An 'emotional responsibility'

Last October, the Jerusalem District Planning and Construction Committee approved a preservation plan for Villa Schocken, one of the first and most prominent buildings in the Rehavia neighborhood, which was designed by renowned Jewish-German architect Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953). The modernist structure, located across the street from the prime minister's residence, was built for businessman and publisher Zalman Schocken in the mid-1930s.

The building's solid and restrained lines are cut by a semi-circular rear balcony - Mendelsohn's signature element back when he was designing branches of Schocken's department store chain in Germany. Thanks to the committee, the developers were eventually compelled to preserve the villa and build the planned residential property adjacent to it.

But while one public campaign ended successfully, another battle is now underway over the future of another important Jerusalem structure designed by Mendelsohn: the Bank Leumi (formerly the Anglo-Palestine Bank) on Jaffa Road. The bank management, which is trying to burnish its image by preserving Beit Mani in Tel Aviv and turning it into a small banking museum, failed to recognize the important architectural value of the Jerusalem building and wants to add a few more floors to it. Hopefully the management, or the planning committee, will quickly put an end to this dubious adventure.

Interestingly, and specifically in his country of birth, Mendelsohn's work is now the object of renewed appreciation. Almost 90 years after he stunned Europe with his design for the Einstein Tower observatory in Potsdam, an important icon of modernist architecture, a pioneering foundation was established two months ago in Berlin to perpetuate his legacy and work. Even more interesting is the fact that the people behind the foundation, Berlin architect Helge Pitz and his wife, Frederica, never had any special connection to Jews or Israel.

Pitz, 73, first encountered Mendelsohn when he was asked in the late 1970s to document Berlin's renowned Universum Theater prior to its renovation. He had not been familiar with the Jewish-German architect prior to that, but seeing the building "opened his eyes," as he put it.

As part of his research, Pitz also came across a private home at the edge of the city designed by Mendelsohn in the 1920s for a Jewish doctor named Curt Bejach. Despite the home's rather small proportions, the architect managed to create spacious and harmonious areas within it. He invested considerable thought and vision, perhaps as a gesture to the doctor who lived on an average municipal wage. The home charmed Pitz, and in the early 1990s he bought it and made it his private residence.

It was then that he discovered the unfortunate fate of the former residents under the Nazi regime: Bejach was sent to an extermination camp, his wife died a short time before then, and their two daughters were sent to Britain and survived. Bejach had to sell the home to a Nazi functionary for a ridiculously low price, a typical fate for homes of this type owned by Jews.

Big in Berlin

The growing interest in Mendelsohn and the discovery of the Bejach family's fate prompted Pitz to take action. He established the foundation and donated his home for its use. "This is a house designed by a Jewish architect for a Jewish client. Bejach and his family enjoyed the house for just six years. This is a very serious emotional responsibility for me," Pitz explained.

Until his voluntarily exile from Germany, Mendelsohn was one of the most important architects in Berlin with a large office employing 40 people. He worked in London, Jerusalem, Russia and the United States, gaining renown very early in his career. He collaborated with architects Walter Gropius, Mies Van Der Rohe, and the brothers Bruno and Max Taut, with whom he established Der Ring - an architectural collective that sought to advance modernist architecture and push aside the classicist style that was dominant at that time. During the 1920s Mendelsohn designed branches of Zalman Schocken's department store, with outlets in Stuttgart, Chemnitz and Nuremberg later becoming important modernist icons.

With the rise of the Nazi regime, he was forced in 1933 to flee to London, where he set up a partnership with a British architect. Two years later he established an office in Jerusalem and began designing extensively in Palestine. For his close friend Chaim Weizmann, he planned an elegant villa in Rehovot and several other buildings at the nearby Ziv Research Institute (today the Weizmann Institute of Science). At the same time, he also designed the villa for Schocken and the library for his collection of rare manuscripts, as well as Hadassah University Hospital at Mt. Scopus and Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. Despite his extensive professional work, Mendelsohn never adjusted to life in Palestine; in 1941 he moved to San Francisco, where he lived until his death.

"Except for the Schocken department store in Stuttgart, which was razed in the 1960s, Germany today is very respectful of modernist buildings - especially those designed by Jewish architects," says Pitz, who notes that several Mendelsohn buildings in Berlin have even been treated to extensive renovation and preservation in recent years. Whether it is a more modest expression of guilt or a true recognition of the value of modernism, undoubtedly Mendelsohn's works were well ahead of their time and managed to present a different modernist narrative to that of the hard-line Bauhaus movement - something both the German public and authorities certainly recognize.

"So far, most of the focus on modernism in Germany has been on works by Bauhaus graduates, but there are wonderful architects, such as Mendelsohn, Hans Scharoun and the Taut brothers who worked independently," Pitz adds. As part of his work as an architect specializing in preservation, Pitz was also responsible for overseeing the renovation in the late '90s of the observatory in Potsdam, a unique and dynamic structure notable for its organic lines that seem to come right out of a contemporary work by Peter Eisenman or Zaha Hadid. Despite its age, the observatory is used for conducting research and is a top architectural tourism destination.

Pitz now seeks to extend the research beyond the observatory and document the rest of Mendelsohn's works in Germany. He has received a 50,000-euro government grant to renovate the Bejach home, where the foundation's offices will be housed. The house will also include a small conference and lecture center and provide convenient accommodation for researchers staying in Berlin. Pitz hopes the foundation will soon be able to develop cooperative ventures with Israeli institutions. Hopefully its first activity in Israel will not be witnessing a public petition against the planned changes to the Bank Leumi building in Jerusalem.