Huberman Architecture

  • Issue: April 1990
  • Designer: A. Vanooijen
  • Stamp size: 25.7 x 30.8 mm
  • Plate no.: 99
  • Sheet of 50 stamps Tabs: 10
  • Printers: Government Printers
  • Method of printing: Photogravure

The return to Zion (Israel), a country uninhabited for the most part, required planning, and the establishment of a new network of settlements, both urban and agricultural. The infrastructure had to include residential areas, public buildings and agricultural and industrial structures. The architects tried to combine elements of European architecture with advanced technology to meet the climatic, topographic and social requirements in Israel. Creation ex-nihilo allows the planner a great deal of latitude to use his imagination, and, despite economic and social restrictions, and the need for a simplicity compatible with the pioneer spirit and ideology, they were able to find functional and aesthetic solutions, which are not inferior to architecture anywhere in the world.

One of the outstanding personalities involved in determining the architectural character of the renewed Israel was the architect and urban planner, Richard Kauffmann (1877-1958). From his arrival in Palestine in 1920 and as chief planner for the Zionist Council, he was responsible for the planning and establishment of most of the agricultural settlements, moshavim and kibbutzim, and also planned new urban areas and designed private houses. His dream was the establishment of a town, Afula, in the Jezreel Valley as an urban, cultural and large commercial centre. Kauffmann introduced a horizontal look to Israel and the 'international style' which was characterized by cubic forms of construction in which the elements of rectangular windows and doors together with plain flat walls are the main components of the external picture.

This stamp depicts a school building which was planned by Kauffmann (1930) on the first kibbutz - Degania (1910). The elongated building, with the flat roof, and 4 classrooms, is suited to the hot climate in the Jordan Valley. The wide horizontal windows are rectangular with corresponding ventilation apertures above them. A wooden pergola provides protection from the sun, a passage for cool breezes and enables the upper concrete surface to be used as a play area for the kibbutz children.

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Architecture in Israel (I)