Tel-Aviv, the First Century: Visions, Designs, Actualities

17 Balconies of Tel-Aviv: Cultural History and Urban Politics

Tel-Aviv for many years had been dubbed “a city of balconies.” In its urban fantasy balconies are smiles, an expression of the beauty and openness of the city, but in day-to-day reality they are almost considered an eyesore. The balconies of Tel-Aviv have an important role in the social life of the city and they are a crucial part of its history and culture. Located between private and public, balconies simultaneously belong to both arenas. Accordingly, they invite conflict and struggle over their look and functions, and they constantly redefine, as well as express, the relationships between residents and the urban public sphere. This essay explores different aspects of urban politics and the cultural history of balconies. In particular, it sheds light on façade balconies in Tel-Aviv as sites of dispute between residents and authorities. Through a socio-cultural and architectural perspective, I present the historical changes of style and use of balconies as sites of contention in the city. The conclusions deal with the crucial role of balconies in Tel-Aviv in creating connections between private and public spheres, and establishing values of leisure, privacy, identity, boundary, and place. Until now, there has been no academic research on balconies as cultural and political artifacts , especially in Tel-Aviv. seventeen Balconies of Tel-Aviv: Cultural History and Urban Politics Carolin Aronis If we compare the house to the human body, we could say that the windows are the eyes of the house, the bases are the legs of the buildings, the balcony is its smile, and the façade is the spirit, the soul of this human creation. —Meir Dizengoff, 1934 The most common images of the balcony are those represented in mythological tales, usually involving a romantic situation such as when a prince climbs up to a balcony on a girl’s braid, a suitor serenading his beloved at night, or Romeo who sends Juliet messages of passion through her balcony. Another famous image is the leader addressing his or her people from a balcony overlooking a square. In many works of art the balcony is represented as a unique place in the urban landscape, where residents can be in touch with the public sphere, or as a hanging garden, which decorates the grisly streets of the city. In addition to the aesthetic aspects, which can be seen clearly in architectural plans, the balcony also has a liminal character. As a threedimensional aperture of the apartment into the street and bounded by rails, it usually protrudes from the exterior walls of buildings, and can be considered a physical threshold of both public and private arenas. “Betwixt and between,” it is an intermediary zone.1 It is a place that liberates the resident from the claustrophobia of the apartment, while at the same time it keeps at bay any agoraphobic sensations from the bustling street.2 This middle space is a locus of detachment from and attachment Balconies of Tel-Aviv 349 Fig. 17.1. The painter Reuven Rubin and his future wife on a Tel-Aviv balcony. “Les Fiancées,” 1929, oil on canvas (Reuven Rubin Museum). 350 Carolin Aronis to both the apartment and the street, and assembles a unique mixture of “front stage” and “back stage,” to use Erving Goffman’s metaphors.3 Private and public are intertwined on the balcony and confound the notions of what is supposed to be open to the public, and what is a private, personal matter. Especially in hot climates, such as Tel-Aviv’s, the balcony creates openness and ventilation. However, the physical surface of the balcony is free from any defined use, and thus, it invites many kinds of temporal uses. Besides being a place for communication between home and street, the balcony serves as a place of leisure—for resting, observing neighbors, and playing cards, as well as a place of work—for drying laundry, shaking rugs, or simply as a storage space for all sorts of useless items. Since physically the balcony seems to be an incompletely constructed room, some people feel a necessity to close their balcony, to create a “full” room Fig. 17.2. Common balconies in Tel-Aviv, the same balcony in three different appearances. 50, Arlozorov Street (photo by Stanley Waterman, 2008). 351 Balconies of Tel-Aviv from it. A closed balcony frequently serves as an office, a small room for children, or as an...