UNESCO Designates Tel Aviv as “World Heritage Site”
(July 2003)
UNESCO, the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, has designated
the "White City architecture" of Tel
Aviv as one of 24 new World Heritage Sites. UNESCO now recognizes
754 world sites it describes as being of "outstanding universal
value."
Tel Aviv is one of the few UNESCO recognitions of
a 20th century phenomenon as a world heritage site. "What makes
the designation of Tel Aviv so unprecedented," says Minster of
Tourism, Benny Elon, is that
almost every other UNESCO World Heritage Site is either a natural wonder,
or hundreds or thousands of years old. Designating Tel Aviv is one of
the few UNESCO recognitions of a twentieth century phenomenon - and
it makes us very proud."
Tel Aviv, founded as a garden suburb of the ancient
Mediterranean port of Jaffa in 1909, quickly bloomed into the commercial, entertainment and cultural
capital of the Land of Israel. Today, while Jerusalem is Israel's capital and has the largest population of any single municipality
in Israel, Tel Aviv remains Israel's "New York," heart of
Israel's largest urban conglomeration that is home to almost 3 million
Israelis.
And it is Tel Aviv's uniqueness as home to more Bauhaus or International Style architecture than any city in the world, that
has earned it UNESCO's seal of approval. During the 1920's and 1930's,
as German-Jewish architects at the heart of the Bauhaus movement left Germany for what
was then Palestine, Tel Aviv - literally overnight - adopted their style
as a route to defining the character of the new "Jewish" city
burgeoning on the Mediterranean. By the mid-1930's it was the only city
on earth being built entirely in the International Style - its simple
concrete curves, boxy shapes, small windows set in large walls, glass-brick
towers and sweeping terraces all washed with white. Viewed from the
air, Tel Aviv appeared as a vision of startling white, hence the appellation,
"White City."
"The creation of the city of Tel Aviv is one
of the greatest symbols and successes of the Zionist Movement," Elon observed, "so for UNESCO - a body affiliated
with the organization that once passed an odious resolution equating Zionism with racisim (the resolution was subsequently overturned) - to recognize the specialness
of Tel Aviv, is particularly sweet."
THE "WHITE CITY" TODAY
Almost every Bauhaus or International Style building in Tel Aviv is an architectural landmark
- a delight for visitors, if sometimes a nightmare for owners. Sixty,
70 and 80 years after they were built, many are in disrepair, but the
Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality gives generous subsidies to owners performing
restorations. Hundreds of "White City" buildings have been
restored in recent years, and many are apartment buildings, offices,
private houses, restaurants and hotels. One of the loveliest "White
City" restorations is that of the former Esther movie-theater in
Dizengoff Circle, reborn as the "boutique" Cinema Hotel, that
retains the sweeping staircases, tall windows and curving balconies
of its former identity, plus dozens of architectural and design details
that recall its heritage.
There are four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Israel:
the walls of the Old City
of Jerusalem; Masada;
the Old City of Akko -
and Tel Aviv's "White City."
Sources: Israel
Ministry of Foreign Affairs |