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<br>
<div class="mainheadline" style="font-size:27.5px; line-height: 1.2;">Building Entrances as Cultural Narratives:
the Case of Historic Tel-Aviv</div>
<div class="subtitle" style="margin-top: 20px; text-transform: uppercase;">Author: Orly Even</div>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PikiWiki_Israel_41426_Tel_Aviv.jpg"
title="via Wikimedia Commons" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/PikiWiki_Israel_41426_Tel_Aviv.jpg">
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<div class="imagecredit">Figure#1: Tel Aviv, Hertzl St. and the Gimnasium, circa 1910 [Eliyahu Brothers / Public
domain]</div>
<br>
<div class="subtitle">Abstract:</div>
<div class="abstract">
<p>The entrance to a building is the touch point at which the private domain meets the public realm, where
architecture meets the city. Looking at a building’s façade and its immediate surroundings, one can
identify certain motifs - tectonic, functional or decorative elements, foreshadowing the spatial
experience of the building’s interior. Nonetheless, the urban function that the building entrance holds
is a small-scale gateway to the city’s identity. The entrances, vestibules, doorways, front steps and
porticos - all reflect social, economic, cultural and urban transformations within the city.</p>
<p>Although only a 109 years old, Tel Aviv has undergone a rapid change in typology of residential
architecture - from the low-rise high-density historic center to a somewhat awkward combination of
conserved buildings with hovering skyscrapers. Yet, the most profound change is found in the way the
ground floor relates to the street. Examining different entrances to residential buildings throughout
the past century, reveals their role as architectural “prologues” or “expositions” to the transforming
narrative of the city. This transformation is identified in several key stages, in accordance to the
image the city wished to present over the years.</p>
</div>
<br>
<div class="quote">
The city is a discourse, and this discourse is actually a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we
speak to our city, the city where we are, simply by inhabiting it, by traversing it, by looking at it.
<div class="description" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">(Roland Barthes, <span
style="font-style: italic;">Semiology and Urbanism</span>, 1967)</div>
</div>
<div class="article">
<p style="text-indent: 0;"><span class="drop-cap">T</span>he entrance to a building is the touch point at
which the private domain meets the public realm, where architecture meets the city. Following Roland
Barthes’ assertion that the city is discourse, then the architectural street façades are inevitably part
of its language. Looking at a building’s façade and its immediate surroundings, one can identify certain
motifs - tectonic, functional or decorative elements, foreshadowing the spatial experience of the
building’s interior. Nonetheless, the urban function that the building entrance holds is a small-scale
gateway to the city’s identity, it is a form of speech to the city’s inhabitants. The entrances,
vestibules, doorways, front steps and porticos - all reflect social, economic, cultural and urban
transformations within the city.</p>
<p>Although only a 109 years old, Tel-Aviv has undergone a rapid change in typology of residential
architecture, from the low-rise high-density historic center to a somewhat awkward combination of
conserved buildings with hovering skyscrapers. Yet, the most profound change is found in the way the
ground floor relates to the street. Examining different entrances to residential buildings throughout
the past century, reveals their role as architectural “prologues” or “expositions” to the transforming
narrative of the city. This transformation could be identified in several key stages, in accordance to
the image the city wished to present over the years:</p>
<p class="article-sub">1. Ahuzat Bayit (1909-1921) – front porches of a
garden city</p>
<p>Tel Aviv was first founded as a modern suburban neighborhood in the outskirts of 3000-year-old Jaffa. The
new housing estate was founded by Jewish residents of Jaffa, who first named it Ahuzat Bayit, meaning
“homestead” in Hebrew. Their goal was to establish a Hebrew urban center, in the model of a garden city.
The purchased land was divided into 60 plots, and within a year the first 66 houses were built. Along
the main street all houses had a front yard surrounded by a fence, a porch and 3-4 steps elevated the
houses from the ground, according to European custom.</p>
</div>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AhuzatBayit.jpg" title="via Wikimedia Commons" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/AhuzatBayit.jpg">
<img class=magnifying src="img/magnifying-glass-white1.svg">
</div>
</a>
<div class="imagecredit">Figure#2: Ahuzat Bayit circa 1920 [American Colony Photographers / Public domain]</div>
<div class="article">
<p class="article-sub">2. From riots to commercial bloom (1921-1933) –
coming down to street level</p>
<p>Following the 1920’s riots between the Jewish and Arab populations in Jaffa, Ahuzat Bayit – now named
Tel-Aviv – was further developed as an alternative Jewish financial and commercial center. Little by
little, the ground level of the houses gave way to small businesses. The fences were taken down, and in
some cases even the porches and stairs were dismantled, so the ground floor was lowered to street level.
The relatively small window openings were widened to allow a commercial façade. By the 1930’s the
commercial surge left no corner unused, when the spaces between the houses and even stairways were
filled by kiosks, locksmiths and jewelers.</p>
</div>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ALLENBY_STREET_IN_TEL_AVIV._%D7%A8%D7%97%D7%95%D7%91_%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%A0%D7%91%D7%99_%D7%91%D7%AA%D7%9C_%D7%90%D7%91%D7%99%D7%91.D23-104.jpg"
title="via Wikimedia Commons" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/ALLENBY_STREET_IN_TEL_AVIV._רחוב_אלנבי_בתל_אביב.D23-104.jpg">
<img class=magnifying src="img/magnifying-glass-white1.svg">
</div>
</a>
<div class="imagecredit">Figure#3: Allenby St., Tel-Aviv, 1934 [Zoltan Kluger / Public domain]</div>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PikiWiki_Israel_51165_allenby_st.jpg"
title="via Wikimedia Commons" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/1024px-PikiWiki_Israel_51165_allenby_st.jpg">
<img class=magnifying src="img/magnifying-glass-white.svg">
</div>
</a>
<div class="imagecredit">Figure#4: Allenby St., Tel-Aviv, 1964 [Van Der Poll / Public domain]</div>
<div class="article">
<p class="article-sub">3. Bourgeois Bauhaus (1930’s and 40’s) – first
buildings on columns</p>
<p>During the 1930’s and 40’s there was an immigration wave of Jews who fled Europe to Palestine. After the
closing of the Bauhaus School by the Nazis in 1933, many of its Jewish graduates thus arrived at Tel
Aviv. These unique historical circumstances resulted in the flourishing of the international style which
accommodates most of the urban fabric of central Tel Aviv, named as the “White City”. The urban layout
of the city was planned in the model of a garden city by Patrick Geddes (1927), and over the course of
20 years it was filled by over four thousand buildings in the Bauhaus/International Style, inhabited by
bourgeois residents. Adopting Le-Corbusier’s principals, the ground floor of the white elegant buildings
gave way to slender columns, stylish lobbies and foyers, and groomed gardens.</p>
</div>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Angel_house.jpg" title="via Wikimedia Commons" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/Angel_house.jpg">
<img class=magnifying src="img/magnifying-glass-white1.svg">
</div>
</a>
<div class="imagecredit">Figure#5: Angel House by Arch. Zeev Rechter, Rothschild Blvd., Tel-Aviv, circa 1940
[Itzhak Kalter / Public domain]</div>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PikiWiki_Israel_9983_rabinsky_house_in_tel_aviv.jpg"
title="via Wikimedia Commons" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/1024px-PikiWiki_Israel_9983_rabinsky_house_in_tel_aviv.jpg">
<img class=magnifying src="img/magnifying-glass-white1.svg">
</div>
</a>
<div class="imagecredit">Figure#6: Rabinsky House, Sheinkin St., Tel-Aviv, 2010 [Avishai Ticher / CC BY
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)]</div>
<div class="article">
<p class="article-sub">4. First years of a young country (1950’s and
60’s) – functional housing</p>
<p>Massive immigration following the establishment of the state of Israel, required the rapid erection of
housing projects. Tel Aviv was further expanded according to socialist policy of the young welfare
state, its urban design emphasizing functionalism and zoning. And so, numerous tenements and housing
projects were executed in a repetitive pattern. As the scale of the city changed, along the new main
streets commercial façades were placed under long colonnades.</p>
</div>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:31.03.09_Tel_Aviv_091_Ibn_Gvirol_South.JPG"
title="via Wikimedia Commons" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/1024px-31.03.09_Tel_Aviv_091_Ibn_Gvirol_South.jpg">
<img class=magnifying src="img/magnifying-glass-white1.svg">
</div>
</a>
<div class="imagecredit">Figure#7: Ibn Gavirol St., Tel-Aviv, 2009 [Gellerj / CC BY-SA
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]</div>
<div class="article">
<p class="article-sub">5. The “White City” (2003) – conservation
dilemmas</p>
<p>Over the years the historic core of the city had been neglected, yet the UNESCO declaration of the white
city as a world heritage site (2003) was a game changer. The city and its people identified the
cultural, touristic and financial potential of the white city, thus began a conservation surge of the
historic urban fabric. A municipal conservation plan was approved only in 2008, raising a well disputed
conservation dilemma – which architectural stage is the most important to restore? Should façades be
restored to their original state, or is the story of the city more important than the original
architectural intent? Or in other words – is a locksmith housing an old stairway more relevant to the
city’s narrative than the stairway itself? (See Amnon Bar or, <span style="font-style: italic;">A Time
For Conservation</span>, 2013)</p>
</div>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%9F_%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%95%D7%95%D7%94_%D7%A9%D7%9C_%D7%A9%D7%A2%D7%9F_%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A3.jpg"
title="via Wikimedia Commons" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/1024px-חלון_ראווה_של_שען_וצורף.jpg">
<img class=magnifying src="img/magnifying-glass-white1.svg">
</div>
</a>
<div class="imagecredit">Figure#8: Watchmaker and silversmith shop, Allenby st. Tel Aviv [Yoram Shoval / CC
BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]</div>
<div class="article">
<p class="article-sub">6. Towers in the garden (2000’s)</p>
<p>Another dilemma presented to the city planners and conservers is the change in the socio-economic climate
which manifested in the erection of high-rise buildings within the old garden city. Wishing to maintain
the city center as the Israel’s primary financial district, private entrepreneurs were allowed to erect
sky-scrapers amongst the historic buildings, with the obligation to conserve them and allow spaces on
the street level open for public use. While the outcome is debatable, it has undoubtedly changed the
nature of the ground floor – what was once a neighborly front porch has now become a curtain-wall
entrance to a lavish office lobby.</p>
</div>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%94_%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%98%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%93_22.jpg"
title="via Wikimedia Commons" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/כניסה_רוטשילד_22.jpg">
<img class=magnifying src="img/magnifying-glass-white1.svg">
</div>
</a>
<div class="imagecredit">Figure#9: Rthschild 22 Tower, Tel Aviv [C. Alon / CC BY-SA
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]</div>
<a href="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/frishman.jpg" target="_blank">
<div class="imageinrow">
<img class="imageinrow"
src="img/Academics&Theory/Building-Entrances-as-Cultural-Narratives/frishman.jpg">
<img class=magnifying src="img/magnifying-glass-white.svg">
</div>
</a>
<div class="imagecredit">Figure#10: Tactile Paving for the Blind Leading Where? Bauhaus Tower, Tel Aviv</div>
<br>
<div class="article">
<p>To conclude - Barthes defines the city’s user as “a sort of reader who, according to his obligations and
his movements, samples fragments of the utterance” (Barthes, 1967). This discussion aims to sample a few
fragments of Tel Aviv’s architectural utterance, in order to offer their reading as a cultural
narrative.</p>
</div>
<div class="subtitle">
<p>To be continued...</p>
</div>
</div>
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