UNECO-Listed Tel Aviv Bauhaus Building damaged by Iran Missile Explosion
The Iranian rocket strike destroyed an entire apartment building and also devastated the historic building next door, one of the architectural treasures of the White City in Tel Aviv.
“No one can live there right now,” said architect Alon Bin Nun, whose firm handled the apartment building’s restoration more than a decade ago. “All the windows are broken; it’s uninhabitable for the moment.”
Bin Nun said someone sent him a message on Saturday night saying the rocket struck the block on which the building is located.
“These houses were more than concrete and balconies,” wrote Tel Aviv’s Bauhaus Center on Instagram. “They were symbols of survival, modernity, and the rebuilding of life in Tel Aviv – the White City. Their clean lines and simple forms carried a powerful story: architecture as refuge, architecture as hope. We mourn the loss of this cultural heritage and stand committed to preserving the memory and values these buildings embodied.”
The historic building was initially designated for preservation under what’s known as the Lev Ha’Ir, or City Center plan, associated with Tel Aviv’s designation as the White City for its concentration of International Style (Bauhaus) buildings, which earned the city its 2003 designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The building at 123 Yehuda Halevi was initially designed and constructed between 1935 and 1937 in Bauhaus, the architectural style brought to pre-state Israel by German Jewish architects.
It was designed by Technion-trained architects Mordechai Zabrudsky and Yitzhak Belkes (who later changed his family name to Bonneh, “builder” in Hebrew), who partnered together after immigrating to pre-state Israel, from Ukraine and Poland, respectively.