Nili Portugali Book, Israeli Architect, Architecture in Israel, Historical Buildings
Book by Nili Portugali : Felicja Blumenthal Music Center & Library
Architectural Publication – Contemporary Buildings in Israel
23 Oct 2012
Book by Nili Portugali
‘A Holistic Approach to Architecture – “The Felicja Blumenthal Music Center and Library‘ –
book by Nili Portugali
picture from architect
New book “A Holistic Approach to Architecture – “The Felicja Blumenthal Music Center and Library”, Tel Aviv / AM OVED Publishers Ltd, Tel-Aviv.
The first book published by Nili Portugali – ‘The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place / A Holistic-Phenomenological Approach to Architecture’ / Axel Menges / – was selected by The RIBA International Book Award among the 23 books of the year 2007.
The new book aims to arouse public discussion regarding central debates, challenging the general public and 21st-century architects, as to how we should intervene within an existing environment, more specifically an environment with a significant historical value which we must respect and preserve, when integrating it with contemporary architecture.
120 pp. with 245 ill, of which 57 in color, 235×302 mm, hard cover, English/Hebrew
ISBN 978-965-13-2253-2
External links for purchases:Alibris.com + Alibris UK
“The Felicja Blumenthal Music Center and Library”, a magnificent building designed by architect Nili Portugali and built in 1996 on Bialik Square, is the only contemporary layer that has been added to this unique district, at the very center of the historic heart of the city of Tel Aviv.
“The powerful presence of a building in its environment emanates from it being an integral part of it and not from the efforts to distinguish it from its environment by creating an architectural icon. Nevertheless preserving the spirit of an existing environment does not necessarily mean a fanatic repetition of its language.”
Bialik Square (named after Haim Nachman Bialik, Israel’s national poet) is a micro document of the architectural history of the city of Tel Aviv. Here stands the first Tel Aviv municipal building built in the eclectic period of the 1920’s, as well as buildings dating from the 1930’s, when International Style was the “dernier cri”.
The book aims to trigger a public discussion regarding central debates, challenging the general public and 21st-century architects, as how should contemporary architecture intervene within an existing environment in general and the one with a significant historical value in particular, respecting and preserving the existing one.
What is unique in Portugali’s work (including in this building) that even the most modern buildings look as if they’ve been there forever. Portugali argues that in order to change the feeling of the environment and create buildings we really feel “at home” with and want to live in, what is needed is not a change of style or fashion, but an adaptation of a holistic and crosscultural worldview that will transform the mechanistic worldview underlying current thought and approaches.
The Music Center and Library, more than any other building designed by Portugali expresses her unique planning process and her particular interpretation of the holistic phenomenological worldview. A worldview which stands in recent years at the forefront of the scientific discourse, and is tightly related to the Buddhist philosophy.
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The book, first of its kind, is valuable to anyone who aspires to create Timeless places endowed with spirit and soul that we really want to live in, in any culture, any society and at any place.
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Nili Portugali was born in Israel in 1948; 7th generation descendent of a family living in the holy city of Safed since the early 19th century. She is a practicing architect working in Israel for more than 38 years.
Her work focuses on both practice and theory and is closely connected to the holisticphenomenological school of thought. She is a graduate of the prestigious Architectural Association School of Architecture in London (1973). She did postgraduate studied in architecture and Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley. She worked and participated in research with Prof. Christopher Alexander at the Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley California.
She was senior lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Architectural Department, Jerusalem and taught at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. Her firm is involved in a variety of projects in urban design, architecture, landscape design and interior design, disciplines she regards as one continuous system.
Her book: The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place. A Holistic- Phenomenological Approach to Architecture published by Edition Axel Menges / Stuttgart, was among the 24 books selected by the Royal Institute of British Architects International Book Award for the year 2007. Portugali has recently completed the script for a film which she will direct and do the production design. Maoz Azaryahu is professor of Cultural Geography in Haifa University, Israel.
Nili Portugali, Architect A.A.Dip (London)
972-3-6415615 / www.niliportugali.com
Felicja Blumenthal Music Center and Library, Tel Aviv, Israel
Nili Portugali
image from architect
“Preserving the spirit of a historical environment does not necessarily mean a fanatic repetition of its language. The Felicja Blumenthal Music Center and Library, a magnificent building designed by architect Nili Portugali and built in 1996 on Bialik Square, is the only contemporary layer that has been added to this unique district, at the very center of the historic heart of the city of Tel Aviv”.
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