Saturday, December 6, 2008

Friday, December 5, 2008

Terra Sancta




Planned by the Italian architect Antonio Berluzzi. Constructed between 1924-1927.

Prince Umberto, later King of Italy, came to Jerusalem in 1928 to dedicate the statue poised on the roof - the haloed Madonina, patron saint of Milano.

When the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus became inaccessible in 1948, the university rented part of the Terra Sancta building from the Franciscan custodians of the Latin Holy Places and set up a number of its departments in it. It was not until 1997 that the last university department, Climatology, left Terra Sancta.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The Jewish Agency for Israel

To tell the truth, I would never have thought this was a Bauhaus-style building. But here it goes:


The many architects who were influenced by the Bauhaus style projected the fundamental concept of Walter Gropius, the director of the Bauhaus school, that Bauhaus was not a dictation in style, but rather an inspiration for the designer. However, although expressing Bauhaus ideas, the movements' architects in Palestine always integrated stylistic details derived from the surroundings in which they worked. A good example is Yohanan Ratner's Jewish Agency building of 1927. Ratner employed Middle Eastern elements, such as central courtyards, arched entrances, and glacis-type walls suggested by the outer walls of the "tower of David"citadel.


I suppose it is...

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Bauhaus style house on Keren Hayessod Street


Several of the students in the Bauhaus department for architecture, which opened in 1926, became some of the most active architects in Palestine... Although very few buildings in Jerusalem were built in the pure Bauhaus style, many show its influence...