Oren Eldar
In the small private archive of the architect Gad (Gûnter) Ascher, former Chief Architect of the Israeli Public Works Department (PWD), lies a reduced-size photo copy of a building. Stored in the basements of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the photo copy is the single architectural document of the dozens of buildings he planned. It depicts a small local Telephone Exchange structure in Haifa, in which the articulation of a repetitive structural beam is the main theme. Beside the plans, a tiny, rapidly-made sketch drawn in black pen, shows the future image of the building. Drawn in a perspectival view and with a low vanishing points, this sketch, produced by the fairly unheard of architect, is reminiscent of the great master architect, Erich Mendlesohn, for whom Ascher worked during Mendelsohn’s tenure in Jerusalem from 1935 to 1939.
This paper asks to take Ascher’s sketch and his relation to Erich Mendelsohn in order to explore the question of influence in architecture. Ascher’s works will be explored in order to investigate whether the heritage of a master architect exists only in his own works, or whether it permeates through the works of his former employees. Beyond exploring the general idea of influence in architectural production, this paper asks to complicate this theme through engaging with the history of the “International style”, an era in which a dogmatic approach created a similar image of architecture, and arguably, sought to universalise style itself.
This inquiry will be demonstrated not only through Ascher’s design in Mendelsohn’s office. Rather, I will explore the dozens of governmental buildings designed by him, such as post offices and telephone exchanges, health facilities, city councils and courts he had planned throughout Israel. Tracing his development as an architect during his study years in Berlin and in Stuttgart, his works in other offices, and the experience he gained while working at the British PWD, this paper will suggest the idea of influence not as a matter of quotation, but rather an inherent aspect of design, through which historical relationship can be traced.
Oren Eldar is an architect, scholar, and lecturer, based in Tel Aviv. He is the curator of “Cloud-to-Ground”, the Israeli Pavilion for the upcoming 18th Venice Biennale of Architecture. The exhibition will focus on the architecture of telecommunication infrastructure in Israel – a subject on which he is currently completing his Master’s thesis as an Azrieli Fellow at Tel Aviv University.
Eldar received his B.Arch from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem in 2011, and had been teaching since theory and history of architecture, as well as studio classes in different schools – Bezalel, the Technion In Haifa, Shenkar College in Tel Aviv and the new Negev School of Architecture in Be’er Sheva.
On the last decade, he has conducted various pieces of research, among them for the “urburb” exhibition, which represented Israel in Venice in 2014 – and published dozens of articles in local and international publications.