The White City of Bauhäuser

A world heritage site by UNESCO, Tel Aviv boasts over 4,000 Bauhaus buildings, which originated in pre-WWII Germany and make no distinction of form and function. One of the best examples is supposed to be 34 Frug Street in the city center. Pretty illiterate about architecture, I think I can appreciate its function, but its minimalistic match-box form is quite plain and unremarkable.




Its rectangular balconies may have maximized the usable area, but the edginess and stiffness in form bring on tension and stress. The ornamental gap, a nice addition, seems to serve no functional purpose. The dimensionally matching overhang looks like a sharp blade cutting abruptly into a vanilla cake, which seems to help further psychological strain. The size of the windows may suffice for lighting and ventilation, but enlarged windows, while enhancing the functionality, might help reduce greatly the surface tension of the blandness of the flat white exterior wall. Often found in luxury condominiums, the roof awning supported by a colonnade does produce a much needed spatial relief from solid planes, but, judged from the street, its practical purpose eludes me. So an amateur’s opinion, I think the distinction of form and function at 34 Frug Street is quite clear, and they do not seem to complement each other quite well. But again, the days I spent in studying architecture is zero. So for the moment, I will pretend to agree with UNESCO.

A few more examples of Bauhaus structures around Dizengoff Square are stored in my unwilling camera.