CITY

LEBANON

Mediterranean Sea

Tel Aviv

SYRIA

VIVA TEL AVIV

Haifa WEST BANK

Jerusalem

Dead Sea

GAZA

STRIP

ISRAEL

FOUNDED IN 1909, TEL AVIV TAKES ITS NAME FROM THE HEBREW WORD FOR SPRING, WHICH ALSO TRANSLATES AS “RENEWAL.” GIVEN THE LATEST BLOODY CHAPTER IN ISRAEL’S LONG CONFLICT WITH PALESTINE, MOST TEL AVIVIANS COULD PROBABLY USE A LITTLE RENEWAL. THEY CAN TAKE SOLACE IN THEIR THRIVING METROPOLIS, THE COSMOPOLITAN HEART OF THE MIDDLE EAST. TO CELEBRATE TEL AVIV’S ONE-HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY, WE ExPLORE THE CULTURAL LIFE OF THIS GREAT SEASIDE CITY

JORDAN

EGYPT

MODERNISM,
REMODELED

Call it colonialist moderne. It’s a style of architectural modernism that sprouted in a few exotic capitals between the world wars, but never really matured. In the words of Tel Aviv designer and developer Mati Broudo, it’s “eclectic and orientalist outside, more Deco and modernist inside. Broudo’s Montefiore Hotel epitomizes the aesthetic. From machine desk lamps to ornamental radiator grills, each of the hotel’s twelve rooms is a luxurious time capsule. But it’s not just the décor that makes the

Montefiore a blast from the past. It’s one of several new hotels helping turn the White City, a historic district brimming with nightlife, into an early 21^st-century neighborhood with a distinctly mid-20^th-century flair.

The neighborhood is a wonderland of early modern design, thanks to the European-trained Jewish architects who began flocking to Tel Aviv in the ’20s. Influenced by the German Bauhaus architecture they studied abroad, they contributed thousands of buildings marked by stripped, geometric forms and a simple vocabulary of glass and plaster, defining the look of Israel’s

emerging cultural capital. Restoration efforts have been intense since the White City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003. It’s part of Tel Aviv’s larger cosmopolitan revival, which includes several other attractive new boutique hotels that let you live the old dream of the modernist good life.

Located above Tel Aviv’s art-house movie theater,

the Cinema Hotel features a dizzying spiral staircase straight out of Hitchcock, with a massive antique projector at the base playing classic films. (The staff will even fix you up with popcorn.) Next door, the Center Hotel occupies

one of the area’s larg-
est Bauhaus buildings,
with balconies that wrap
around its curving, sculp-
tural façade, giving
it fifty-six rooms with a
view. Meanwhile, Art +
Hotel lives up to its name
with classic modern
furniture and contempo-
rary Israeli art. From any of
these lush hideaways,
you can walk or bike to
the Tel Aviv Museum of
Art or the recently opened
Bauhaus Center, the city’s
buff-and-bronzed beaches,
the shops around
Dizengoff Circle, and
the beckoning bars and
nightclubs of Rothschild
Boulevard.
DAVEY VOLNER

Montefiore Hotel