i06 zvi elhyani_digitizing_israel_architectural_heritage

Lost & Found: Digitizing Israel's Architectural Heritage 1/3 Israel Architecture Archive Background and Motivation 2/3 Digitisation Project Partners and Challenges 3/3 Case Study the Goldreich & De Shalit Collection

Arch. Dr. Zvi Elhyani Founding Director, Israel Architecture Archive

Eva / Minerva, Jerusalem, November 2015

1/3 Israel Architecture Archive Background and Motivation Lost & Found: Digitizing Israel's Architectural Heritage

Architectural Archiving is a sub-discipline of both general archiving and history/historiography of architecture.

International recognition of Architectural Archiving as an independent field in the late 20th century, led to seeing a significance in architectural archive artifacts, that goes far beyond their obvious value.

Those records are observed today as necessary primal evidence for documenting the altering human environment - planned, built, deteriorating and destroyed (by wars or natural disasters) - as well as documenting the human culture which creates those environments and dwells in it.

A central architectural archive, physical, digital or hybrid, was never established in Israel.

This absence caused an ongoing dispersal of Architectural Records, and in many cases to their absolute loss.


In the past decade this absence confronts a growing demand by two archive-dependent trends:

• Growing number of researches, publications, exhibitions and events on the history of the Israeli space.

• Growing awareness for physical architectural preservation.


Israel Architecture Archive (IAA) is a documentary collection of Israeli architectural practice and culture that was initiated as a response to this void.

Since its establishment in the mid 1990s as a home collection, the IAA has become the largest and most comprehensive source for the documentation of planning, construction and destruction in Palestine and Israel since late 19th century up to the present.


IAA’s location at the basement of the Shalom Mayer Tower is symbolic - the tower was built on the site of Tel Aviv’s first Hebrew public building - the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium (1909).

Its demolition in 1959 became a landmark in the history Hebrew culture and aroused the awareness for preservation and documentation of the near built past.


1/3 Israel Architecture Archive Motivation and Challenges

Lost & Found: Digitizing Israel's Architectural Heritage

2015: IAA’s inventory includes over half a million different items in diverse formats,

including traditional on-paper architectural records (originals and copies) and digital

materials.

IAA collection consists of hundreds of thousands of items which constantly accumulates

from a variety of sources: Active acquisition and purchase of relevant collections and

single items as well as Absorption of collections and items.

As such, the IAA functions as a primary address for historical and rare materials which

otherwise would have lost and disappeared. It is a safe haven for almost lost and

forgotten documents which not only enfold chapters in the history of Israeli architecture but also in its nation building.


• More than 30 Personal Archives and hundreds of personal files on Architects, Builders, Designers, Artists and Scholars.

• Numerous Photographs in various formats (Prints, Scans, Negatives, Slides, Postcards, Microfilms, Born-Digital Images etc.)

• A diverse and colorful collection of the representation of Israeli architecture as it appears on everyday objects and prints - Israeliana, memorabilia, ephemera, souvenirs etc.

• Thousands of newspaper clippings from daily and professional newspapers and magazines, from the past century to the present

• A large library of popular and rare magazines, periodicals and journals since the 1920s

• Documentary Films and TV reportages

• Interviews (written or audio-visually recorded) with architects and planners

• Accumulating material on the history of architectural education since the early 20th century

• A comprehensive documentation of architectural events (competitions, exhibitions, symposiums, debates, prizes etc.)

• Hundreds of students’ works


This crisis starting point of absence, Loss and Dispersal therefore challenges the traditional Architectural Archiving process towards an advanced Multi-Contextual archival process for architectural records

Lost & Found: Digitizing Israel's Architectural Heritage 2/3 Digitisation Project Partners and Challenges

Lost & Found: Digitizing Israel's Architectural Heritage 2/3 Digitisation Project Partners and Challenges

Earlier in 2015 Israel architecture Archive accepted a proposal by the Judaica Division of Harvard Library to digitize selected materials from its constantly growing collection.

The Judaica Division collects in great depth materials covering all aspects of Jewish life and culture in every place and period. Special emphasis is placed on materials in Hebrew, particularly from the State of Israel.

Lost & Found: Digitizing Israel's Architectural Heritage 3/3 Case Study the Goldreich & De Shalit Collection

Arthur Goldreich (1929-2011) South African born architect,

teacher and freedom fighter


Tamar De Shalit (1932-2009) Tel Aviv born Interior architect and

Textile designer


Numerous items in various media (plans, photographs, drawings, documents) on diverse fields of Design: graphic, industrial, architectural, costume and stage

• Thousands of Architectural Drawings: public buildings and dwelling units in Kibbutzim, convalescent homes and recreation facilities in Israel and abroad, their work for the private and public sectors, and more

• Significant documentation of early Education of architecture and design in Israel

• Writing and research

• Drawing, painting and photography

• Documents concerning Goldreich’s political activism in South Africa during the 1950s, against the Apartheid regime and for human rights, as well as records of his role in founding the Department of Environmental and Industrial Design at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem during the 1970s


3/3 Case Study the Goldreich & De Shalit Collection



IDEA Arc for Archives management and exposure of the archival inventory of IAA, from the absorbing materials and its cataloging in the system, searching and locating information, to displaying it in different ways.

Using this system allows IAA to assess, organize, describe, preserve and provide access to the archival collections and divisions.

One of the distinct advantages of the system is its support of leading standards (ISAD.G, EAD) that enables IAA information exchange with other archives around the world engaged in similar fields, while increasing international exposure.

Thank you