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עמוד:1
"The Felicja Blumenthal Music Center and Library", a magnificent building designed by architect Nili Portugali and built in 1996 on Bialik Square, is the only contemporary layer that has been added to this unique district, at the very center of the historic heart of the city of Tel Aviv . "The powerful presence of a building in its environment emanates from it being an integral part of it and not from the efforts to distinguish it from its environment by creating an architectural icon . Nevertheless preserving the spirit of an existing environment does not necessarily mean a fanatic repetition of its language . " Bialik Square ( named after Haim Nachman Bialik, Israel’s national poet ) is a micro document of the architectural history of the city of Tel Aviv . Here stands the first Tel Aviv municipal building built in the eclectic period of the 1920 's, as well as buildings dating from the 1930 's, when International Style was the "dernier cri" . The book aims to trigger a public discussion regarding central debates, challenging the general public and 21 st - century architects, as how should contemporary architecture intervene within an existing environment in general and the one with a significant historical value in particular, respecting and preserving the existing one . What is unique in Portugali's work ( including in this building ) that even the most modern buildings look as if they’ve been there forever . Portugali argues that in order to change the feeling of the environment and create buildings we really feel "at home" with and want to live in, what is needed is not a change of style or fashion, but an adaptation of a holistic and cross - cultural worldview that will transform the mechanistic worldview underlying current thought and approaches . The Music Center and Library, more than any other building designed by Portugali expresses her unique planning process and her particular interpretation of the holistic phenomenological worldview . A worldview which stands in recent years at the forefront of the scientific discourse, and is tightly related to the Buddhist philosophy . The book, first of its kind, is valuable to anyone who aspires to create Timeless places endowed with spirit and soul that we really want to live in, in any culture, any society and at any place . Nili Portugali was born in Israel in 1948 ; 7 th generation descendent of a family living in the holy city of Safed since the early 19 th century . She is a practicing architect working in Israel for more than 38 years . Her work focuses on both practic e and theory and is closely connected to the holistic - phenomenological schoo l of thought . She is a graduate of the prestigious Architectural As s o c i a t i o n Sc h o o l o f Architecture in London ( 1973 ) . She did postgraduate studied in architecture and Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley . She worked and participated in research with Prof . Christopher Alexander at the Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley California . She was senior lecturer at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Architectural Department, Jerusalem and taught at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa . Her firm is involved in a variety of projects in urban design, architecture, landscape design and interior design, disciplines she regards as one continuous system Her book : The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place . AHolistic - Phenomenological Approach to Architecture published by Edition Axel Menges Stuttgart, was among the 24 books selected by the Royal Institute of British / Architects International Book Award for the year 2007 . Portugali has recently completed the script for a film which she will direct and do the production design . Maoz Azaryahu is professor of Cultural Geography in Haifa University, Israel .
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פורטוגלי, נילי
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