the lessons are brought forward

relating to various areas of the city, presently under

transformation and at risk.

South Tel Aviv:

The evaluation of modernism at risk in south Tel

Aviv, exemplified in the neighborhood of Florentin,

reveals that prevailing trends of land assemblies and

the construction of high-rise buildings are foreign to

the character of the place, threaten theses areas, a vital

resource for the city's development.

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 In contrast, it is suggested that with the adaptation

of existing amenities and with additional building

rights, neighborhoods in the south of Tel Aviv could

be rejuvenated, retaining their existing urban heritage

and fabrics.

The city's heart:

A study of Geddes' plan, the "White City" and its

extensions, reveals that even with today's alterations

of buildings with added volumes the principle of

rigidity of the overall plan and the free expression of

its parts, carries an exceptional potential for the so

needed urban revival. This principle could be

implemented in the renewal of neighborhoods in the

heart and south of Tel Aviv as well should be

examined in the planning of new neighborhoods

outside the city centre.

Tel Aviv's periphery:

Today, much of north Tel-Aviv, including the areas

north of the Yarkon River, has experienced the

development of large-scale residential compounds and

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clusters of high-rise buildings, largely changing the

character of the city from a dense urban fabric to a

typically fragmented American suburb. These last

unbuilt areas, as well as dilapidating districts in the

South Tel-Aviv are the last resource for Tel-Aviv's

urban growth. There are lessons that could be learnt

from the dense urban environments within the

Geddes' Plan and its extensions, that with increased

densities the sense of urbanism could be adapted to

both new and in transformation neighborhoods around

the city. Tel Aviv's modernist's ideas and productions

could be rejuvenated to produce new urbanism in Tel

Aviv's future development.

5. Six Case Studies:

In the last few years, together with thesis students

at Tel Aviv University's school of architecture, I have

concentrated on the contribution of modernist

expressions to present-day dilemmas in Tel Aviv, as

presented in the following case studies:

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1. A New Configuration of a Mixed-Use Block:

This proposal offers an alternative to an already

approved plan for a high-rise development in the heart

of Tel Aviv's "White City". The scheme proposes a

denser mixed-use development, but retains a balance

between built and open public space, using the

architectural vocabulary of its surroundings.

2. Tel Aviv's Urban Pattern – a new Open Mall:

The scheme attempts to retain the public use of a

former cinema and sports center. The proposal

maintains the existing street pattern, offering a new

open urban mall merging with the nearby market, in

the scale and texture of its surrounding.

3. A Multi-Level Urban Garden in Tel Aviv's

Cultural Square:

Extending Tel Aviv's main Rothschield Boulevard

and its pedestrian activity into the Cultural Square, the

scheme integrates parking, leisure and cultural

facilities into a multi-level urban garden. The proposal

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enhances Geddes' plan, and in addition derives from

the architecture of surrounding building.

4. An Open Hospital:

Based on Piet Mondrian's theory of the open city

and interpreting his drawings into a three-dimensional

system of movement, use and formal expression, the

scheme dissolves Tel Aviv's largest hospital into its

surrounding and proposes a new wing for cancer

patients.

5. The Meaning of a new Public Space – an Urban

University, North Tel Aviv:

An urban university weaved into its surroundings, a

typical Modernist residential neighborhood in North

Tel Aviv, generates a sequence of new public spaces,

strengthening the so-needed sense of urbanity in the

repetitive pattern of streets and city blocks.

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6. Critically Modernist – Weaving the Past into Tel

Aviv's Public Spaces:

Taking a new point of view, the scheme looks at

the vast round open space 300m in diameter as the

nucleus and generator of surroundings. Therefore the

design adapts past knowledge of urban spaces and

activities to evolve in a dense, varied new mixed

complex, emphasizing public needs and domains.

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