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Architectural Overview  Visitors are always surprised to learn that Jerusalem’s YMCA was designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon, a partner of the same architectural firm that created New York’s Empire State Building in 1931. Visually, the ornate and sprawling YMCA would appear to have little to do with the American office tower. The Empire State Building is known, of course, for being tall, and while it is about 10 times the height of the 46-meter tower of the YMCA, each of these vertical edifices had the distinction of being the tallest structure in its respective city when it was built.The New York office of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon was already well known as a major commercial practice in 1925, when Harmon was commissioned to design the Jerusalem YMCA.  Harmon, a devout Christian, seems to have taken the assignment as a personal mission; with inspiration from Dr. Archibald Harte, general secretary of the Jerusalem YMCA, he created a richly symbolic building that looks back at the early architectural traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.Some masonry was hewn according to methods mentioned in ancient Jewish accounts, and foundation stones were cut from quarries thought to have been used for the building of the Second Temple.  An overall Byzantine style was adopted as representative of the earliest distinct Christian architecture. The wide, round arches supporting round domes, substantial stone walls with top lighting, and the wealth of carved decoration are typical; however, the cross-vaulted ceilings of sections such as the main lounge and reception area would not have been found in Byzantium and are characteristic of later Romanesque and Gothic periods. Much of the interior decoration – painted arabesques and carved local stone – is typical of Islamic architecture. Maximizing dialogue among adherents of the three monotheistic religions is a goal of the local YMCA; the concept of a trinity of spirit, mind and body is the international organization’s motto. These outlooks are reflected in the three-part functional form of the building. In the U-shaped plan, an auditorium for religious and cultural programs in the north wing is balanced by a gymnasium on the south end. The central portion houses offices, a library, a lecture room, lounges and a hotel. The trinity is repeated in three rooms in the tower – an underground oratory, a second-floor Upper Room depicting the Last Supper and a space under the tower’s dome devoted to silent worship. These chambers represent three stages in man’s quest for God.Other architectural elements are tied to religious numerology. For example, the 40 columns in the forecourt arcades represent the Israelites’ 40 years in the desert and Jesus’ 40 days of temptation; the 12 windows in the dome of the auditorium signify the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 disciples of Jesus, and the 12 followers of Muhammad; and on the portion of the tower that houses the carillon, the 4 corners contain symbols of the 4 Evangelists.  The abundant carved stone sculpture is also meaningful, particularly the column capitals – which represent the flora and fauna of the Holy Land, its people and traditional occupations such as shepherd and camel driver, and scenes from biblical stories. The large female bust with a jug, next to the main entrance, is the Samaritan woman; the lamb opposite symbolizes Jesus.Such literal religious symbolism was common in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Jerusalem architecture when Western nations strove to place their imprint on the Holy Land. These concerns were generally typical of their time: even secular New York buildings of the 1920s and ‘30s bear carvings and inscriptions reminding the user or passerby of spiritual fulfillment and moral obligations. Harmon had his own vision of pedantic perfection for the YMCA that necessitated extreme patience and sometimes extraordinary effort. The onus often fell on the shoulders of the project architect, Arthur Quinton Adamson, who had already supervised the construction of a number of YMCA buildings in other parts of the globe. In order to ensure the authenticity of the two large domes over the gym and auditorium, for example, he and building contractor Baruch Katinke (of Awad, Dounie and Katinke) journeyed to Istanbul to study Byzantine architecture.  The embellishment of column capitals with many types of animal and vegetable forms and nonfigurative patterns deviates from the more rigid decoration of the accepted classical orders and is, as such, typical of Byzantine architecture. Harmon sent his crew of sculptors to Lebanon to study the Byzantine carvings in Baalbek. He then made small sketches of each sculpture intended for the YMCA, and required the sculptors to make full plaster mock-ups of each one. Photographs of the models were sent to Harmon in his New York office for approval, and only after such rigorous inspection were the capitals finally produced in stone.The seventeenth-century painted wood panels over the main entry hall are known as a Damascus ceiling. Adamson did, in fact, travel to Damascus, where he was able to buy, dismantle and ship this fine piece of geometric arabesque work. In the room north of the entrance hall, now used as the restaurant, there is a fireplace built of local stone but copied from an early Arabic example. While the Oriental/Byzantine aspects of the YMCA are obvious, the building, if stripped of its domes and ornamentation, would have the form and structure of a typical public building of the early twentieth century. In many of the large rooms, the beams of the modern reinforced concrete ceiling are left exposed, albeit painted with Islamic-influenced decorative patterns. The long interior corridors are vaguely reminiscent of New York institutional buildings, right down to the many polished brass fittings and the dark heavy wood of the library furniture. The exterior stone carvings are mostly in the Byzantine style, but one major example, the sleek and shallow relief of the Isaiah seraph on the front facade of the tower by artist Zeev Raban of the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem, is blatantly Art Deco, echoing the popularity of that style in the 1920s. The fusing of Eastern and Western architectural aspects and traditions was common in many international buildings in Jerusalem at the time. Foreign architects were tremendously impressed by the Oriental architecture of the Middle East, yet they could not, and would not, entirely dispense with their own roots and personal methods of work. The resulting mix is appropriate for a YMCA building where dialogues among many cultures are encouraged. The view of Jerusalem from the YMCA’s tower is a worthwhile item on a visitor’s itinerary; the tower, in turn, is a dominant feature in the city’s landscape – even now, when office and hotel high-rises have outsized it. In fact, the whole YMCA building plays a major role in Jerusalem’s urban fabric, imparting, together with the King David Hotel opposite it, a sense of civic grandeur. This chapter was adapted from an article by Wendy Pullan that appeared in ERETZ Magazine. Back to the top
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