Till We Have Built Jerusalem

 

 Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City

by Adina Hoffman

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-374-28910-2

(Amazon)

First read by the author in 2016, reread 2023

Received as present from Marian Stoltz-Loike, who purchased it at Crawford Doyle Booksellers

'Then said I to them, "You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, so that we no longer suffer insult."' (Nehemia 2:17) 

לכו ונבנה את חומת ירושלם ולא נהיה עוד חרפה

There is an interesting tension that comes with being an immigrant to Israel, especially if you arrive as a professional. On the one hand, many olim have a sense that their education from abroad is superior to the education received by the locals. Professional practices abroad are often seen as more proper than the local customs. So on the one hand, there is a sense that one has what to contribute. Nehemia, a recent immigrant from Babel, certainly felt that way, and so have many architects who have come from abroad to practice in Israel. On the other hand, there is a sense that a foreigner lacks insight into local building practices, vernacular architecture, and a realistic sense of how to get things done in the new land. There is validity to this as well. 

Adina Hoffman's book, Till We Have Built Jerusalem, is one of the best-written accounts of architecture in Israel I have come across. Architects are notoriously poor writers, so perhaps this isn't saying much, but the story telling and level of information in this book makes it a joy and an education to read. 

The book tells the story of three architects in Jerusalem: Erich Mendelsohn, the famous German modernist; Austen St. Barbe Harrison, a British civil servant during the Mandate; and Spyro Houris, an Egyptian architect. All three come to Palestine in the first half of the 20th century and establish practices. Each establishes a network of clients and supporters, allowing them to leave a mark on the city. Each also faces some challenges as an outsider. 

Mendelsohn, the most famous of the trio, fled Germany and arrived in Palestine by way of England. I studied his work as a student in Bezalel, the local Jerusalem architecture school. We went to the Schocken House, to the Anglo-Palestine bank, and to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, so I am certainly familiar with his work. Even so, the biographical tale was filled with new information and new perspectives on his projects. Mendelsohn vacillated between a deep commitment and spiritual understanding of the building of Jerusalem, and a depressed indifference. In one scene, Hoffman describes how they would hold parties at their house and end up going to the construction site of Hadassah hospital, where they watched the sun rise. It reminds me of when I took my future wife on a date and walked her through the Mamilla project I was helping design. 

Harrison had a different story. He was a temporary transplant, with little connection to the city. Still, he had much to contribute and ended up designing two of the most famous and most successful buildings of the Mandate period - the Rockefeller Museum and the British High Commissioner's Headquarters - what is now called Armon Hanatziv. He too came with great knowledge, but faced a learning curve. Hoffman writes "He was learning about the intricacies of building in Palestine the cold and wet way. The first rains had begun to fall, and everyone was scrambling to mend their roofs." In many ways I feel like Harrison had my dream job - building in Jerusalem, overseeing archaeological projects, designing the mandate currency. 

The book tries to tell the tale of a specific period in time when a multicultural Jerusalem seemed possible, and describes the death of this period. It's hard to be sure that such a period ever truly existed. For example, the author tells of competing hotels - the Palace Hotel and the King David, neighboring buildings downtown near what today is called King David Street. The Palace Hotel had a few lines from a seventh century poem written over the door - "We will build as our ancestors built and act as they acted." The architecture itself is described as part of the competition, al-Aqsa Mosque [the Palace Hotel] vs. Solomon's Temple [the King David Hotel.] 

The third section, about Houris, is the least architectural. It tells the story of a mysterious figure, or at least the author's research of this figure. Having done several semesters of work on historical preservation in Jerusalem, I was familiar with Houris, but only barely. I also recognize the type of archival work Hoffman did, having spent months researching an obscure building in Katamon. (See another of my blogs about Rachel Imenu 28.) The story here is a low-stakes mystery that in only partially resolved, as is often the case with this kind of research. Interestingly, while Hoffman deals with the tension of being a foreigner in the cases of Mendelsohn and Harrison, she does not ask the same questions with regard to Houris. 

The book is a great read. I have three - let's called them quibbles - about the book. From macro to micro: 

1) I don't think the book has a single architectural drawing in it. How can you talk about a building's architecture without a plan? It's a bizarre choice. Luckily, the book pairs rather nicely with a sublimely illustrated book on pre-State architecture, Ada Karmi-Melamede's Architecture in Palestine During the British Mandate, 1917-1948, which was illustrated by an extremely talented colleague of mine, A.A. Here is a spread, for example, showing Armon Hanatziv: 

There are fourteen pages of gorgeous photos, informative diagrams and exploded axonometrics just of this one building. The book treats the Schocken House and the Rockefeller Museum as well, and includes photos of several other Mendelsohn projects. 

2) While the book makes valid points about race relations in Jerusalem, at times it does not feel even-handed. While the author waxes poetically (rightfully so) on the absurdity that is the Tolerance Museum, which was built on the site of the Mamilla cemetery, the author has nothing to say on the matter regarding the Palace Hotel, which was built on the same cemetery. Yes, the hotel was originally an Arab project, and doesn't claim it promotes tolerance, but still. 

3) The author, like so many Israeli academics, has a deep hatred for Moshe Safdie. This is sadly no longer surprising to me, yet still bizarre. No other architect mentioned in the book receives any type of censure. I suppose this might be the reverse effect of what happens with the three architects in the book - leaving Israel to study architecture abroad and making it big. But really, I've never understood this.