Page 18 - The Architecture of Nadler-Nadler-Bixon-Gil

Hall (1961-72) – have a pronounced sculptural aspect.
The attention to interior spaces and to the role of light
in the user’s experience indicates the designers’ pursuit
of an architecture that exceeds narrow professional
efficiency. Thus, it might be said that the firm’s finest
works participated in the overarching modernist process
formulating the best of Israeli creation and culture.

The impact of postmodernism on architecture
led to another significant turn in the firm’s work from
the 1990s onward. The Court of Law in Nazareth Illit
(1994-99) is a prime example of a building in which the
modernist ideals and abstract language were abandoned
in favor of the historicist approach, attempting to connect
architecture to the forgotten symbolic dimension and
formal abundance of the old world. The organic and
monolithic unity that had characterized the firm’s designs
was replaced by a free composition of elements bearing
historical motifs, such as arches, decorative pillars and
triangular roofs. The symbolic aspect of the building’s
institutional function was emphasized in its monumental
façade that protrudes from its surroundings, in the
symmetrical layout of its units, and in its ceremonial
entrance hall complete with a row of pillars.

The Lerner Sports Center at the Hebrew
University campus on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem (1995-
2010) represents the firm’s final years, a period which
saw architecture in Israel and abroad abandoning
comprehensive methods and predetermined rules. Neither
organic or symmetric unity nor historical motifs are to
be seen. Instead, the building reveals the elementarism
principles of modernism’s early days: a free connection
between its various wings, each of which is designed
according to the function it serves. And so, a sixty year
cycle of creation comes to an end, reflecting upon the
diverse aspects of 20th century architecture.

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