Bauhaus Tel Aviv

In the 1930s the International Style was introduced into what was then Palestine by young immigrant architects, many of whom had trained at the Bauhaus and were escaping, with their families, from Nazism. The best-known was a late arrival, Erich Mendelsohn, who was working prolifically in Tel Aviv in the 1940s. Their fresh approach was swiftly accepted, displacing the orientalising, art-nouveau-influenced styles that had previously been attempted. The ideals of modernity found ready acceptance and the desire to build a new society, not influenced by older European traditions, caught on -- many thousands of Bauhaus-inspired designs were built in both Jewish and Arab cities. Tel Aviv was planned by Patrick Geddes as a 'Garden City'. This proved a particularly fertile context for the new designs using simple geometry, sitting on small, regular parcels of land. The buildings used reinforced concrete or simple plastered block construction and had open plans, roofs that provided liveable space, free elevations and strip windows. This guide provides an illustrated gazeteer to around one hundred of the best surviving Bauhaus buildings in the city, a collection that comprises one of the most developed examples of the modernist project.