Technion Building Plan

The structures above ground feature ruggedly stacked sandstone veneer walls backed by limestone structural walls. All stones had to be hauled to the site by donkeys and camels, some of them from quarries lo-\cated hours away. Building proceeded in Arab fashion, which means without scaffolding. The mason stands atop the wall or pillar he is building and lays the stone, which the assistant carries on his shoulders up a ladder, into a bed of mortar, maneuvers it into the right position with the help of a plumb line, and then steps on it, using it as his base to lay the next stone. Thus he builds up the wall under his feet, so to speak. Mortar is brought to him by a boy who carries just the amount of mortar nec-essary to lay one up to the mason on a board he is bal-ancing on his head. The inner surface of the outer walls is initially very rough. Gaps are filled in with smaller stones and then covered with a layer of gypsum, which the Arab mason produces in an excellent quality. For the inner walls rough-hewn stones are sufficient; here, too, gaps are filled with smaller stones, after which the walls are plastered on both sides.

These walls and pillars, built in biblical fashion, are topped by a modern ceiling of reinforced concrete that had already demonstrated its suitability for the Orient in the buildings of the Augusta-Victoria Compound on the Mount of Olives. The roofs evolved, as is natural in the orient, as flat structures, and serve simultaneously as ceilings for the uppermost stories. They were built using a core of hollow stones set in cement and were reinforced with a grid of iron rods (Westphal ceiling); they were built slightly sloped, as is necessary. The surface was smoothed with a thin layer of cement to which was glued a layer of bituminous waterproofing; a screed of cement mixed with Ceresit, about 10 cm in thickness, was added to protect against the tar’s evaporation. To prevent the cement screed from cracking, a wire mesh was laid down about 3 cm beneath its surface. Because of the enormous range in temperature (own observation: +8^o C at night and +42^o C during the day), because of the tropical rains that that come down with great force in the spring, and because of the withering effect of intense irradiation by the sun lasting for months at a time, the roofs have to withstand enormous stress. Therefore the expensive mode of construction just described seemed imperative. It appears to have held up quite well.