Bauhaus in Tel Aviv

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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.