The Tel Aviv Museum of Art last week published the names of the architects who were chosen in the first stage of the competition for designing a new building for the institution. The new building will go up next to the existing structure, on Shaul Hamelech Boulevard. In the second and final stage of the competition, the architects will be matched against invited architects from Israel and abroad, with the winning design to be chosen around the beginning of summer.
No date has been set for the actual construction of the new edifice. That depends, among other developments, on fundraising - the projected cost of the new building is $45 million - and on the court's ruling in the NIS 1 million lawsuit that was filed against the museum and its director, Prof. Mordechai Omer. The plaintiffs are the designers of the existing building, architects Dan Eytan and Yitzhak Yashar.
Eytan and Yashar, who are among Israel's veteran architects - Eytan was born in 1931 and Yashar in 1921 - are seeking to have the design competition annulled. They maintain that they alone have the right to design the new building, on the basis of both promises or agreements that were ostensibly signed between them and the museum, and because of what they maintain is the moral right they have over their design of the museum, which is considered one of the most important and is one of the most esteemed modernist architectural works in Israel. They argue that if the museum awards the design of the new building to another architect, this will constitute an ostensible breach of contract, violation of copyright and of moral right, and will adversely affect their reputation.
Without going into the contractual and financial issues and the legal aspects of the case, the demand by the two architects is outrageous from the public point of view. Yashar and Eytan designed the museum nearly 40 years ago. The building is a pillar of modern architecture in Israel and has won the appreciation of both the general public and of experts. However, that does not grant the designers an automatic right to design the new building as well. Since the original museum was built, architectural and museum concepts have changed radically, and new generations of architects have appeared. It is not only the right, it is also the duty of the museum as a cultural institution to give expression to other approaches and new professional forces.
There is no way to ensure that the new building will be as successful as its predecessor - not by appointing famous architects and not by launching the kind of design competition the museum is now engaged in. Professional judgment that shows sensitivity, and an intelligent choice of design can enhance the prospects of success, but in any event the original architects do not necessarily have the recipe for success. That this is so is attested by the expansions, changes and additions to the museum building that Eytan and Yashar themselves have designed over the years. The roof in the shape of a solar receptor over the main facade, the new western wing and the restaurant area have done considerable aesthetic harm to the original structure and are not its equal in quality.
The competition to design the new buildings is one of the major events in the Israeli architectural world today - thus mirroring the original competition, which Eytan and Yashar won in 1964. There is no doubt that it will contribute to the architectural discourse in Israel, irrespective of the design that is chosen. The winners of the first stage are mainly young architects, as Eytan and Yashar were in their day. Designing the museum opened many doors for them and consolidated their status in the country's architectural community. It might have been expected that they would support the same equality of opportunity that they received nearly 40 years ago.
Clearly, the contracts between those commissioning the work and the designers must be arranged as in any sphere of occupation. However, it is wrong for design rights to be held for generation after generation, which in the Israeli reality sometimes means that the rights are bequeathed from fathers to their sons and to the sons' sons of the original designers.
The right thing might be to consider granting copyright to the existing museum structure, and not necessarily to its creators, removing the later additions and declaring it a historic building for preservation. At the same time, it would be in order to consider the possibility of building the new museum in south Tel Aviv or in Jaffa, or of renovating an old building for this purpose. It would also constitute a valuable contribution to Tel Aviv's less pampered areas
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