Appearance and performance: Israeli building climatology and its effect on local architectural practice (1940–1977)

This article traces the history of building climatology research in Israel during the four decades of its emergence, development and consolidation, a period that coincided with a seemingly constant engagement of the local architectural milieu with climatic discourse and climatic design solutions. By the late 1970s, building climatology research was able to provide Israeli architects with an abundance of practical knowledge and specific design recommendations; nevertheless, Israeli architects tended to use the knowledge sporadically and selectively, frequently manipulating it to justify formal experimentations that had little to do with the actual climatic performance of their buildings. The article suggests that this discrepancy between production of scientific knowledge and its actual application was not the result of some inherent flaws in the scientific efforts that were directed to benefit architects, but rather an outcome of the architects’ engagement with questions of appearance, alongside their preference of formal expression over technical performance.