As aforesaid, the International Style was imported
to Israel by architects who studied in the Bauhaus and worked in Europe.
The Bauhaus School was certainly an important source of influence
for the implementation of the principles underlying the new language
in Israel. These principles are clearly reflected in the work of Arieh
Sharon, Shmuel Mestiechkin, and Monio Weinraub Gitai, among the most
prominent Israeli architects who studied in the Bauhaus. Thus, for
example, the balconies in Me'onot Ovdim (workers' housing cooperative)
D (Dalet), E (He) & F (Vav) designed by Arieh Sharon, resemble the
balconies in the Bauhaus students' dormitory wing designed by its
founder, Walter Gropius. The architects who came from Europe in the
early 1930s were not the first to build in the country according to
the principles of modern architecture. They were preceded by architects
such as Erich Mendelsohn, Ze'ev Rechter, Leopold Krakauer, Joseph
Berlin, and Yohanan Retner, who as early as the 1920s constructed
buildings unrestrained by eclectic styles and unfettered by the chains
of the past.
The work of Le Corbusier and Mendelsohn had a tremendous impact on
the formation of International Style architecture in Israel. Le Corbusier
introduced architectural solutions which were suitable to the country's
conditions and possibilities: "The use of reinforced concrete; whitewashed
walls; ventilation through pillars, ventilation shutters and ribbon
windows; design of flat roofs and free floor plans. In the course
of time, these elements became an integral part of Israeli architecture,
and many practitioners never questioned their origin, nor their pervasiveness."
(@@).
Mendelsohn's buildings in Israel are typified by compositions combining
a set of rectangular surfaces with a curved body adapted to different
functions in different buildings: At the Schocken House and Schocken
Library in Jerusalem, the flat clean facades are interrupted by cylindrical
balcony-windows; at the Weitzmann House in Rehovot, Mendelsohn designed
a vertical cylindrical body protruding over the rest of the house,
enveloping a staircase, and in the exterior walls he opened round
ship-like windows; the entrance arcade of the Hadassah University
Medical Center on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem is capped by three domes
whose form was inspired by local Jerusalem building attributes. Mendelsohn's
buildings furnished an important source of inspiration; the incorporation
of rounded bodies, mainly balconies, in rectangular compositions became
a prevalent feature of International Style architecture in Israel.