A controversial art project

Last week, Tel Aviv's City Council approved the 15-year lease of Beit Tzeirot Mizrachi, a municipal compound located at 16-18 Dov Hoz Street, to the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. According to plans, Bezalel will establish a continuing education center at the site, which will also hold artists' workshops and courses for Tel Aviv residents. In addition, Bezalel will also set up a reference library featuring books about the arts. The cost of renovating the building is estimated at $1.5 million and Bezalel will pick up the tab. The four-story building measures some 3,000 square meters.

Beit Tzeirot Mizrachi is one of Tel Aviv's more exceptional buildings. For decades, starting in the 1940s, the building served as a boarding and professional school for young, religious women and girls. A few years ago, the property was handed over to the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality. During the past five years, the building was abandoned and left to deteriorate. It became a shelter for the homeless.

The structure adjoins Tel Aviv's historical workers' dwellings, built in the Bauhaus style. Beit Tzeirot Mizrachi's height and its architectural details, which include some Bauhaus elements, complement the neighborhood's architecture. The L-shaped building includes a large courtyard, long verandas and expansive rooms. Under the Geddes Plan, Tel Aviv's first master plan, the site was allocated to public building space.

The decision to lease the building to Bezalel, which already has a campus on Salameh Road, in South Tel Aviv, has raised quite a few eyebrows. Businesswoman Leora Hachmi last week explained that her grandfather, Ya'akov Gesundheit, had donated the property to Beit Tzeirot Mizrachi. The municipality's decision took Hachmi by surprise - much more so since she is currently leading proceedings to implement two projects at the site: Division of the building into studios for Tel Aviv artists in return for reduced rental fees or transferring the building to Tel Aviv's Kehila Democratic School.

Meital Lehavi (Meretz), a member of Tel Aviv's City Council, was also involved in the attempt to establish the Democratic School at the building on Dov Hoz Street and use the structure for other projects, too. Lehavi comments, "Instead of setting up its campus in Jaffa or the eastern city to serve as a magnet to promote the development of the city's weaker precincts, Bezalel, an institution that is foreign to Tel Aviv, chooses to locate itself in the city center. Thus, the location will mainly empower the institution."