Young Tel Aviv's nod to Le Corbusier
92-year-old architect of the Doctors' House recalls his 1952 breakthrough project, which may face demolition.
By Keshet Rosenblum. Dec.06, 2012
Architect Moshe Kaufman, 92, still remembers the day in 1952 when he found out he had won the competition for planning the Doctors' House in Tel Aviv. He pulls an envelope out of a tidy folder. Inside is a note hastily scribbled in ink: "Moshe, mazel tov! You won the Doctors' House competition." The envelope was waiting for him outside his door. "It was so exciting," he says softly. It was the first time he had won a competition and was granted the opportunity to plan a building.
The competition was supposed to choose the architect who would design a public, scientific-professional center for doctors in Tel Aviv and its environs. The initiative, which came from the Israel Medical Association, was decided on when the need arose to unite the various medical workers' unions spread throughout the city. On the plot that was chosen, about half an acre near the Kirya district, the IMA invited architects to propose a building that would house the facilities of the doctors' training institute, including offices, overnight accommodation for guest doctors, a professional multilingual library, study rooms and a lecture hall. Kaufman's winning proposal included a rectangular building three stories high, bordered on its west side by two wings of the same height that together would form the shape of a "C".
The north wing was to house a library "named after all kinds of big donors," continues Kaufman, with high walls and floor-to-ceiling windows. A row of covered pillars was to comprise the plot's fourth side, and in the resulting patio an open garden was planned for the doctors' use. The shady, cool garden was to serve as a secondary entrance to the building as the doctors' club was located next to it. The upper stories of the main building included the auditorium, intended for lectures and conferences; the rest of the space was to house offices. The hall's graded incline was reflected in the ceiling of the lobby located beneath it, so that the entrance hall enjoyed a unique top. The building's main facade, located today near the National Lottery House and facing the Bikurei Ha'itim municipal performance hall, is narrow and respectable, with a wide entrance covered by a concrete ledge.
Budget woes
Although at first the IMA hoped to collect funds from donors abroad to finance the plan in its entirety, reality dictated a lower budget, and it was therefore decided to forgo the side wings and make do with the main building only. The architect took the news of the cutback in stride, and energetically began planning the building anew. The doctors were obliged to give up some of the building's functions; the club and offices were reduced in space and moved to the basement floor. The deletion of the side wings meant that additional staircases would also be erased, so that the entire building is served by only one staircase - which would eventually limit the number of people who can occupy the lecture hall at one time, due to safety regulations. Ultimately, the entire western part of the plot was left empty; at first the area was an open garden, though that was quickly paved over and today it serves as a parking lot.
Nevertheless, winning the competition launched the career of the young architect Moshe Kaufman. Seven years earlier he had completed his studies at the Technion, and now, after gaining the Doctors' House contract, he opened his own firm. Earlier, after completing his studies, he had worked for two years in the firm of the renowned architect Dov Karmi. "Karmi profoundly influenced my approach to projects," says Kaufman. "Later we were all influenced by Le Corbusier. What can you do, that was the atmosphere at the time," he laughs. "The emphasis in planning was not to think only about what I see today, but also about how the building would look decades from now. Le Corbusier wanted to be ahead of his time and build high. That influenced an entire generation. Many architects tried to imitate him, and many failed."
In 1948, with the outbreak of the War of Independence, Kaufman, not yet 30 years old, found himself in a surprising position of power. "During the war, architect Arieh Sharon was appointed to develop the government planning department, and then, as part of the Prime Minister's Office, he was given a permit to demobilize architects. That was in the last stages of the war. Thanks to the permit I was demobilized early and immediately entered the planning department, where I was appointed head of the Far Negev division."
What was then called the "Far Negev" included the realms of the unknown country spread out south of Be'er Sheva, including the village of Umm al-Rashrash which served as a military outpost after the war, alongside which the department, headed by Kaufman, planned the city of Eilat.
After returning to Tel Aviv and opening an office there, Kaufman approached the workers' housing company of the Histadrut Labor Federation, which initiated the construction of new neighborhoods and supplied much work to architects. The large company was unimpressed by his small firm. "I told them I wanted to plan for them, and they said, 'What? We work with big offices like Perlstein and Sharon, who's even heard of you?'" To which the ambitious architect replied, "And when will you give young architects a chance to show they're worth something?" His insistence paid off, as he recalls: "After a year I had more work than [Yitzhak] Perlstein."
'Work was joyful'
His firm, located on Moshe Sharett Street in Tel Aviv, employed about 10 architects and draftsmen. "The work was joyful, exciting." Kaufman estimates that over the years the firm designed some 300 to 400 projects, including the Kiryat Ono water tower, the Netanya central bus station and the Margoa Hotel in Arad. "Not all the buildings were large, there were some small projects, for example about ten villas in Savyon," he says offhandedly.
After 33 years, with the death of his first wife, he closed the firm and since then has devoted himself to painting and drawing. The Doctors' House continues to serve its original purpose; on its north side an adjacent wing has been added with a separate entrance, housing various offices. Yet on a visit Kaufman made there about a year and a half ago, he was sorry to hear from the tenants that in the near future they will probably have to evacuate the building. That is because of a new city planning program being promoted at the municipality for the "Leonardo Compound," a central area in the city occupying the space between Heftman, Leonardo da Vinci, Kaplan and Laskov streets.
According to the municipality, the program "has not yet been discussed in the local committee and the use of the area and the cited buildings have not yet been determined." But according to what is now known, as part of the program some of the buildings in the compound are to be demolished, including the Doctors' House and the Bnai Brith House, while other structures are to undergo significant additions. "I imagine that I will be very sorry if the Doctors' House is demolished," says Kaufman. "Its design at the time, as they say today, gave me wings."
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario