Page 39 - The Architecture of Nadler-Nadler-Bixon-Gil

replaced in Gonen with a division into subunits that
greatly reduced the presence of a unified mass in the
landscape. Gil: “One of the issues I was concerned with
was the axis, the street. There was an attempt to create
a different form of residence, but we did not invent
anything new. We studied the lives of extended families,
learned how they were accustomed to live, and decided
on a close-knit place with a main road climbing up a hill.
A synagogue stands at the center and on its roof is a
common square which gathers all of the streets."

After Michael Nadler’s death in 1993, the work
was divided among the three remaining partners. By
then a change in the firm’s working practices had already
occurred, with drafting tables, rulers and rapidographs
replaced with computers equipped with CAD software.
In the 1990s the firm experienced a renewed flowering,
after not working on any significant large scale project
in the previous decade. The Court of Law in Nazareth
Illit (1994-99), the High School near the Music Academy
in Jerusalem (1992-2003), the Lerner Sports Center at
the Hebrew University campus on Mount Scopus (1995-
2010), and various buildings on the campuses of the
Technion, Tel Aviv University and Sapir College, proved
that the firm’s standing was still solid in the seventh
decade of its activity. Despite the growing competition in
the field, the firm managed to attain large and complex
projects in those years.

Planning work on the Court of Law in Nazareth
began in the 1990s. This project is not only the largest
and most momentous work the firm undertook, but also
presents a further stage of its development. Attention to
the needs of the building’s users is felt here, so much so
that the architects made several visits to private homes in
Nazareth, including the home of one of the court judges,
in order to study the local building tradition which was
then echoed in the building’s design. The most outstanding
feature in the building’s main entrance is a gallery floor
which houses the court’s administration and archive. Gil:
“This was planned to strengthen the public’s trust in the
judicial system. A person entering the court of law is met
with transparency in the form of the case files that are in

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