At the edge of the Ramat Hadar neighborhood are several large residential buildings, blocks, unusual in the Haifa landscape. The first of them - when you come down from the Carmel - is called block "T" and it is located at 4-24 Leon Blum St.
The French connection
The T building in Ramat Hadar was designed inspired by the French architect Le Corbusier (Le Corbusier), one of the fathers of modern architecture who came up with the idea of the "residential unit" - a huge residential building that includes hundreds of apartments and where the roof is used for various services for the residents' well-being.
Such a residential unit was built in the 50s in Marseille, against the background of the need for public housing and the efforts to rebuild Europe after WWII. The "residential unit" in Marseille consisted of 337 apartments of various types, on 12 floors. On the roof were located a kindergarten, a sports field, a swimming pool and a club. The building raised above the ground rests on a series of large pillars. The facades of the building are designed in blue-yellow-red colors, which break the grayness of the concrete.
Despite its advanced age (over 70 years already!) the building is maintained to a high standard, its original design has been meticulously preserved and its residents are proud to live in a site declared by UNESCO as a "World Heritage Site". Buildings similar to the "residential unit" in Marseille were built in various places in the world, including Warsaw, Katowice, Barcelona and also New Delhi.
The Israel of the 60s, with its great needs in public housing in view of the immigration wave of those years, was fertile ground for planting a building such as the "residential unit" despite the topographical and social differences between the two cultures.
The T building
The building actually consists of two wings, blocks in themselves, connected by a drawbridge that links the mega-structure to Leon Bloom Street. When viewed from above, the two buildings appear to form the shape of the letter T. Between the two buildings that make up the arms of the letter T, there is a certain angle, created in an attempt to allow a kind of drainage between the building and the winding street.
The concrete bridge with a powerful design, connects to an open public floor, which divides the 10 residential floors into two blocks: an upper block of 6 floors and a lower block, of 4 floors, under the bridge. The public floor functions as a private street of the block where services such as a grocery store, a kindergarten, a synagogue are located. The ceiling of the bridge is decorated with colorful engineering shapes that try to add some color to the gray concrete block. The building is raised from the ground, resting on pillars and thus a covered parking lot is created.
The block includes about 200 apartments, open to both facades and therefore having improved natural ventilation. The apartments are designed with functionality and reduction, in the spirit of those years, including balconies on both fronts, facing Leon Blum Street and the Carmel view. Access to each pair of apartments is made from a common staircase.
In general, the facades facing the street have kept their original character, if we ignore the air conditioner units that have been added over the years. On the other hand, the facades facing the open landscape have changed quite a bit due to the uncontrolled intervention of the tenants who gave a personal, colorful decoration for their needs.
Al Mansfeld, Monio Gitai Weinroib- Architects
Munyo Gitai Weinroib (1909-1970) was born in Silesia. He was accepted to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau but did not finish them. In 1933 he immigrated to Israel, settled in Haifa and began to take part in planning settlement points for the labor movement.
Al Mansfeld Born in Saint Petersburg and studied architecture in Paris. Immigrated to Israel in 1936, after winning a competition to design a square in Netanya. Later he settled in Haifa. Al Mansfeld received the Israel Architecture Award for 1966 (together with Dora Gat) for the design of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
In 1937 Al Mansfeld and Monyo Gitai Weinroib established their joint office which operated until 1959. The office dealt with many and varied areas of planning such as schools, cultural buildings, factories, worker housing, kibbutzim and office buildings.
The distinct characteristics of their joint work were formal simplicity, aesthetics derived from the function of the building and the use of simple materials, primarily exposed concrete (beton brut).
In 1951, the partnership won first prize in a competition for the design of government offices in Jerusalem. The buildings designed by the firm include the Hydrological Institute at the Technion, the Great Synagogue in Haifa, apartment buildings, the administration building and the library at Yad Vashem.
The partnership between Al Mesfeld and Monio Gitai Weinroib broke up in 1959 due to serious differences of opinion between the partners on the subject of professional ethics, against the background of Mansfeld's winning the competition to design the Israel Museum (together with Ed. Dora Gad).
A building for conservation?
The series of large blocks erected at the edge of the Ramat Hadar neighborhood is an unusual occurrence in the Haifa construction landscape, both because of their size and because of their inconsiderate position in the sloping topography.
The T building is exceptional in the quality of the planning, which is expressed for example in the idea of the "private street", in the sadness of the facades and the exposure of the apartments to two opposite air directions. Apart from that, it belongs to the global "residential units" family and is also an instructive example of Brutalist architecture in Israel. Due to all these, it is appropriate that the T building be included in the municipal list of buildings for preservation.
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.
It is strange that I never heard the name of the T building while living there for a few years... really
I read the article and as far as I know - what is written here refers to the very special building - Leon Blum 2. Architecture students make a pilgrimage to see the special building that includes apartments like duplexes that Corbusier built in Marseilles, France after the war. What is special about Leon Blum's building 4-24?.
Thank you for your response. Both buildings are from the same family, residential units. For each, unique characteristics from the same source of inspiration. I will consider editing an article on Leon Bloom 2 as well.
I lived in this building from 1965 to 1983. My parents lived in this building until the day they died and their apartment is still in my possession and in the possession of my sister.
It is actually a landscape of my birth that I was happy to live and live in
I would like to know if it is possible to purchase the illustration of the building
Thank you for your response. You can get a 50/50 print of the illustration on canvas (300 &) or on poster paper (250 NIS),
I live there and I must point out that apart from the problem that the elevator only reaches the 1st floor and not the ground floor, most of the problems are handled adequately by the committee and the maintenance man. There is a clerk every day who is attentive to problems and the care in general is satisfactory. The building is neat and clean with gates and reasonable possession. One problem is the school across the street that some students think is a public building and come to sit in the public corridor in front of the grocery store. Overall it's quiet and the people are nice. Large and small apartments.
Thank you for your response. Your positive opinion is important to be heard, against all visitors to the building. Good week!
Am I the only one who thinks all my life that these buildings are aesthetically awful? Don't you build like that on the side of a mountain?
Thank you for your response. You are definitely in good company. Good week!
This is exactly the reason why young people leave Haifa. Buildings like Leon Blum 2 have no right to exist in the spirit of 2024, instead of promoting a modern and up-to-date city you "preserve" ancient buildings and make the city remain gray.
Thank you for your response. This is not the reason for the young people leaving Haifa. In Tel Aviv they discovered a long time ago that it pays to preserve buildings and the young people actually look for apartments in such buildings. Good week!
David Bar On
Can you please write an article about the copper houses in Haifa
Thanks for your response, I don't know, please send details by email.
I was born and grew up in Leon Blum 2, a building that has a twin in Germany, a building with apartments, most of them with 3 levels and dozens of staircases that strengthen the building. The article is about the building below it, they demolished it with tiny apartments and there is no hint of the letter T in any shape of the building... I would appreciate the writer's response who did not even mention that the building was hit by a missile....
Thank you for your response. The honor of Leon Bloom 2 is placed in his place and a special article is also given to him. Good week!
I grew up there too
I also got to see the twin building in Berlin
ugly building Got an award lol for taking a lovely idea and screwing it up. An elevator does not reach the parking lot. There are also stairs. There are no surrounding areas of a garden in the export of a typical Israeli job. And he received an award for it
There are such buildings, I think 3 buildings,
On Ben Ami Street in Kiryat Ata.
To save elevators were built on a slope
4 floors above the road and 4 floors below the road.
I would appreciate it if you could write an article about the Spanish nursing home in Haifa
If I'm not mistaken, the building that imitates Le Corbusier's concept is actually the building next door that was designed by Ader. Prof. Shlomo Gilad. In the Rehovot building along the building on every second floor, which are used for entrances to two-level apartments. The entire width of the floor.
If you want to say a decision, these are the houses on Leon Blum Street. These are matchboxes or shoes. You made me laugh with the UNESCO heritage site. You are probably locked on boxes and cartons
As of the days they were built, they were residential "palaces" and nothing less than that.
In this particular building, all the 3 and a half room apartments are huge around 86-85 meters, these are huge apartments compared to the 2 room 64 meter apartments in the train housing in the Kiryat Eliezer neighborhood, for example, which were built in the previous decade to the construction of this building, certainly in comparison to the one room apartments in which entire families of immigrants from the migrations lived in the years These are in splendor in the streets around Talpiot Market
מה לעשות?
Corbusier but ugly..
You are delusional to dismantle and build an adequate structure, what design is this about, what kind of bridges are a nightmare to live under, these are white elephants that you can't stand just seeing the plumbing pipes on the side and living under the entrance floor is delusional, how do you allow an article like this to go up a building for preservation???!!! The municipality does not have the ability to just supervise the demolition, so they blew up a building for preservation!! Shame of an article, what design value do such monsters have??
The buildings are really, really not unusual in Haifa (except for those who live in Carmel and consider the neighborhood to be the city of Haifa in itself), there are copies like this in Israel in Hillel-Silver, Bertner,
Also there are scary train buildings in all the coastal neighborhoods.
This building in particular is well preserved because of good maintenance and because of the excellent climate and location (those who had the opportunity to live in these apartments will surely remember that even in the summer there are natural gusts of wind and there is almost no need for air conditioning) compared to similar buildings in the coastal neighborhoods which, due to the proximity to the sea and the humidity, tend to crack and damage all the time.
By the way, the name Resco was not mentioned in the article and this is another pillar of good and successful construction in those days, so you can praise them.
I was a partner in planning this structure as well as Leon Bloom 2
Thank you for your response. Can you expand? Good week!
Fascinating.
It would have been appropriate to refer to his Brutalist period in another cluster that has been kept accurate despite the addition of elevators and balconies. Take a look at Stephan Weiss in French Carmel...real quality...a fascinating building. High-quality bridges with beautiful spaces... and real Le Corbusier windows including mini-balconies... worth an article....
Thank you very much for your response. Please provide the exact address of the building you are offering. Shabbat Shalom!
The t building is the second building from the series of the big ones in Leon Bloom, there is Leon Bloom 2 designed by Shlomo Gilad and Daniel Havkin
Thank you very much for your response, I will positively consider writing about Leon Bloom 2 as well. Shabbat Shalom!
These buildings are not the first to mention Le Corbusier. See the interior design in Leon 2 in Mefalis and compare it to a residential neighborhood
Thanks for your comment, we may write about it as well. Good week!
Thanks for your response, the error has been corrected. Shabbat Shalom!
The name of the architect is Dora Gad
and not as written (twice)