Haneviyim

The Architects: Avraham Berger and Yitzhak Mendelbaum.
Conservation architect: Nitza Szmuk.

Future Plans: the building was purchased by White City Buildings in partnership with Interim Israel Ltd in an effort to upgrade its value by re-planning the building spaces and preserving it in accordance with its original details. White City Buildings employs architects specializing in building restoration, documentation and restoration of the building’s original details and in preparing the building plans, enabling modern apartment design along with preserving and emphasizing the building details and its architectural value. Future plans include residential apartments and adding an additional floor on the roof. White City Buildings is planning to begin work during 2007.

The story of a building: this building located on the corner of Haneviyim and Shimshon Streets is one of a series of buildings designed during the late 1930s. The buildings are characterized by the immense play of light and shade caused by the variety of balcony sizes and shapes, the canopies and the projection and recession of building elements, all making this building very unique in the urban scenery. The architectural nomenclature the architects used is very distinct and solid and repeats itself throughout the building, making this building noticeable among its neighbor buildings. The repeated elements characterizing the building include a round street corner, a marked vertical stairway window with its rectangular arrangement of windowpanes around a central square pane, all influenced by the Art Deco style (such as the window in the building located on the corner of Hermann Cohen and Frishman Streets), the horizontal emphasis in the center of the building, except for the vertical stairway element, and the vertical emphasis on the edges created by using round or rectangular balconies which create a vertical line well anchoring the building to the ground. Moreover, the use of rounded balconies, a feature influenced by Erich Mendelsohn, the use of rough stucco and qualitative finish materials in the stairway and apartments in comparison with other buildings in the city built during that period. The woodworking details in the building are also not common of the standard of the period. When designing the apartments, special attention was made to details, especially to the proper amount of natural light entering the interior spaces which was achieved by using upper windows above the doors so light can enter the corridors, an uncommon detail during the 1930s.