When American Jews think of the Israeli landscape, what come to mind are ancient ruins, contemporary settlement blocs and walls of all sorts. But as I recently discovered on a whirlwind trip, the situation on the ground is far more complex than that. Buildings whose history stretches back to pre-state days are being given a…
Crossposted from Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments I’ve previously written about the centennial of the classical-style Temple Concord in Syracuse, dedicated in September 1911. Another impressive (Greco-Roman) Temple-like synagogue building celebrating its centennial this year is the former Oheb Shalom synagogue in Newark, New Jersey, designed by Jewish architect William Lehman (1874-1951) and dedicated…
Crossposted from Haaretz Director Amos Gitai, one of the best-known figures in the Israeli cinema, is establishing Israel’s first museum of architecture. Slated to open in March of next year in Haifa, in cooperation with the local municipality, it will be housed in the studio where Gitai’s father, Munio Gitai Weinraub, used to work. Gitai…
Crossposted from Haaretz Uri Even-Haim has a thing for abandoned homes. Each week, the fifth-year architecture student at the Bezalel Academy sets off around the capital’s downtown in search of forgotten buildings whose owners have disappeared. “Usually, they are old Jerusalem homes, beautiful buildings with stone arches or unique features,” he said. “Sometimes they hide…
Crossposted from Haaretz Next week, Tel Aviv joins the long list of cities around the world with art museums in contemporary, state-of-the-art buildings. What started with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain in the late 1990s began a mushrooming global trend of investing in the architecture of cultural institutions. Bilbao turned from a sleepy industrial…
Image courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind Rising from the conservative courtyard of the Military History Museum of Dresden, a gleaming metallic wedge heads straight for the wall of the original 1873 Saxon armory building. Without pausing, Daniel Libeskind’s new wing cuts through the 19th-century structure and reaches its soaring vantage point on its far side….
A year after a sensational debut in New York’s Union Square Park last year, the “Sukkah City” idea has made its way westward to St. Louis. The 10 winners of the “Sukkah City STL” design competition were announced October 4, and they are now in the midst of installing their structures on the campus of…
Crossposted from Haaretz On February 27, 1936, the cornerstone was laid for Kiryat Avoda, a new workers’ neighborhood built on the sands south of Tel Aviv. It spread over 3,000 dunams and became an important link in establishing Holon at the start of the 1940s. Kiryat Avoda was supposed to solve the housing shortage for…
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