1. The Gutman Fountain
(1 Rothschild Blvd.)
We are standing at the point where Neve Zedek, the first neighborhood founded by Jews in Yafo, in 1887, meets the neighborhood of Ahuzat Bayit, i.e. Tel Aviv. Its founders wished to build a new, modern neighborhood that would feature the most sophisticated innovations of the western world, such as electricity, running water and sewage. In his mosaic on the fountain before us, Nachum Gutman traced the history of Yafo and Tel Aviv, from the dawn of history until the 1970s. In 1923, Neve Zedek became a part of Tel Aviv. 

2. The First Kiosk
(corner Herzl St. and Rothschild Blvd.)
The main street of Ahuzat Bayit was named after Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl; on a hilltop at the northern end of the street, the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium (High School) was built. The avenue in front of us, initially called “the Boulevard,” was renamed Rothschild Boulevard in 1910 in honor of Baron Edmond de othschild. Some of the founders of Tel Aviv favored allowing the opening of shops in the neighborhood, and others opposed it. Finally, a kiosk was opened for the convenience of the residents. We are standing next to a model of the original kiosk.

3. Akiva Arieh Weiss House
(2 Herzl St. corner Ahad Ha’am St.)
Akiva Arieh Weiss, one of the founders of Tel Aviv, and the first chairman of the Ahuzat Bayit Association, built his home here. Weiss designed the single-storey house himself. In 1927 he added a second storey, changed the original façade and designated the ground floor for commerce. The family lived in the house until 1963. The building was renovated and the ground floor was restored to the original design of 1910. 

4. Dizengoff House/Founders’ Monument
(16 Rothschild Blvd.)
The Founders’ Monument was installed on March 23, 1951, at the site of the first well to be drilled in Ahuzat Bayit, and the site of the first town hall. On the western side, the names of sixty-six families recognized as founders of Ahuzat Bayit are inscribed. On the eastern side, the artist Aharon Priver traced stages in the development of Tel Aviv. Next to the monument stands a sculpture of Meir Dizengoff, by David Zundelevich. To the south, at 16 Rothschild Blvd., stands the home of Meir Dizengoff, the first mayor of Tel Aviv, where on May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion declared the founding of the State of Israel.

5 .Golomb House
(23 Rothschild Blvd.)
During the period of the British Mandate, the central headquarters of the Haganah, as well as the central command of the underground organizations Etzel and Lehi, were located in Tel Aviv. The building, named after Eliyahu Golomb, one of the Haganah leaders until his death in 1945, houses the Haganah Museum and its central archives. In the 1950s, the house, which had been slated for demolition, was purchased with the help of Haganah veterans and renovated.

6 .Lederberg House
(29 Rothschild Blvd. corner Allenby St.)
Most of the homes which surround us were built in the 1920s in the eclectic style, in which architects of the time integrated contemporaneous architectural styles with elements of Oriental architecture. To the north, the façade of Lederberg House is adorned with colorful ceramic plaques designed by Abraham Eisenberg in the Bezalel style, which depict landscapes of Eretz-Israel and biblical tales. On the south side of the boulevard, we will see an elegant, domed edifice which housed the Pension Ginossar-Ben Nahum.

7. Levin House
(Rothschild Blvd. corner Shadal St.)
The home of the Levin family, built in 1924, was designed by Yehuda Magidovich. This magnificent urban villa, known as the Castle, one of Tel Aviv’s “Dream Houses,” features a turret with a mechanically operated roof. Upon the founding of the State of Israel, the building housed the Embassy of the Soviet Union; in February, 1953 a bomb was thrown at the embassy to protest the persecution of Soviet Jewry. In the 1990s, the building was reconstructed
and refurbished and its original grandeur restored. 

 8. King Albert Square
(intersection of Nahmani, Montefiore, Melchett and Bezalel Yaffe Sts.)
This small city square, an island of tranquility in the dense urban quarter known as Lev Tel Aviv, was named in honor of King Albert the First, of Belgium in 1935. The square features architectural treasures, such as: the Pagoda House at the western corner of Nahmani and Montefiore Sts, designed by Alexander Levy, so-named for its distinctive style. On the northern side, at the corner of Melchett St. stands Shafran House, built in eclectic style. South of the square stands a remnant of a building in international style, whose façade has been preserved.

 9.Engel House
(84 Rothschild Blvd. corner Mazeh St.)
This is one of the best known residential buildings in the area known as the White City, which has become a symbol of the international style of architecture in Tel Aviv. Built in 1933 by the architect Ze’ev Rechter, it was the first house built on pillars in the city. The elongated balconies and the horizontal ribbon windows that traverse the building
create a play of light and shadow against the background of white plaster. During WWII, the open lobby was enclosed with cement blocks and served as a shelter. The building is slated for renovation and preservation.

10. Berlin House
(83 Rothschild Blvd. corner Balfour St.)
The private residence of architect Joseph Berlin was built in 1929 in art-deco style and epitomizes the distinctive style of the architect who used silicate blocks, not plaster, to create decorative elements such as triangles and gables. Another of Berlin’s buildings worth visiting is Twin House, at the corner of Mazeh and Strauss Sts. It was built in 1925 in collaboration with architect Richard Pasovsky.

11. Milner House
(100 Rothschild Blvd. corner Engel St.)
The residence of Jacob Milner was built in 1933 in international style. The contours of the house are almost entirely free of the structural ornamentation that typified many of the houses built during an earlier phase of this style. The ground floor was paved with red Peki’in stone. Milner returned to Poland before WWII, but survived the war and returned to Palestine when it ended. He lived in the house until his death in 1977. 

12. Rubinsky House
(65 Sheinkin St. corner 1 Gilboa St.)
The Rubinsky house was built in 1937 and is one of the most impressive examples of the international style in Tel Aviv. The house was evidently designed by Lucian Korngold. The horizontal contours of the building, the curved northern wing and the rounded windows endow the building with a sense of flowing movement, resembling a multi-decked ship. Gilboa St. features other impressive buildings such as the Castle House, home of the Abravanel family, located at number 3.

13. Cultural Center
(Habimah and Mann Auditorium complex)
According to the Geddes Plan of 1929, the area was designated as the civic and cultural center of the city. In 1935, the cornerstone of the Habimah auditorium was laid; it was built in the 1940s by architect Oscar Kaufmann. The Mann Auditorium, named for Frederick Mann, was inaugurated in 1957, and the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art was inaugurated in 1959. These buildings were designed by Dov Carmi and Ze’ev and Yaacov Rechter. At the center of the complex is a new city square,
Orchestra (Philharmonic) Square, designed by artist and sculptor Dani Karavan.

 

14. Mikhoels Square
(corner Ben Zion Blvd. and King George St.)
The square is named after Solomon Mikhoels, the famed Yiddish actor, who headed the Soviet Anti-Fascist Committee during WWII and was liquidated by order of Stalin in 1948. On the eastern side of the square is a modest monument to the victims of the two airstrikes on Tel Aviv during WWII. On September 9, 1940 Italian aircraft bombed the streets around the square and the village of Summayl, on the outskirts of the city, and on June 12, 1941, Tel Aviv was bombed by the Germans.

15. Dizengoff Square
(opposite the Cinema Hotel)
Dizengoff Square, named for the wife of Meir Dizengoff, was inaugurated on January 26, 1938. The square, with a pool and fountain at its center, as well as the surrounding buildings, were designed according principles outlined by architect Genia Averbuch. Dizengoff Street attracted visitors from all over the country, and inspired the verb “to Dizengoff,” meaning “to spend time on Dizengoff Street.” The Cinema Hotel was originally the Esther Cinema. In the 1970s the square was elevated, and at its center, a kinetic sculpture by artist Yaacov Agam, was erected.

16. The City Pantheon
(The Trumpeldor Street Cemetery)
The Jewish cemetery of Yafo and Tel Aviv on Trumpeldor St. was built in 1902. Over the years, the founders and leaders of Tel Aviv, writers and cultural figures and famous personalities in the history of the city and the country have been buried there; there are also two mass graves for the local victims of the Arab disturbances in 1921 and 1929.
The gravestones are of particular interest, and some of them are engraved with mystical and Kabbala symbols.

17. City Hall/Bialik Square
(27 Bialik St.)
The street and the square are named after the national poet, Haim Nahman Bialik, whose house is located on the eastern side of the street (22 Bialik St.). The building was designed by Joseph Minor; the interior of the house is adorned with ceramic tiles depicting Biblical stories, designed by Ze’ev Raban. The building, on the north side of the square at 27 Bialik St., served as Tel Aviv’s City Hall from 1925-1968. The street is also home to the museum of artist Reuven Rubin (14 Bialik St.), and the Felicia Blumenthal Music Center (26 Bialik St.).

18. Gan Meir
(Northeast entrance, Tchernikovsky St.)
In 1931, Aaron Halevi won the competition to design an urban park to be named for Meir Dizengoff. Construction of the park was delayed for several years, and it was finally inaugurated in 1942. The park, then the largest and most central in the city, spanned 29 dunam, planted with thousands of trees and shrubs, including trees identified with Eretz-Israel. These days, Gan Meir is a neighborhood park, and at its southern end it houses the Municipal G.L.B.T Community Center, which serves the city’s gay community.

 19. Magen David Square
(corner of Nahalat Binyamin and HaCarmel Sts.)
Magen David Square is located at the intersection of Allenby, King George, Sheinkin, HaCarmel (site of the Carmel Market) and Nahalat Binyamin Sts. In the 1930s and 1940s, there was a square for directing traffic here, from which six streets emanated, the number of points on the Magen David (Allenby St. counts for two streets). On November 29, 1947, despite its proximity to Yafo, the square was the center of the mass celebrations following the U.N. vote to partition Eretz-Israel.

20. Palm House
(8 Nahalat Binyamin St.)
The Palm House was built in 1922 by Yehoshua Zvi Tabachnik who wished to create an Eretz-Israeli style of architecture that would emphasize Jewish motifs, in his words: “…to revive the Hebrew style in Hebrew construction,” blended with art-nouveau style.
The façade of the building facing us exemplifies the style of embellishment that distinguishes this architect: the palm tree. His Hebrew style was also expressed in the use of Stars of David and grillwork of the railings in the shape of the menorah.

21. Rambam Square
(corner of Rambam and Nahalat Binyamin Sts.)

22. Anglo-Palestine Company neighborhood
(Shefer Lane)
Surrounding the square was one of Tel Aviv’s first affluent neighborhoods where officials of the Anglo-Palestine Company, the bank of the Zionist Federation, resided. The compound, designed by Joseph Tishler, was comprised of 14 single-storey units built around a common square; the notched, homogeneous exterior of the roof moldings created a sense of a fortified wall, but also one of intimacy.

23. Nordau Hotel
(27 Nahalat Binyamin corner Gruzenberg Sts.)
This hotel, one of the largest and most important in Tel Aviv in the 1920s, was designed and built by Yehuda Magidovich in 1925. In the 1930s, when Hayarkon St. and the seaside promenade became the hub of nightlife and tourism in Tel Aviv, the hotel fell out of favor. The hotel is built in eclectic style, with a domed roof of gray shingle. 

24. The Great Synagogue
(110 Allenby St.)
The cornerstone of the Great Synagogue was laid on November 10, 1921 in the presence of an enormous crowd. The building, designed chiefly by Yehuda Magidovich, was only completed in 1928. The stained glass windows were designed by Ze’ev Raban and the Menorah, engraved with the twelve tribes, was designed by Zalman Axelrod. For many years the synagogue served as a center for public events, and the world’s most renowned cantors sang here.

 25. Palatin Hotel
(corner Nahalat Binyamin and Ahad Ha’am Sts.)
The Palatin, inaugurated in 1926, was the most prestigious hotel in Tel Aviv during the 1920s and early 1930s. It was designed by Alexander Baerwald, who also designed the Technion building in Haifa. Inaugurated in 1926, the hotel immediately became the gathering place for Tel Aviv’s high society. During WWII, the building served as a club for British and American soldiers. The structure was renovated in the 1990s and its exterior grandeur restored.

26. Herzliya Gymnasium and the Shalom Meir Tower
(9 Ahad Ha’am St.)
The building, situated on a sandy hill at the beginning of Herzl St., was designed by architect Joseph Barsky who was influenced by a model of the Temple. In 1910 the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium was relocated to a new home, and in 1960, it moved to its present location on Jabotinsky St. and the original building was demolished. In 1962, the Shalom Meir Tower, designed by Isaac Perlstein and Gideon Ziv, was erected on the original site. On the west side of the entrance lobby are two giant mosaic murals, one by Nahum Gutman and the other by David Sharir, both of which depict the history of Tel
Aviv-Yafo. The tower often hosts exhibits that present chapters in the history of the city.