Arieh El-Hanani () born SapozhnikovArie El Hanani
Israel Museum website. Retrieved 3 November 2020. (1898–1985), was an

Israel Prize The Israel Prize (; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History Prior to the Israel Prize, the most significant award in the arts was the Dizengoff Prize and in Israel ...

winner in the field of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

for his "contribution to shaping Israeli culture". His Russian and Hebrew names have also been transliterated and spelled as Arie or Aryeh, Sapoznikov, Elhanani, etc.

Early life in Russia

El-Hanani was born in 1898 in

Poltava Poltava (, ; , ) is a city located on the Vorskla, Vorskla River in Central Ukraine, Central Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Poltava Oblast as well as Poltava Raion within the oblast. It also hosts the administration of Po ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(today capital of the

Poltava Oblast Poltava Oblast (), also referred to as Poltavshchyna (), is an administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) of central Ukraine. The capital city, administrative center of the oblast is the city of Poltava. Most of its territory was par ...

in central

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

), to as one of the five children of Elhanan (Afanasi) Sapozhnikov and Chava Liva Sapozhnikov(a). His siblings were Mania Sapozhnikov, Zvi (Grisha) Elhanani, Avraham Elhanani, and Meir (Misha) Elhanani.

Education

Between 1913 and 1917, Elhanani completed a course in architecture at the

Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

School of Art and Architecture.

Avant-garde artist

In 1917 he joined a group of artists from

Kharkov Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

with whom he designed revolutionary propaganda posters. El-Hanani participated in the anthropological Jewish expedition under the leadership of

S. Ansky Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport (1863 – November 8, 1920), also known by his pen name S. An-sky, was a Jewish author, playwright, researcher of Jewish folklore, polemicist, and cultural and political activist. He is best known for his play '' The ...

into the

Pale of Settlement The Pale of Settlement was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917 (''de facto'' until 1915) in which permanent settlement by Jews was allowed and beyond which the creation of new Jewish settlem ...

, which exerted a substantial influence on Russian-Jewish

avant-garde art In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable t ...

Mandate Palestine and Israel

In 1922 El-Hanani

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

Mandate Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordanwhich had been part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuriesfollowing the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in Wo ...

, where he settled in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

Stage design

In the 1920s and 1930s Elhanani continued his avant-garde work by designing sets and costumes for theatre plays such as "Nishfei Peretz" (''lit.'' 'Peretz soireés'; 1926) and "Megilat Esther" (''lit.'' '

Book of Esther The Book of Esther (; ; ), also known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the wikt:מגילה, Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the Five Megillot, Five Scrolls () in the Hebr ...

'; 1930). He designed the set for the first production of the ''ohel'' (''lit.'' 'tent') workers'

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...

, dedicated to the stories of

Isaac Leib Peretz Isaac Leib Peretz (May 18, 1852 – April 3, 1915), also sometimes written Yitskhok Leybush Peretz (; ), was a Polish Jewish writer and playwright writing in Yiddish. Payson R. Stevens, Charles M. Levine, and Sol Steinmetz count him with Mendele ...

, and was one of the designers for the second ''ohel'' exhibition of 1927.

Trade fair design

El-Hanani found work as a trade fair designer. In 1934 he both designed and managed the site of the

Levant Fair The Levant Fair (Hebrew: יריד המזרח; Yarid HaMizrach) was an international trade fair held in Tel Aviv during the 1920s and 1930s. History Early years One of the early precursors to the Levant Fair, an exhibition titled the "Exhibiti ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

. This rendered him responsible for some of the buildings and sculptures at the fair, most specifically the Fair's symbol, the Flying Camel. Also for the Fair he created an 8-meter high sculpture in the style of

Russian Constructivism Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected d ...

, known as " The Hebrew Laborer", erected in 1934 and restored in 1989 when the original material, iron, was replaced by concrete and steel. Eventually he designed pavilions for trade fairs abroad. El-Hanani also planned the Tel Aviv Convention Center.

Architecture

PikiWiki Israel 6316 The central Synagogue in Tel

El-Hanani designed a number of buildings, some of which have become iconic in Israel. For

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

, the national

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

memorial, El-Hanani designed the Hall of Remembrance (1957-1961) working alongside

Arieh Sharon Arieh Sharon (; May 28, 1900 – July 24, 1984) was an Israeli architect and winner of the Israel Prize for Architecture in 1962. Sharon was a critical contributor to the early architecture in Israel and the leader of the first master plan of the ...

and Benjamin Idelson, and participated as a judge in the design competition for the Valley of the Destroyed Communities. He designed the municipal auditorium in

Kfar Saba Kfar Saba ( ), officially Kfar Sava , is a List of Israeli cities, city in the Sharon plain, Sharon region, of the Central District (Israel), Central District of State of Israel, Israel. In 2019 it had a population of 110,456, making it the 16th-l ...

, the Gan Ha'ir Tower of Tel Aviv, and several buildings of the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

, of which the Wix Library (1957) constitutes one of the works he's best known for. His other Weizmann Institute projects are the Jacob Ziskind Building (together with Israel Dicker and Uriel Schiller, 1947, according to a sketch by

Erich Mendelsohn Erich Mendelsohn (); 21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953) was a German-British architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinem ...

), the Isaac Wolfson Building (1953), the

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the b ...

Conference Center (1958), the Charles Clore International House (with Nissan Canaan, 1963), and the Stone Administration Building (with Nissan Canaan, 1966). After the first Weizmann Institute projects, El-Hanani went on to design other buildings for institutes of higher learning, such as the Wurzweiler Central Library of the

Bar-Ilan University Bar-Ilan University (BIU, , ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic university institution. It has 20,000 ...

(with Nissan Canaan, 1967).

Other design work

Apart from

stage design Scenic design, also known as stage design or set design, is the creation of scenery for theatrical productions including Play (theatre), plays and Musical theatre, musicals. The term can also be applied to film and television productions, wher ...

, Elhanani also worked in the fields of

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, and

typography Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...

. The Russian avant-garde style can be easily recognised in his work for the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

-language monthly youth magazine "Moledeth" ("Homeland") published in the 1920s in

Erez Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions o ...

.Moledeth
("Homeland") monthly, c. 1926, front cover: illustration and design by Sapozhnikov (El-Hanani). eBay, with illustrations. Retrieved 3 November 2020. El-Hanani designed the

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in ...

s of the pre-state

Palmach The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Phalanges/Companies") was the elite combined strike forces and sayeret unit of the Haganah, the paramilitary organization of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of th ...

paramilitary, and later that of the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

Awards - both received and created in his name

* The Israel Prize for Architecture, awarded to El-Hanani in 1973 * The Elhanani Prize for Integration of Art and Architecture, named for him and awarded by his family and the Yehoshua Rabinowitz Fund

Personal life

Arieh Elhanani was married to Sara with whom he had two children including a daughter, Michal (later Michal Golan).

External links

16 posters
by Arieh El-Hanani (Sapozhnikov), mainly 1920s-30s, at The Palestine Poster Project Archives. Retrieved 3 November 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:El-Hanani, Arieh 1898 births 1985 deaths Architects from Mandatory Palestine Israeli architects Israel Prize in architecture recipients Burials at Trumpeldor Cemetery