Two buildings that are part a UNESCO World Heritage site known as the White City of Tel Aviv were damaged this week during the ongoing missile strikes between Iran and the US and Israel. The Times of Israel first reported on the damage of one of these buildings.
The White City is a complex of 4,000 buildings done in the Bauhaus style that were completed by German Jewish architects who fled to the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1930s. Constructed between the ’30s and the ’50s, the White City is based on a design by Scottish urban planner Patrick Geddes. It was designated a World Heritage site in 2003.
“The buildings were designed by architects who were trained in Europe where they practised their profession before immigrating. They created an outstanding architectural ensemble of the Modern Movement in a new cultural context,” reads the UNESCO description for the White City.
One of the damaged buildings is the Froma Gurvitz house, which is privately owned and was restored about a decade ago, according to the Art Newspaper.
The Bauhaus Center Tel Aviv, which was established in 2000 “to expand public recognition of the ‘White City’ as a unique architectural and cultural site,” according to its site, shared images of the destroyed buildings. In its caption, the Bauhaus Center wrote, “These houses were more than concrete and balconies. They were symbols of survival, modernity, and the rebuilding of life in Tel Aviv – the White City. Their clean lines and simple forms carried a powerful story: architecture as refuge, architecture as hope.”
Earlier this week, Tehran’s Golestan Palace, another UNESCO World Heritage site, was damaged by US-Israeli airstrikes against Iran. The 16th-century palace has been classified as a national monument by Iran since 1930 and was named as a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2013.
Iran’s cultural heritage minister has called the damage an attack on “Iran’s cultural and national identity” and said the ministry would submit a formal report to UNESCO. It is unclear if the buildings’ owners or the Bauhaus Center would also submit a report to UNESCO.
UNESCO has condemned the bombing by the US, Israel, and Iran, which was sparked by the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the US on February 28. The Iranian Red Crescent has said the death toll in Iran is at least 787, according to the New York Times. At least 175 of those deaths occurred at a girls’ elementary school in Tehran, with the majority of the causalities being children. Iranian missile strikes have killed at least 10 people in Israel and six US service men, per the Times.
