Levin House (Tel Aviv)

The Russian Embassy House is a historic building located at 46 Rothschild Boulevard on the corner of Shadal Street in Tel Aviv, Israel, and is one of the city’s most well-known buildings.

The building’s architecture is characterized as eclectic, which is unique in central Tel Aviv. The building was designed in 1924 for the wealthy Levine family by architect Yehuda Magidovitch and imbibes many romantic style symbols and decorations with a pagoda at the front.

One of the monuments of the building is its pagoda. When the building was reconstructed, the crew discovered that the three parts of the pagoda open, using a special mechanism, and make an opening over the staircase. The mechanism enabled furniture to be moved into the building. It may also have been used by the religious Levine family as a succah.

History

The building had several owners throughout the years and after the establishment of the State of Israel, housed the USSR Embassy. On the evening of February 9, 1953, the house was damaged from a bomb placed by three Jews, formerly “Lechi” activists. The event was used as an excuse for stopping diplomatic relations of the Soviet Union in Israel, by saying that the operation was backed by the state of Israel. Diplomatic relations renewed only after Stalin’s death in July 1953. They stopped again in 1967 after the Six day war and resumed by December 1991, as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika reform.

After years of neglect, the building went through rehabilitation by architects Amnon Bar Or and Moti Bodek, along with engineer Shmaya Ben Avraham. The conservation was done alongside the construction on the adjacent Alrov Tower, designed by architects Avraham Yaski and Yosi Sivan. This special construction project, which combines a historic reconstruction with an adjacent skyscraper, has encouraged similar projects nearby. Throughout the 1990s and until 2006, the building housed the offices and showrooms of “Sotheby’s” Auction House, and was renamed “Sotheby’s House”.

Twenty-first century

In 2006, the house was sold for over 35 million shekels to Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman and it is now called “Heseg House”. The house was donated to the Philanthropic fund, founded by the couple and after another restoration, is used for philanthropic activities, primarily the Heseg foundation – a scholarship fund for former soldiers.

References

• Houses From Within (2011-05-20). "Russian Embassy on Rothschild Boulevard". Tour no.75.