"The city's original Bauhaus architects had an understanding of Modernism's sophisticated simplicity," said Pomagrin, who designs both private and public buildings around the country. "Sometimes you have to work very hard to build something simple." Photo: BarEl Properties Group © 1995 - 2008 The Herald Tribune. All rights reserved

BAUHAUS TEL AVIV

TEL AVIV: Tel Aviv is the humid, ultra-urban corner of Israel, but it is also is a city focused on the sea, where most homes are situated to catch a breeze or to offer a glimpse of the Mediterranean.

That was the goal of the city's earliest architects when, from the 1920s through 1950s, they built what is now called the White City, a metropolis of square, white buildings in the Bauhaus style.

Finding an apartment with access to a fresh beach breeze has become more difficult in recent years but when the architect Hanan Pomagrin and his firm, TheHeder, or "the room" in Hebrew, were hired to design a home for an Israeli-American couple, he knew how to find fresh air.

The couple - he's Israeli, she's American - was planning on remaining in Tel Aviv after having moved around a considerable amount. They had found a three-story building in northern Tel Aviv with a rooftop room, a common fixture in the early years of the city when the roof was often used a communal laundry room, makeshift gym or garden for the building's residents.

The room, which was being rented as a small apartment, was owned by a developer who already had city permission to add two more floors to the building, an elevator and parking. Raising the height of apartment buildings has become a matter of major debate in Tel Aviv, where some worry that too many tall buildings will crowd the city and block the sky.

Then again, "development is the blood of the city, because otherwise, it becomes a museum," Pomagrin said. "Tel Aviv has to be Israel's most dynamic city, it has to change."

Pomagrin and his clients were of the same mind about the design of the approximately 200-square-meter, or 2,153-square-foot, apartment. They all wanted clean, straight lines; a minimum of color and fuss; with access to the outdoors but privacy as well.

The apartment's two floors look over the rooftops of most of the neighboring buildings, so Pomagrin decided to let the apartment look inward, with the living room as a kind of internal courtyard. A series of glass doors leads from the living room to the L-shaped balcony, creating a glass wall that, when the doors are open, lets in the breeze, with hidden, opaque shades to block the strong sun or for privacy at night.

Out on the balcony, the air feels clean and it is surprisingly quiet, considering the apartment's location, Pomagrin pointed out. "The Tel Aviv presence is very subtle, not strong."

Inside, the main living room wall is 6.5 meters, or more than 21 feet, high, ending in a series of narrow skylights that allow diffused light into the room. By day, the wall is a blank white canvas; at night, a 70- by 55-inch, or 117- by 140-centimeter, part of it is used as a screen for the projection TV installed in the opposite wall.

The living room flows into the dining room and kitchen, where everything is built in - from the handleless cupboards and drawers to the two built-in ovens.

The wife is an avid chef and entertainer and the kitchen "is designed a bit like a stage," said Pomagrin, in describing the white composite stone table that seats 8 but can open to accommodate 12 and is attached to the central work island. It was designed to be easily accessible when the couple entertains, particularly on Thanksgiving.

What pleased Pomagrin and the owners was that they were able to use very standard Israeli construction materials to produce a three-bedroom apartment that, on the local market, probably would sell for $1.5 million or more.

The walls are covered in white plaster; the cupboards, constructed of aluminum-covered Formica, and the floors paved with gray marble from Jordan, with gray wall-to-wall carpeting in the bedrooms, one of the few American touches, according to the owners.

"It's nothing that unique, but it's how you put the materials together and make it meet, that's the magic," added Pomagrin.

Pomagrin also used what he calls "shadow gaps" throughout the apartment, creating narrow slivers of empty space wherever there is a juncture of two different materials. Between the white walls and the gray stone stairs that lead to the roof, for example, there is a narrow sliver of empty space that runs the length of the stairs to the second floor. For Pomagrin, it's those kinds of Modernist influences that inspire him.

His predecessors, the city's original Bauhaus architects, "had an understanding of Modernism's sophisticated simplicity," said Pomagrin, who designs both private and public buildings around the country. "Sometimes you have to work very hard to build something simple."

In fact, it was not so easy to convince the Israeli contractors to pay attention to Pomagrin's kind of detail. Renovations are common in this country, but "shadow gaps" and built-in cabinets are not as familiar.

Throughout, clutter is concealed. The owners wanted a lot of storage space, built-in cupboards and cabinets constructed flush with the walls - highly unusual in Israel - to hide most of the personal objects that fill many homes. In the three full bathrooms, there is nary a toothbrush on the counter, nor are there appliances or dish racks in the kitchen.

Books, however, are displayed in this sea of gray and white, as are the primary colors of the mostly Israeli art that hangs on the walls.

"Life is full of color, so architecture is just the background," Pomagrin said. "Color comes from the toys and the jacket that gets thrown on the sofa."