Page 56 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

verifying it, when the jury selected the plan that seemed the worthiest to them, a concern arose that it might have been prepared by a non-Jewish architect that made Aliya with Jewish friends from Germany and who opened an architectural firm in the Land of Israel. In order to confirm that he did not participate in the competition, a friend was sent to him to inquire on the matter. Only after it became clear that he was not one of the applicants, were the names of the applicants of the projects identified and the names of the winners published. Five prizes were awarded and the difference between the sum that was awarded to the first place and the sum awarded to the other winners was small, apparently in order to compensate the architects who were not invited to plan the building.
A letter sent by Hecker and Yellin to Dr. Granovsky on September 18, 1928 indicates that:
The recipients of the three architectural prizes united for the purpose of issuing the architectural plans in concert. Undoubtedly this was a successful solution to the question of processing the finalizing architectural plans [so worded by the writers], and the architectural administration of the building. However, despite resolution of the architectural question, the question of execution for the entire building was not yet resolved. A large share of the work is the constructive processing and the static calculations are not part of the architectures' duties.7
Four of the competition's participants from left to right: Richard Kauffmann, Joseph Berlin, Lotte Cohn, Alexander Baerwald
7 Letter sent by Hecker and Yellin on September 18, 1928 to Dr. Granovsky, in which they offered their services as participants in processing said execution plans, as "builder engineers."
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