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Six Years of Planning and Construction,
mid-1960 to mid-1966
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Towards the end of 1960 Dov Karmi proposed to the Implementation Committee that the front of the
building be constructed in bare concrete, in combination with reddish Jerusalem stone, so that the
building would fulfill the requirements of the municipal bylaws of Jerusalem.63 The engineer Emanuel
Friedman, who replaced Shlomo Gur as the project’s coordinating manager, visited several sites
abroad, including the UNESCO building in Paris, which had so impressed Klarwein two years earlier,
in order to learn about the use of bare concrete. A year later, additional visits were made abroad -
especially to London - for the same purpose.64
As to the reddish Jerusalem stone, since such stone is to be found in large quantities only in the
Hebron area, which in that period was still under Jordanian rule, it was planned to bring similar stone
from a quarry in Fasutta in the Galilee. In January 1962, when excavations began of the foundations
for the building, red stone was found on the location in sufficient quantities, and Minister of Finance
Levi Eshkol, together with the Governor of the Bank of Israel David Horowitz, approved a special
budget of IL 170,000 (a vast sum in those days) to excavate and cut it.65 But finally, the idea had to
be dropped, since it was necessary to blow up the stone in order to lay the foundations, and it would
subsequently have been impossible to cut it.66
The evolution of the design of the columns surrounding the building, is a story in itself. In his
original plan Klarwein planned seventy columns - twenty in front and in back, and fifteen on each
side. He wished to place square columns, covered with stone or mosaic, whose main function would
be aesthetic - they were planned to stand at a great distance from the building itself (at a certain
stage Klarwein spoke of 7 meters67), and to bear a pergola, that would shade the building.68
In the meetings of the Implementation Committee in the course of February 1959 the columns
were discussed: their height, the space between them and their shape. At this stage the space
between the bases of the columns mentioned was 7-8 meters (in the final plan the space was set at
4.5 meters), and a vivid debate went on whether the columns should be square (as proposed by
Klarwein), round (as proposed by Powsner) or rectangular (as proposed by Ratner).69 In March
1959, when Klarwein and Powsner worked on their joint version of the building, Powsner explained
the logic in placing the columns, or as he termed them, "the colonnade": “From a practical point of
view the colonnade offers just one thing - shading around the building… From an aesthetic point of
view… its advantage is that it provides the exterior of the building with a sense of unity. Without the
colonnade, a problem of fenestration would emerge".70
According to Dov and Ram Karmi’s plan, the columns were to have "opened up in all directions
like concrete mushrooms".71 However, Ram was not happy about the columns, and wanted to cancel
them altogether, or reduce their number to no more than seven on each side (according to him "the
eye cannot grasp more than seven columns"). But his father refused, because he had undertaken to
leave the columns.72 As a result of the argument with his father, Ram left the project, and traveled to
Sierra-Leone to plan a parliament there.
Dov Karmi passed away suddenly of a heart attack in May 1962, but a representative of the
Karmi family still remained on the team - the British architect William (Bill) Gillitt,73 who had studied
with Ram in London. But after a while Gillitt resigned as well, against the background of changes that
Klarwein insisted on introducing into the plans after Dov’s death - inter alia in the shape of the
columns. In November 1962 Klarwein proposed that the columns be covered with ceramics and
decorated,74 but after he returned from a visit to France, he brought with him a plan for the columns
that was finally accepted - rectangular columns, made of bare cement.75
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| The Ataturk Mausoleum in Ankara
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The journalist Yehuda Ha`ezrahi described the metamorphosis which the columns underwent in
the following words: “Instead of massive stone columns, intended to stand at the front of the building,
shaping its image by means of their size and glory, the planners decided to decorate the section with
a concrete edge, protruding to the front, and construct beneath it thin concrete columns, with an
apparent double purpose, both decorative and functional, and they are constructed deep under the
overhang, close to the walls, ‘tied’ to them with stump-boards, to support the internal ceilings”.76
In addition to the change in the shape of the columns, Klarwein also introduced changes in the
ceiling of the plenary hall, and canceled the galleries planned in the State Hall.77 Following these
changes three of the well known architects in the country at the time - Arieh Sharon, Avraham Yaski
and Al Mansfeld - wrote a letter of protest to the Implementation Committee,78 and in May 1963 the
chairman of the Association of Engineers and Architects, Shmuel Mestechkin, together with
Mansfeld and Yaski, met with the Speaker of the Knesset, Kadish Luz (who was also chairman of the
Implementation Committee) on this matter. But the Implementation Committee, that had had enough
of the wars of the architects, decided to disregard their appeal. In a last minute effort to stop
Klarwein, Yaski approached him in a letter, dated August 5, 1963, in which he emphatically
demanded of him to publish the plans of the Knesset building, with the changes that he had
introduced after Dov Karmi’s death. “If you will not respond to our request within two weeks of the
date on which this letter was sent”, he added, “we shall have no choice but to inform the general
public, that the plans of the Knesset building have turned into a secret document [emphasis in the
original], and that the Association of Architects - that represents the professional public - knows
nothing of the state of the plans of the Knesset building”. In his reply Klarwein rejected all the claims
and demands.79
63 Minutes of the 55th meeting of the Implementation Committee, held on November 3, 1960, the State Archive, section 60, box 317, file 6.
64 Emanuel Friedman, "copy for memory", November 30, 1960, Minutes of the 63rd meeting of the Implementation Committee, held on December 17, 1961, Ibid.
65 Letter from Emanuel Friedman to Kadish Luz, July 1, 1962, the Knesset Archive, file 3180 volume b, box 25.
66 Interview held by the writer with the work manager of "Solel Boneh" at the building site of the Knesset in the years 1960-1966, Eliezer Segal, on November 13, 2000.
67 Minutes of the 19th meeting of the Implementation Committee, held on February 24, 1959, the Knesset Archive, file 2182, box 26.
68 The alignment of the columns and their shape, as described by Klarwein, resembles in many ways the mausoleum in memory of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish republic and its first president, which was constructed in Ankara after his death in 1938. See, Laurence J. Vale, Architecture, Power and National Identity, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1992, pp. 102-3.
69 Minutes of the 18th meeting of the Implementation Committee, held on February 16, 1959, the Knesset Archive, file 2182, box 26.
70 Minutes of the 21st meeting of the Implementation Committee, held on March 10, 1959, and Minutes of the 24th meeting, held on March 17, 1959. Ibid.
71 Interview held by the writer with Ram Karmi on June 14, 1998.
72 In an interview with Chen Shalita, Ram Karmi described the chain of events in the following words: "When we reached the point at which it was necessary to design the front, Klarwein insisted that there should be columns around the building, even though they express nothing, in my opinion, of what is happening in the building. I was unwilling to yield and started yelling, and my father stood in the middle and said to me:'Rami, you must give in'. So I agreed that it would be like the building of the Parliament of Chandigarh in India [constructed by La Cosbusier, who Karmi calls ‘my God’], which has five columns and more wall. So my father asked me to reconsider. I said:’seven columns, that is the maximum that the human eye is capable of absorbing, and still notice the number’, and then my father said to me: ‘you are an ass’. I was insulted, slammed the door shut, and resigned”. (Kol Ha’ir, December 5, 1997).
73 For information about Bill Gillitt and his work, see second article.
74 Minutes of the 66th meeting of the Implementation Committee, held on November 27, 1962, the State Archive, section 60, box 317, file 6.
75 Minutes of the 70th meeting of the Implementation Committee, held on January 7, 1963, ibid.
76 Yehuda Ha'ezrahi (see above, footnote 33).
77 Minutes of the 66th meeting of the Implementation Committee, held on August 12, 1962, the State Archive, section 60, box 317, file 6.
78 Minutes of the 68th meeting of the Implementation Committee, held on October 28, 1962, ibid.
79 Knesset Archive, files 3180 and 3181 in Box 25.
Continued...
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