Page 26 - The Architecture of Nadler-Nadler-Bixon-Gil

Shulamit Nadler at the Israel Bank
of Agriculture construction site,
Tel Aviv, early 1950s
‫שולמית נדלר באתר הבנייה של בנק‬
,‫ תל־אביב‬,‫החקלאות לישראל‬
50‫ראשית שנות ה־‬

modernism and Brutalism. The prominence of free-casts
and exposed concrete on the building’s facades became
a recurring feature in the firm’s future works. New ways
of interpretation and handling that embodied the spirit of
the times, were developed and enhanced with the entry
of the new partners Shmuel Bixon and Moshe Gil.

Working on Beit Sokolov was also the first time
that the Nadlers experienced disappointment from the
collaboration with the interior designers employed on the
project. They claimed that the interior designers did not
manage to internalize the building’s planning principles,
designing the internal spaces according to different
principles that damaged the overriding concept. A few
years later, in the National Library project, the Nadlers
once again experienced a sour cooperation with the
interior designers, and from then on insisted on planning
their projects entirely, both inside and out.

Thanks to their relation with Professor Haim
Halperin, the founder of Ruppin College, in 1951 the
Nadlers received – without a competition – the commission
for planning the central office building of the Israel Bank
of Agriculture [pp. 362-371], not far from Beit Sokolov,
of which Halperin was director. As opposed to the
significant work on the exterior of Beit Sokolov – the
Israel Bank of Agriculture, which was planned almost
simultaneously, shows the beginnings of Brutalist
conceptions and a tighter link between design and

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