Eclectic

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I lost my cell phone today. It fell out of my pocket when I was jumping out of a taxi. It had hundreds of numbers on it and I had no back up. I have not had a good day. Posting some photos of 'eclectic style' buildings from the 1910 and 20's will help soothe frazzled nerves.


This crowd of yellow hard-hats was shot by Jacky from our front room. They're students of conservation from Tel Aviv University taking a tour of the neighbourhood with their lecturer Amnon Bar Or (hi Amnon) who is also the conservation architect of the soon-to-be-renovated-we-hope building (Yehuda Halevi 6)

This is part of what writer and translator Hillel Hankin had to say about Tel Aviv's eclectic style in a recent issue of Commentary magazine (thanks to Fay for passing it on) :

" Best described as a kind of Levantine Victorianism, in which turrets, domes, porticoes, and other flamboyant elements from a variety of architectural idioms were deployed with naive exuberance, this style has a willful playfulness, as if the first Hebrew City had allowed its builders to indulge, within their limited means, in the fantasies that life in European environments planned and built by others had prevented Jews from acting out..."

Here are a few more examples:

Ahad Ha-Am street 22, originally the home of the Litviniski family and the seat of the 'Barkai' Freemason lodge. Temporarily deserted.




The house and lion in 'simtat almoni' (Anonymous Alley) off King George Street.


'Beit ha-amudim' 'House of the Columns' (Columnade?) on Nahlat Binyamin.




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