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Additional Comments Regarding the Planning of the Knesset Building
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With regards to the planning of the Committee rooms, Gillitt added further insights to what
Ze`ev Rabina had said regarding the direction of the windows.21
Gillitt said that the external
windows of the Committee rooms were constructed at an angle primarily because the
Southern wall, which faced the Jordanian armed position, was planned as a security wall,
and it was considered dangerous to have the windows facing directly to the South. In
photographs of the plan for the Committee floor provided by Gillitt, one can see clearly that
the rooms are shaped like potatoes, as described by Rabina. (See photograph)
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| The architectural plan for the Committee floor, 1962
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Gillitt pointed out that he had planned the Knesset library, with the depression in the
center known as “the pool”, under the inspiration of the library
constructed by the Finnish architect Alvar Alto in the Finnish town of Viipuri in the years
1927-1935.22 There are several other architectural elements in the Knesset building that are
reminiscent of Alto’s work (see photographs).
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| The “pool” of the library reading hall, whose design was influenced by Alvar Alto’s library in Viipuri (inset)
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As to the foreground in front of the building, in Karmi and Gillitt’s plan from 1960 no
fence was planned in front, and the descent from the foreground was to have been by
means of a ramp, leading towards a parking lot, or a bridge above the entrance road.
According to Ruegg, in 1964 Klarwein presented a plan for the foreground (in his words the
“square”) which seemed to him like a “Mussolini show. When he came with this plan for the
square I said to him: ‘Mr. Klarwein, forgive me, but this is Fascist architecture’… He was
very insulted”. Finally the plan for the foreground was softened, and lawns were added to it.
The Construction Work
The work manager at the Knesset site, the engineer Eliezer Segal, added many details
regarding the construction process itself. In the beginning of the 1960s, he related, there
were still no cement factories in the country, and the technology of cement pumps didn’t
exist. Therefore, a small plant for the manufacture of cement was established on the
Northern side of the site, on a small hill. Mrs. Tsidon-Friedland, director of the Construction
Materials Department in the Technion was in charge of the quality of the cement, and a
special technician, who slept on the site, was sent to supervise the production.
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| The Knesset building site. The cement factory is on the left.
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In order to facilitate the construction work, two vast cranes - the largest available in
Israel at the time - were brought to the site, and these moved on broad rails: one on the
higher Northern side of the structure, and the other from the middle of the Western side,
through the Southern side, and up to the middle of the Eastern side. (See photograph) Until
the completion of the first floor - the Committee floor - the lower, Southern rail entered into
the center of the structure. Inter alia the cranes were used to fill the large hollows on the
Committee floor, and part of the second floor - the Government floor - with gravel and soil.
Over the filled hollows, a floor made of fortified concrete was cast.
Segal’s view of Klarwein is different from that of Gillitt and Ruegg. He noted that
Klarwein was a very decent man, and a talented architect. He felt sorry for him because “I
saw how he was being ‘raped’. He was forced to do things that he didn’t like”.
Dora Gad’s Interior Design
From slides taken by Segal soon after the construction work was completed, one can view
the space of the Chagall hall before the tapestries were hung in them, and the space of the
general cafeteria after the ceramic wall created by the artist Chava Kaufman, but before the
tables and chairs were brought in.23
The style of the furniture introduced by Gad into the building may be seen in the
photographs taken by Segal in the Speaker’s bureau, and in the closed section of the
Members’ dining room. The furniture in the Speaker’s bureau has been changed in the
meantime several times, as has the furniture in the cafeteria (See photographs).
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| Meeting corner in the Knesset Speaker’s bureau, designed by Dora Gad. Photographer: Eliezer Segal
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The inner dining room for MKs, designed by Dora Gad. Photographer: Eliezer Segal |
21 See the original article.
22 The Soviet Union conquered the Finnish town during the Second World War. Today it is in the Carelia province in Russia, and is known by the name of Vyborg.
23 See the original article, p. 160.
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