Tel Aviv celebrates 100 years of homegrown Bauhaus-inspired architecture with the opening of the White City Center. Designed for White City residents and visitors, it will help preserve the area's storied architecture.
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White City is a the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Tel Aviv boasting around 4,000 residential buildings built in the 1930s and 40s by mostly Jewish architects who were often inspired by Bauhaus architecture — or indeed were progenitors of the movement such as Arieh Sharon.
Founded by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and the German government at a cultural crossroads, the White City Center that opened on September 19 has a mission to actively preserve the sometimes dilapidated buildings in the renowned modernist residential quarter.
Norbert Höpfer, a German mineralogist, has been involved in the restoration of about 30 buildings in the White City since 2006. He told DW how the restoration process unfolded, and how monument protection differs in Germany and Israel.
Norbert Höpfer at work in Tel AvivImage: Privat
DW: The decades have taken a toll on the Bauhaus-inspired buildings in Tel Aviv. How white is White City today?
Norbert Höpfer: I'd say after a lot of restoration work it is whiter than ever before. We often don't even know how the houses were originally painted because we can't tell from the black-and-white photos. They weren't necessarily all white. Some were green and ochre. I found a house that had apricot as its first coat of paint. Unfortunately, the plaster was often completely knocked off during the restoration process. There are very few remnants and we don't have detailed documentation.
White City Center has just opened in the restored Max Liebling House. How were you involved?
I provided a report on issues with the facade. It really was a headache because the plaster was not original but maybe 15 years old. There were cracks in every square meter. We had workshops looking at how to manage to get the Bauhaus shape, and how to get the plastering techniques right. That needs to be passed on from one generation to the next otherwise it is lost.
You started restoration work in Tel Aviv in 2006. What special circumstances did you encounter and where did your expertise come in?
Bauhaus in Tel Aviv
It's been 10 years since Tel Aviv was awarded the status of UNESCO World Heritage Site for its Bauhaus architecture. Today the legacy of European émigrés is threatened with collapse, but help could come from Germany.
Image: Ina Rottscheidt
Unique architectural heritage
No where will you find as many Bauhaus buildings as in Tel Aviv, nicknamed the "White City" for that very reason. A total of 4,000 buildings were awarded the status of UNESCO World Heritage sites in 2003. However, only a small number of them shine in their original white. The architectural legacy built by European émigrés in Israel is disintegrating. Help could come from Germany.
Image: DW/I. Rottscheidt
Bauhaus in Germany
Germany has had a special interest in Bauhaus since the art and architecture school was set up in Weimar, Dessau and finally Berlin during the 1920s and 30s. European émigrés brought Bauhaus ideas and concepts to the newly established city of Tel Aviv. After the Hitler's ascent to power in 1933, increasing numbers of Jews fled to Israel, including Bauhaus graduates in Dessau.
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Forms follows function
Large numbers of apartments were constructed to accommodate the influx of new arrivals from Europe. The functional Bauhaus style was a perfect fit and so a slew of slick white houses with geometric forms, straight lines and tilted cubes mushroomed out of the sand dunes. A total of 4,000 buildings were constructed between 1933 and 1948 according to the Bauhaus principle "form follows function."
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Social housing
Today the expansive building complex by Arieh Sharon (1900-1980) still stands on Frishman Street. The Polish-born architect studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau. In 1936 he constructed a three-story industrial residential quarter encircling a shady courtyard in the center. Inexpensive at the time, the apartments were intended for working-class families and poor immigrants.
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Mediterranean conditions
The architects quickly realized that the climatic and economic conditions in the Middle East required different types of buildings to those in Germany. The new Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv were designed with large balconies and their balustrades were given horizontal slots through which air could better circulate. Temperatures reach over 40 degrees Celsius during the summer in Israel.
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Decaying heritage
Soaring temperatures are one reason why the Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv are under threat. High humidity, heat and exhaust fumes are eating away at the façades. Many buildings are in danger of collapsing and Tel Aviv is in an earthquake zone. A total 1,600 of the around 4,000 buildings have been renovated. The state does not pay for the work; it is up to owners to maintain the buildings.
Image: DW/I. Rottscheidt
No financial support
In order to encourage the owners of the buildings to maintain them, they are allowed to extend properties by two floors. The cost of the renovations is then often past on to tenants renting the apartments in the buildings. Philipp Oswalt from the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is critical of the system. "If cultural heritage is of value to people, then it needs state funding," he said.
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Eye on the future
In May 2013, the future of the White City was the subject of a conference organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Tel Aviv. Experts from Israel and Germany discussed how the two countries could work together to preserve the cultural heritage of the city. The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is world renowned for its expertise in the field of restoration.
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German-Israeli partnership
"It took a long time but the city now recognizes the value of the heritage it has," said Marianne Zepp from the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Tel Aviv. Israel is said to be very interested in a cooperation. German-Israeli government consultations in 2012 committed to work together in "the research, documentation and preservation of Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv."
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Pieces of history
There is potential for a mutually beneficial exchange between German and Israeli craftspeople, a shared apprenticeship training scheme, and a partnership between German and Israeli industry in order to provide construction materials that match the original buildings. Soon more buildings can be as nicely restored as the former Esther Cinema - today a hotel -, which is famous for its Bauhaus charm.
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Rebuilding lives
Pictured here are the steps in the Hotel Cinema where precious materials were used. The émigrés of the 1930s and 40s brought some construction materials with them from Germany. After 1933 Jews were no longer allowed to export money so they purchased tiles, window shutters and other items to build their new homes in Israel. The Bauhaus buildings of Tel Aviv are pieces of German-Israeli history.
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Shared architectural legacy
The Federal Ministry of Building in Germany and the city of Tel Aviv are already in dialogue. From the middle of 2013, the joint White City Network will launch a research project, a website and a symposium exploring the subject. In addition, a permanent center for research and to promotion the preservation of the German-Israeli architectural history of the city will be founded in Tel Aviv.
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The clock is ticking
According to the Federal Ministry of Building, the cooperation should be an "example of good relations between Germany and Israel." But time is running out. The Ministry of Building sees the modernist buildings in Tel Aviv as "acutely threatened in their substance." And UNESCO has already warned Israel that the World Heritage status of the buildings could be revoked.
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At first, I restored Templar houses built by Christian Templars from Württemberg after they emigrated to Palestine in the late 19th century. In Tel Aviv, I worked on Wilhelminian-style buildings and devised a mortar. The Germans always want to know exactly what people are doing — the Israelis, on the other hand, only want to know how long something takes and what it costs. So in Tel Aviv , I was able to try out materials without anyone asking questions. In Germany there's always a lengthy debate about the merits of using this lime or that lime.
White City was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. How is monument preservation different in Germany and Israel?
In Israel, there is still a lot of manual labor. Israel has a great many Palestinian plasterers who are urgently needed in Germany, we could really use them. In Germany, larger projects can not afford manual plastering. The Israelis are ahead of us where that is concerned. What is negative about Israel is that facades are often rebuilt, even with new materials like synthetic resin paint. Bauhaus is originally painted with lime, which has a different look. Lime has a 10,000-year-old tradition.
You helped restore houses planned by migrants who fled the Nazis. Were you aware that you you were working on preserving a German-Jewish heritage?
My focus was more on why so many Bauhaus buildings were built in Tel Aviv. Leftists and Jews fled from the Nazis, the country's avant-garde was gone. The Bauhaus students at the time built what was fashionable — Tel Aviv was an oasis compared to Europe because it was hardly touched by the war and houses were being built all at once. Such freedom existed nowhere in Europe. But even Israel no longer had resources after the War of Independence broke out in 1948. From then on, Israel built houses like the Germans did after 1945 — cheaply and with thin walls.
Has working in Tel Aviv made you a Bauhaus fan?
I'm a big critic of these buildings. They are incredibly chic, but they are not designed for longevity. Who builds a flat roof and large balconies in Germany, a country with rain and snow? Bauhaus shifted walls and grew vertically, many high-rise buildings today are based on the Bauhaus idea but are actually nothing more than underground garages built upwards: everything stands on pillars, there is a concrete core for lifts and building services, the facade is encased. The original Bauhaus style with its masonry and lime was more honest.
