Surroundings / The second temple and the good-taste police

After years of searching, an Israeli architectural style that suits the times has been found: yuppie. True, yuppie-ism as a socioeconomic, generational characteristic is history now, if not archaeology, but its translation into a local architectural language is relatively new. The exhibit "First Home - Young Israeli Architecture" now on view at Hangar 20 in the Tel Aviv port presents the trend.

The style is ubiquitous. It flourishes particularly in the suburbs and in suburban towns and in the villas that line the streets of kibbutzim and moshavim (once small farming communities).

It apparently poses a genuine threat to the build-your-own-home style that happily prevailed for 20 years and put a lot of refined noses out of joint, not always for good reason, as we see today. Time will tell if the yuppie style marks the return of the neomodern good-taste police, whether the architectural culture wars will reignite in the suburbs or whether everything will turn out for the best, in the spirit of the times.

There's no dictionary definition for the style, but a quick glance at the 150 projects in the exhibit proves you can't mistake it when you run into it, especially at the Tel Aviv port, the haven of yuppie-ism. Its undisputed inspiration is local Bauhaus, now making an impressive comeback in a more transparent version, and not without nostalgia and a so-called Mediterranean touch. Its unmistakable signs are: some kind of cubist composition, lines that are clean to the point of sterility and, of course, "simplicity" - minimalism, minimalism, minimalism, white stucco, exposed quartz bricks, exposed but refined concrete with some enhanced roughness, wooden decks in the port style, inner patios, shade and slats over giant, transparent entrances, patterned furniture and the atmosphere of a lifestyle magazine photo shoot on the way to do the port itself.

The sign of all signs is a "wall of books" running the entire length and height of the wall, sometimes with a diagonal ladder, which is sending the traditional Israeli bookshelf out to pasture.

Like any self-respecting style, yuppie-ism isn't just a style. It's a mood, a zeitgeist. It is based on serenity and satiation, a longing for a feel-good normality where everything is just fine or will be beyond the whitewashed wall. The style is attentive to the market's abundance of possibilities, and there's no big ideology behind it. Le Corbusier warned the world in "Toward an Architecture" - "architecture or revolution." He chose revolutionary architecture. These young designers have chose architecture that is - architecture.

Yuppie style crosses borders, spreads over city and suburb, in Jewish and Arab sectors, appears in residential buildings in luxury neighborhoods, but also in industrial structures in south Tel Aviv. One yuppie apartment building has even landed in Ramat Gan, and it took me a long time to decide whether to welcome the upgrade or take aggressive countermeasures against the prettification and rising prices that lurk around every corner.

Most of the projects in the exhibit are of relatively small proportions: a private home, a single building, an addition of floors to an existing structure, or the interior design of apartments, a beauty salon, a flower store, a restaurant - as is customary among young architects at the beginning of their careers (up to age 40). Still, as 1,600 projects are hung shoulder to shoulder under one roof, they have their finger on the pulse, and reach a critical mass. There was a curatorial selection process, and not one with an agenda or critical point of view. So you get what is out there, unmediated, without a go-between. Young architects, it turns out, are partners to the application and execution of the trends that dictate the Israeli planning agenda, some of which are disturbing and destructive. They are the ones who carry out suburbanization and the gentrification process that accompanies building conservation for what is called "urban renewal" and the privatization - and transformation into real estate - of agricultural land on kibbutzim and moshavim: yuppie style's paradise.

The exhibit, closing April 29, is the fruit of an initiative by the young architect's branch of the Israel Architects' Association and ZeZeZe Gallery in the port. The branch's chair, Uri Padan, speaks of an adrenaline rush hiding here, calling the show "a milestone in the struggle to change the priorities of the architectural establishment in Israel for [the good of] the future of the profession, the future of all of us."

Padan seems intoxicated by the exhibit's sexy location, from the waves it's making, from the hundreds of people who came to the opening and the conference sessions. The young architects have long been active, but Padan, head of the group for three years, believes he and his associates have resuscitated the organization and infused it with new purpose. "The major goal is to turn the association into a guild with professional pride that advances architecture," he said.

It's impossible not to feel the rebellious spirit in the air, though Padan says they're not rebels, but would like to bring about internal change - on the professional plane, to advance their standing and improve working conditions and, with regard to content, to return inspiration and idealism to the profession. They work with alternative platforms outside the association and offer their own platform to young architects, who may present their work in a less judgmental atmosphere than that of the association's gallery. Criticism is not sexy enough for the zeitgeist. The exhibit at the port, Padan says, "created a buzz and we all profited. Our gain is that when things are happening, members are there, people make connections, there's networking. That's what we think the association should do. We're not into struggles for control and about ego. That doesn't work today."

In light of the upcoming association elections, the young architects are calling on their colleagues to join and decide "whether to continue the changes and broaden them, or not." The chairwoman of the architects' association, Anda Bar, says: "I'm dying for them to replace us, but apparently it won't happen so fast. At their age they are preoccupied with themselves and with getting quick results rather than with the general good over the long run. And that's fine, that's how it is at this age. They're very nice, and everything is just fine."