Adaptation To Local Climate
However, the architecture had to be adapted to suit the extremes of the Mediterranean and desert climate. White and light colors reflected the heat. Walls not only provided privacy but protected against the sun. Large areas of glass that let in the light, a key element of the Bauhaus style in Europe, were replaced with small recessed windows that limited the heat and glare. Long narrow balconies, each shaded by the balcony above it, allowed residents to catch the breeze blowing in from the sea to the west. Slanted roofs were replaced with flat ones, providing a common area where residents could socialize in the cool of the evening.
Buildings were raised on pillars (pilotis), the first being the 1933 Engel House designed by Zeev Rechter. These allow the wind to blow under and cool the apartments, as well as providing a play area for children. In 1935, at the office building Beit Hadar, steel frame structure was introduced, a technique which facilitates opening the first floor for such purposes.
The style of architecture and construction methods used in the hundreds of new buildings came to define the character of the modern city. Most of the buildings were of concrete, reinforced concrete was often applied from 1912 on, and in the summer were unbearably hot despite their innovative design features. Tel Aviv’s residents took to the streets in the evenings, frequenting the numerous small parks between the buildings and the growing number of coffee shops, where they could enjoy the evening air. This tradition continues in the café society, and nightlife of the city today.
The apartment blocks provided a variety of services such as childcare, postal services, store, and laundry within the buildings themselves. Additionally, having a connection to the land was viewed as extremely important, so residents were encouraged to grow their own vegetables on an allotment of land set aside next to or behind the building. This created a sense of community for the residents, who were in the main, displaced people from differing cultures and origins.
Read more about this topic: White City (Tel Aviv)
Famous quotes containing the words adaptation to, adaptation, local and/or climate:
“The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“These native villages are as unchanging as the woman in one of their stories. When she was called before a local justice he asked her age. “I have 45 years.” “But,” said the justice, “you were forty-five when you appeared before me two years ago.” “Señor Judge,” she replied proudly, drawing herself to her full height, “I am not of those who are one thing today and another tomorrow!””
—State of New Mexico, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and anywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim to all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice. The influence of climate upon the bodily functions ... extends so far, that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)