Page 74 - The Architecture of Nadler-Nadler-Bixon-Gil
P. 74
1961–65 Mae Boyar High School for
Highly Talented Children,
Jerusalem
First prize in competition
Classroom plan (from the Initiated by the Society for the Advancement of
competition entry), 1961 Education in Israel, the Mae Boyar High School was
תוכנית כיתת לימוד (מתוך ההגשה founded on the slopes of a hill in the Bayit VeGan
1961 ,)לתחרות neighborhood, aiming to reduce socio-economic
inequalities through nurturing gifted pupils from low-
p. 70: Classroom and income families in Jerusalem and the periphery. A
administration building, 1965 generous donation from the philanthropist Louis Boyar
1965 , בניין כיתות ו ִמנהלה:70 'עמ commemorating his wife Mae, led to the announcement
of a public planning competition, which the firm won
71 (over 31 other proposals).
The school complex, with its unified appearance,
is integrated in the landscape. The main building, rising
four-stories high, stands at the top of the entrance square
on a platform that solves the challenge set by the plot’s
inclining terrain. At the feet of the building, following
the natural topography is a series of wings – student
dorms, main dining hall, kitchen and multipurpose halls.
Each of these wings has a central garden that ventilates
and illuminates the depth of the building. The wings are
connected via a system of covered passageways, with
their roofs interwoven to function as the school yard.
Unlike other buildings designed by the architects
in Jerusalem at that time, after Shmuel Bixon had
joined the firm, the natural stone cladding was replaced
with a combination of bare concrete and natural stone
cladding, on both the buildings’ facades and the covered
passageways. The prominent classroom building
