King Albert Square

King Albert Square Review

Named after the Belgian monarch who was a personal friend of Mayor Dizengoff, the square, reached from Rothschild Boulevard past the restored buildings on Nahmani Street, is in the heart of Tel Aviv's restored architectural area and has some interesting monuments of its own. Pagoda House, now made over as a gated luxury apartment building, was built in 1924 at the height of the Bauhaus period as a private home. It's very ornamental, topped with the Japanese element that gave it its name. Its architect, Alexander Levy, came to Palestine in the '20s, and designed a number of buildings, although he never felt at home here and eventually returned to Germany, where he was killed in Auschwitz. Inside the elegant stairwell of the Shifrin House, at 2 Melchett Street, off the square, are crumbling remnants of frescoes of the Western Wall and Rachel's Tomb.