Five teams of hands-on craftspeople out on location
Trainee plasterers and decorators involved in the renovation of cracks and the repair of damaged plaster on the Max-Liebling House
For an exciting week of work from 23 March, 15 trainee plasterers and 7 trainee painters & decorators swapped their domestic working environment for a very special construction site in the White City of Tel Aviv. This collaborative project aims to provide an educational exchange, the benefits of an intercultural experience as well as a transfer of trade knowledge, all in the context of the facade renovation project planned by the Sto Foundation for the Max-Liebling House in Tel Aviv, a listed building.
Each of the three teams of five trainee plasterers from the vocational training school and the vocational training centre in Leonberg is to work for one week on the facade of the Max-Liebling House. After the cracks have been renovated and any damaged plasterwork has been touched up, seven trainee painters & decorators from seven German vocational training schools will apply a gleaming new coat of paintwork to the facade. Each of these one-week workshops is followed by a three-day accompanying cultural programme which includes trips to Jerusalem, to the memorial site of Yad Vashem, to Haifa and Akko and a guided tour of the White City of Tel Aviv.
The Israeli contribution to each working group consists of five young craftspeople, selected and supervised by the Israel Antiquities Authority. Also, a class of architecture students from Bezalel University in Jerusalem has announced their interest in attending. The Tel Aviv White City Business Office at the German Federal Office of Construction in Mainz will take care of organising the accompanying cultural programme. The Sto Foundation provides the funding for this educational exchange between craftspeople.
Jochen Drescher will be in charge of the plastering workshop. He has been an active EuroSkills and WorldSkills participant (plasterer and drywall builder) ever since 2011. He is a self-employed master plasterer and trainer in Stuttgart. On location in Tel Aviv, Dr. Norbert Hoepfer will be their contact, a German speaker with the requisite local expertise. Master painter & decorator Annika Hillegeist will be looking after the trainee painters & decorators.
The White City in Tel Aviv was built by Jewish architects as a modern residential town for emigrants and refugees from Europe in the thirties and forties. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2003 and about half of its 4,000 buildings are now listed. The German Federal Ministry of the Interior Building and Community (BMI) is actively supporting the preservation of this cultural building legacy with ideas and with financial support through the ‘White City Center Tel Aviv’ project to which representatives of the city of Tel Aviv and the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Foundation are committed - underscoring the shared historical, cultural and architectural significance of the ‘White City’ for Germany and Israel. The internal renovation of the Max-Liebling House is currently underway. It is the forum and focal point of this bilateral project which is scheduled to open as a local community, visitor, knowledge and cultural legacy centre in autumn 2019, the centenary year of the Bauhaus movement.
