In the corner of the streets of Shibat Zion and the Defenders, in the lower part of the city, stands a tall residential building in the international style, which dominates the intersection, a Haifa architectural gem created by a collaboration between an Arab entrepreneur and Jewish architects.
Slim Bey Slim House
It is a 4-story residential building above a commercial ground floor that was designed in 1939 by the firm of architects Binyamin Oral and Ezekiel Zahar at the request of a wealthy Lebanese entrepreneur, Salim Bei Salam.
The building includes 2 stairwells with a narrow and tall window known as the "thermometer window" because of its resemblance to the well-known accessory for measuring heat. Also, the building is equipped with an elevator which was one of the first in the city of Haifa. The shape of the corner lot, at the corner of Shivet Zion and Maginin streets, dictated the building's symmetrical shape.
The building has characteristics of the international style, such as: window strips to emphasize the horizontal lines of the building and rounded peripheral balconies highlighted by a horizontal concrete cornice. By a simple finish like the white plaster, and the Arab entrepreneurs who wanted to preserve the tradition of building in stone.
Slim by Slam
The Salam family is a very stable Lebanese Sunni family that distinguished itself in politics, education and philanthropy in the land of cedars. Salim Bey, one of the heads of the family, is very involved in Lebanese politics, serving as the mayor of Beirut, among other things. At that time, he decided to invest in real estate in Haifa with the understanding that it was a city with high economic potential, being the most important city in the area during the British Mandate. Therefore, he expected that his investment in real estate in Haifa would yield a high return.
The architects of the building
Benjamin Oral, born in Lithuania, immigrated to Israel in 1907. After graduating from Bezalel, he went to Europe to study architecture. Being without financial means, he had to work for a living as a draftsman in architectural offices in Paris and Berlin, instead of completing his studies. Upon his return to Israel, Binyamin Oral established a planning office in partnership with the civil engineer Yehezkel Zohar.
Oral was known as "the architect without a diploma" because he was unable to complete the studies for the desired degree in Europe.
We have no personal information about his partner, the engineer Yehezkel Zohar. We would like to thank in advance any reader who can add information about it.
Oral and Zahar's office operated between 1926 and 1942 and during these years the two were involved in the design of dozens of buildings, mainly in Haifa, but also throughout the Mandatory Israel. Among the buildings designed by them are: the electric station in Naharim, the Electric Company building in Haifa, the Rosenfeld House in Bat Galim, the Bornstein House on Arlozorov Street and many others.
Building preservation
The building was declared a "building for preservation" in 1991 by the Haifa municipality. However, the multitude of air conditioners installed on the facades of the building and the types of windows and signs of the shops on the ground floor obscure the uniqueness of the building and today make it difficult to get an impression of its original beauty.
My thanks are hereby given to the architect Walid Karabi, former head of the preservation department of the municipality of Haifa, for providing important information for the completion of this article.
Dear readers,
The articles in this section are based on open information published in sources such as Wikipedia and other websites and may include various historical inaccuracies arising from the aforementioned sources.
The building is called the "Attacks" house after the Attacks family who lived there. Their son was the first captured Israeli pilot in Syria who was captured in the early 1950s. The sign posted there disappeared in the 1960s-1970s. (a brown-metallic sign which commanded great respect).
Thanks so much for your response. In summary, the building was known both by the name of the developer and by the name of the Atax pilot. good week!
Preserve, demolish and maintain the beauty of this building and other buildings.
Thank you too for the response.
The article may not have wanted to, but the title dictated it to be political.
Taking responsibility is not in fashion these days...it's probably easier to cancel the review.
Happy holiday.
To Doby
The article deals with the architectural side, not the political side.
thank you for your response.
To Ruth Blumenfeld, architect
Thanks for the interesting information.
To Naftali
The story about Atax is very interesting, thanks for your comment.
To Yosef
Thanks for your comment, very interesting information.
to Lily
Nice story, interesting name roll. thank you for your response.
To Eli Rubinstein
thank you for your response.
to Eyal
An interesting utopian vision…
thank you for your response.
to Hanan
do not exaggerate!…
thank you for your response.
to P.A
thank you for your response. It is possible that it is another family member, because it was a large family involved in Lebanese politics.
The correct name is Saab Salim Salam, a Lebanese businessman and prime minister between 1960 and 1970, he was also the foreign minister, born in Lebanon in 1905 and died in 2000
Indeed a unique and interesting building that cannot be ignored. Thanks for the article.
Thank you for your response, Happy Holidays!
The whole city stopped in 1939
Thank you for your response, Happy Holidays!
What does it matter what was, another ugly building in an aging city, what matters is what will be, because if there is no future the past is worth nothing.
The future is that Maginim Vepal-Yam Boulevard will be closed to vehicle traffic. They will only be driven by metros and buses on public transport routes, and bicycle routes.
Instead of traffic jams, there will be restaurants along them, rows of well-kept and decorated trees for the holidays and they will once again become sought-after streets for hotels, apartments and businesses that will want the peace and aesthetics of a real urban center.
Until then - Haifa avoids the future and is immersed in "solutions for traffic jams, maybe another parking lot?" which fit the outdated thinking from the 70s of failed transportation engineers who graduated from the Faculty of Urban Destruction at the Technion, also known as the "Faculty of Civil Engineering".
As long as they control the way Haifa is developed, you will get ruin and an aging city that is emptied and exhausted.
Thanks for the interesting story. I recognized the building immediately and always thought it had seen better days. The address of the building is according to the names of the streets today and maybe it makes sense to mention their names then. The one up the mountain is, as far as I know, Stanton but I don't know what the name of the defenders street was then
Shabbat Shalom,
The building you call: Beit Slim Bey, and I completely trust your information, but I've known it all my life as: Beit Atex... I remember when I was a child I was told it was called a pilot..
And I'm only 75 years old from Haifa..
The state place was located on the commercial ground floor of the shop of Mr. Ateks who was friends with my late father. The son of Mr. Ateks was a pilot, who to the best of my memory was captured by the Egyptians in the Sinai War - and returned from captivity after the war.
I also remember that in Benin there was a large basement floor where the GA (or the Municipality of Haifa) lived during the standby period before the Six Day War.
On the ground floor, there was a large business for the sale of radios owned by the Atax family.
The son of the store owner, Jonathan Etx, was a fighter pilot (on a "Mustang" plane with a piston engine) in the Sinai operation in 1956, his plane crashed in Sinai and he was captured by the Egyptians.
He was the only Israeli prisoner in Egypt in front of over 5000 Egyptian prisoners in Israel.
When the pilot Yonatan Attax Jr. returned from the Egyptian captivity, it became clear that the Egyptians had tortured him very badly, causing him to become disabled.
The injured pilot and his father went to the United States to find a cure. Later Yonatan Atax recovered and even fulfilled his dream of flying jet planes in the Air Force.
Like many places in Haifa - a place with tremendous potential that went to waste.
Opposite, you should write an article about the villa, which was used as a hotel and stands desolate next to a car dealers' lot.
The gentleman mentioned in the article stayed at the hotel in this villa. Go explore!
On the building in Shivet Zion 1 is an amazing metal relief by the artist Gershon Knispel commemorating the liberation of Haifa in 1948. The fighters of the Carmeli Brigade broke out from this place in the lower city. The second axis of the break-in was from the Nahal HaGivoriv bridge. The operation was called by the code name: "Scissors" because of the division of the city into 2.
Indeed a mythological structure in the city landscape.
It seems that they tried in the article and the title to paint the subject of cooperation as an exaggerated coexistence and not as it is: normal supply and demand of entrepreneurs and professionals who were around in those days.
In professional eyes, the structure and its construction must be unique and creative because it is corner.
In the eyes of the observer today, this whole environment looks gloomy, such that even in a car you want to look for detours so as not to pass there and it feels that the glory of the building and the area belong to its first years when the immigrants of that time lived in and around it (probably) and it was also less busy.
All the best to you my friend Dr. David Bar On
Happy holiday
Every week I look forward to your articles and cartoons
Dan Ordan
Thank you very much for your comment, a good reason to keep writing.
The building is charming, and in very poor condition. It is possible that they even wanted to expand it towards the east, but an economic crisis in the 2nd World War prevented this, like other buildings on Independence Road that were supposedly 'cut' in the middle.
The buildings in the lower city, in a commercial area, are built on the Zero Building Line. On Independence Road according to Holiday's construction plan and in other areas like here, simply on the zero line. The adjacent lot is owned by others. Stolen from its owner and passed on to others.
thank you for your response.