More British Building Ruins, and the Discovery of Rubber Stores

Today we discovered the remains of two previously unidentified British buildings and classified an entirely different type of building, unlike the Stonehenge Sheds.

First of all, we identified the remains of site 32 on the attached map (which shows the Ras el Ein base overlaying the current map of Rosh Ha'ayin). All that remains of this building is a concrete platform with a brick apron around it. On the Ras el Ein map it is labeled S.16, meaning it was formerly a Stonehenge Shed. We do not know when this building was leveled. It is one of two sites that we have found in which only a platform remains. (The other is site 31, or site #95 in Sasson's list).
More excitingly, we identified a British building north of the current city limits of Rosh Ha'ayin, along Highway 5. This confirms our belief that Highway 5 runs along the route of the former Ras el Ein road. This building is in quite poor shape, though it is still being actively used as a garage and seems to have undergone minimal alterations.
What surprised us most about this building was that it did not have the iconic curved profile that the Stonehenge Sheds have. At first we thought this building's roof may have been altered, but upon further consideration we felt it was original. Then it occurred to us - perhaps this building was labeled differently on the Ras el Ein map? Sure enough, instead of having an S.x number, it is labeled R.3. According to the key, this makes it a former Rubber Store, and it makes sense that this building looks different that the others.

Once we had this piece of information, we realized that we had seen another building with a similar design - site 29 on the map. When we rechecked the Ras el Ein map, we noticed that this building was also labeled as a Rubber Store - R.2. (site #93 on Sasson' list). Thus we feel we have convincingly shown that a third type of building existed in Ras el Ein - the Rubber Storage building. It should be noted that there were two other R buildings on the map - R.4 next to R.3, which we did not see and may have been demolished, and another that once stood on Mantzura Street- site 11 on the map, or R.1 on the British Map. We will have to recheck this neighborhood to see if it is still standing.

Yemenite Heritage Center

This afternoon we met briefly with Naftali Simhi, the chairman of the Yemenite Heritage Center in Rosh Haayin. He told us a bit about the history of the museum and the building, and offered to meet with us again in a few weeks to show us some old pictures of the building prior to its renovation.

According to an article in Etrog Magazine from April 2009, the museum was conceived of and founded by Moshe Oved, a local history teacher. In the 1980s he began gathering historical material and oral traditions in the school and established a display which grew in size until it occupied an entire floor. Eventually it was moved to a different location, until in 2006 the museum moved into its present home in a renovated Stonehenge Shed.

In our proposal for our final project, we prepared a plan for a series of satellite museums spread throughout the city that would compliment the Yemenite Heritage House. Although many of these satellites would focus on traditional Yemenite culture, there would also be sites dedicated to other stages in the history of Rosh Ha'ayin. Despite our claims that locals were pushing this agenda, our plan was heavily criticized for being condescending toward the local culture. From one side, we were criticized for Disney-ifying the city, while on the other we were told that this was putting the local culture in a museum, rather than letting it continue on its own.

I want to again emphasize that this is not the case. We look at this less as a museum and more as a living heritage center. In addition, it is very important to understand that this is a plan that locals have long requested, and have long been trying to achieve.

In a 2006 interview with the Jerusalem Post, Simhi is quoted as saying:

"I want visitors to be able to come and be exposed to the folklore. To experience the cooking, the tabun, the malawah, the dance, the Yemenite choir...I want visitors to come and experience four or five hours of Yemenite hospitality, including clothing...I want to turn Rosh Ha'ayin into the center of Yemenite Jewish heritage."

The same article quotes the mayor of city, Moshe Sinai, saying something similar:
"One of the challenges for me as mayor is to preserve the [Yemenite] heritage. They preserved the tradition [in Yemen]. It is my job to protect them, to provide a supportive foundation."

The article in Etrog Magazine quotes local historian Yiska Raveh as saying that:

"The experience of visitors to the place cannot be limited to visiting one building...Rosh Ha'ayin is a community that lives and breaths the Yemenite culture and it in its entirety a historic-ethnic museum."

She also envisions a multi-layered museum with "dress, aromas, song and dance, ethnic workshops" and other branches that tell the local story.

Perhaps most telling is an entry in an Ariel compendium from 1990 which tells of a similar plan, already existing 20 years ago:

"The plan is to establish in Rosh Ha'ayin a center for Yemenite Heritage with workshops alongside the museum: metalworkers, weavers, embroiderers, braiders, etc. The activities will include workshops, song, Yemenite center and also a restaurant for Yemenite cuisine."

Louis Kahn and Affordable Housing in Israel

Combining the subject of two recent posts, Louis Kahn and Cheap Housing in Israel, it is interesting to note that Louis Kahn was one of the architects who first addressed the problems of cheap housing for immigrants in Israel. In 1949 the Palestine Economic Corporation (PEC) invited 20 individuals, including Kahn, to a meeting in which the Israel Housing Survey Committee was formed. 400,000 houses would be needed to be built in the State's first decade at low cost. Kahn had been involved in affordable housing in the States and volunteered to help out. This spoke to Kahn's humanitarian side:

"Israel's housing crisis...offered an opportunity for an architect to alleviate human suffering and provide support for the emergence of a new, utopian socity. News of the staggering number of refugees coming to Israel must have been especially overwhelming, even shocking, to someone who had not been deeply enmeshed in the Jewish social-service world." (Susan Solomon, Louis I. Kahn's Trenton Jewish Community Center)

Kahn explored different technologies and felt that Israel could become a center for the prefabricated steel housing industry, supplying the whole Near East, while at the same time solving its own housing problems. He suggested using vacuum-formed concrete to cut down on the curing time.

Kahn's design for prefab housing in Israel looks similar to the British structures in Rosh Ha'ayin, and is far from the traditional-looking houses of Amidar. In this light, it is interesting to note that some of the British buildings in Rosh Ha'ayin are today being used for residential purposes.