Thearchitecture of Israel has been influenced by the different architectural styles of those who have inhabited the country over time, sometimes modified to suit the local climate and landscape.Byzantine churches,Crusader castles,Islamicmadrasas,Templer houses,Arab arches and minarets,Russian Orthodox onion domes,International Style modernist buildings, sculptural concreteBrutalist architecture, and glass-sided skyscrapers all are part of the architecture ofIsrael.
Ancient regional architecture can be divided into two phases based on building materials—stone and sundried mud brick. Most of the stones used werelimestone.[1]
After the Hellenistic period, hard limestone was used for columns, capitals, bases or also the Herodian enclosure walls of theTemple Mount. In the north of the country,basalt was used for building stone, door sockets, door pivots but also for drainage.Fieldstone were placed randomly or laid in courses as well as for polygonal structures, for example it is found in city walls. Rough-hewn Stones and ashlars were used for more complex structure, and they were extracted from quarries. Huge stones were used since the first century B.C. Stone dressing was primarily done with the chisel and the hammer.[1]
Sundried mud bricks were the most used material until modern times, particularly in the coastal plain and valleys. Structures were roofed withtimber wooden beams covered byreeds andrushes.[1]
InLifta, until the end of the 19th century, traditional housing construction consisted of a single room without partitions, divided into levels in accordance with various functions carried out in the house:
In the second half of the 19th century, a residential story characterized by a cross-vault was added above the traditional house, creating a space between the floor with the livestock in the bottom room and the residential story. A separate entrance was installed in each story.[2]
Fortified houses were built outside the village core and had two stories: a raised ground floor with tiny windows used for raising livestock and storage, and a separate residential floor with large windows and balconies. In the courtyard was a small structure used for storage. Sometimes a tabun baking oven would be located inside it.[2]
The first modern building technology was evident in the farmhouses. Iron beams were used and the roofs were made of concrete and roof tiles. These structures had balconies with a view and wide doorways.[2]
Sensing the political changes taking place in central Europe around the time of the First World War, as well as the stirrings of Zionist ideals about the re-establishment of a homeland for Jews, numerous Jewish architects from around Europe emigrated to Palestine during the first three decades of the 20th century. While much innovative planning occurred during the time ofthe British Mandatory authorities, 1920–1948, in particular the town plan for Tel Aviv in 1925 byPatrick Geddes, it would be architecture designed in the modernist "Bauhaus" style that would fill the plots of that plan; among the architects who emigrated to Palestine at that time, and who went on to establish formidable careers were:Yehuda Magidovitch, Shmuel Mestechkin (1908–2004; specialised in kibbutz architecture),[3] Lucjan Korngold (1897–1963; Poland and Brazil; the Rubinsky House, an earlyLe Corbusier-style building in Tel Aviv, is often misattributed to him),[4][5][6] Jacob (Jacques, Jacov) Ornstein (1886–1953), Salomon Gepstein (1882–1961), Josef Neufeld (1899–1980) and Elsa Gidoni (1899–1978; née Mandelstamm).[7]
Dov Karmi,Zeev Rechter andArieh Sharon were among the leading architects of the early 1950s.[10] Rudolf (Reuven) Trostler played an important role in designing the country's early industrial buildings.[10]Dora Gad designed the interiors of theKnesset, theIsrael Museum, the country's first large hotels, theJewish National and University Library,El Al planes andZim passenger ships.[11]Amnon Niv designedMoshe Aviv Tower, then Israel's tallest building (today it's the second tallest, after the Azrieli Sarona tower).David Resnick was aBrazilian-born Israeli architect who won theIsrael Prize in architecture[12] and theRechter Prize for iconic Jerusalem buildings such as theIsrael Goldstein Synagogue andBrigham Young University onMount Scopus.[13][14]
The architecture of Tel Aviv's movie theaters can be seen as a reflection of Israeli architectural history: The first cinema, the Eden, opened in 1914, was an example of theeclectic style that was in vogue at the time, combining European and Arab traditions. The Mugrabi cinema, designed in 1930, was built inart deco style. In the late 1930s, the Esther, Chen and Allenby theaters were prime examples of theBauhaus style. In the 1950s and 1960s,brutalist style architecture was exemplified by the Tamar cinema built inside the historicSolel Boneh building on Tel Aviv'sAllenby Street.[15]
TheTemplers built homes with tiled roofs like those in the German countryside.[dubious –discuss][citation needed]
Housing built during theBritish Mandate was urban in character, with flat roofs, rectangular doorways and painted floor tiles.[2]
Municipal laws inJerusalem require that all buildings be faced with localJerusalem stone.[16] The ordinance dates back to theBritish Mandate and the governorship ofSir Ronald Storrs[17] and was part of a master plan for the city drawn up in 1918 by SirWilliam McLean, then city engineer ofAlexandria.[18]
Three of the six British town planners of the time wereCharles Robert Ashbee, "the most pro-Arab andanti-Zionist" of them,[19]Clifford Holliday andAusten Harrison, another important Mandate-time town planner being theGerman-Jewish architectRichard Kaufmann.
TheWhite City of Tel Aviv, a collection of over 4,000 buildings from the 1930s built in a locally adapted form of the International Style, has first been named the "White City" in 1984 and has been declared aUNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. Tel Aviv has the highest concentration of international style architecture in the world.[20]
In the 1950s and 1960s, Israel built rows ofconcrete tenements to accommodate the masses of new immigrants living in the temporary tents and tin shacks of themaabarot, some of these were known as "rakevet" or train in Hebrew due to their relative monotony and length.[21] Many of these tenements can be seen today in cities and towns all over Israel.
From 1948, architecture in Israel was dominated by the need to house masses of new immigrants. TheBrutalist concrete style suited Israel's harsh climate and paucity of natural building materials.[22] Today, many such old buildings remain in Israeli cities. Although they are being gradually remodeled as part of theTAMA 38 [he] program which is meant to strengthen old buildings against earthquakes or completely demolished and replaced with more modern housing projects occupying the former site as part of the "pinui binui [he]" (evacuate and build) program, it is expected to take decades before this style of architecture completely disappears from Israel's cities.[23]
As property values have risen,skyscrapers are going up around the country. TheAzrieli Sarona Tower inTel Aviv is the tallest building in Israel to date.[24]
Ephraim Henry Pavie has evolved fromorganic architecture towardsbiomorphism.[25] The Pavie House inNeve Daniel is a rare case of non-geometric,Neo-futuristicblobitecture in Israel.[26]
Tel Aviv has three institutions dedicated to the Bauhaus, or more widely, the International Style: the Bauhaus Center with its own gallery and offering guided city tours (see homepagehere), the smallBauhaus Museum with original interior furnishings, established in 2008,[27] and the Liebling Haus center for urbanism, architecture and conservation (see homepagehere).
The Munio Gitai Weinraub Museum of Architecture opened inHaifa in 2012.[28]
![Mugrabi Cinema [he]/Moghrabi Theatre, archit. Joseph Berlin, 1930 (gutted by fire in 1986, demolished in mid-90s), Tel Aviv](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aMugrabi.jpg)
![The Biomorphic House by Ephraim Henry Pavie [fr], 2007–2014, Neve Daniel](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aBiomorphic_solar_green_house_by_Ephraim-Henry_Pavie.jpg)
