Bauhaus - the ‘house of building’ or ‘building school’


Bauhaus architecture is what Tel Aviv has become known for. The style emerged from the art and architecture school of the same name which began in Germany in 1919. The Bauhaus School was established in the winds of artistic change that swept the world following the First World War. Bauhaus teaching attempted to address architecture and the arts in radically simplified forms through rationality and functionality and the newly discovered notion of mass production.


Controversial and ground-breaking for its time, it was rejected by many. With the rise of the Nazis, many Jewish students of the Bauhaus emigrated to Mandate Palestine and put into place their expertise in their new home.


Nazi rule finally led to the closure of the Bauhaus school in 1933.


The Bauhaus vision was of functionality - in an attempt to unify art, craft, and technology. The machine was considered a positive element, and therefore industrial and product design were important components. 


This was particularly relevant to the émigrés in pre-state Palestine, many of which used their architecture to contribute to Jewish renewal and the building of a Jewish State. The new approach to architecture fittingly embodied the youthfulness of the Zionist vision. The Bauhaus in their eyes suited the context as it reflected the attempt to build a new society. A society, devoid of traditional European ideals and based on full of equality. The movement promoted the socialist principles aligned with the building the new State. 


The principal elements of the Bauhaus:

  1. ★Raised building – on ‘pilotis’ (columns)

  2. ★Strip windows

  3. ★free façade

  4. ★free internal plan

  5. ★flat roof / roof terrace


The principles of Bauhaus have become the basis of all modern architectural styles and the simplicity and clean lines paved the way for Modernism.


Along with the Ecclectic and “Special Style” the Bauhaus is the primary architectural style featured in the White City of Tel Aviv designated by UNESCO






UNESCO Declaration: The White City


“The White City of Tel Aviv can be seen as an outstanding example in a large scale of the innovative town-planning ideas of the first part of the 20th century. The architecture is a synthetic representation of some of the most significant

trends of modern movement in architecture, as it developed in Europe. The White City is also an outstanding example of the implementation of these trends taking into account local cultural traditions and climatic conditions.


The area of the White City forms its central part, and is based on the urban master plan by Sir Patrick Geddes (1925-27). Tel Aviv is his only large-scale urban realization, not a ‘garden city’, but an urban entity of physical, economic, social and human needs based on environmental approach. He developed such innovative notions as ‘conurbation’ and ‘environment’, and was pioneer in his insight into the nature of city as an organism constantly changing in time and space, as a homogeneous urban and rural evolving landscape. His scientific principles in town planning, based on a new vision of a ‘site’ and ‘region’, influenced urban planning in the 20th century internationally. These are issues that are reflected in his master plan of Tel Aviv.


The buildings were designed by a large number of architects, who had been trained and had practised in various European countries. In their work in Tel Aviv, they represented the plurality of the creative trends of modernism, but they also took into account the local, cultural quality of the site. None of the European or North- Africa realizations exhibit such a synthesis of the modernistic picture nor are they at the same scale. The buildings of Tel Aviv are further enriched by local traditions; the design was adapted to the specific climatic conditions of the site, giving a particular character to the buildings and to the ensemble as a whole.”


Please follow this link for the full UNESCO declaration