Architecture in Israel

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Planning and construction in the Land of Israel serve as a unique testing ground for architecture and its various branches, including landscape architecture, urban planning and interior design in the modern era. Israeli architecture, known for incorporating avant-garde and innovative theories, is especially important. Architecture’s centrality in the Zionist idea was discernable already in Herzl’s vision of a modern state integrated into the ancient landscape and the esteemed status he envisaged for architects and engineers in its founding.

With the beginning of the British Mandate, and against the background of the increasing activities of the Zionist movement in the 1920s, there were great efforts made to recruit professionals to lead the settlement project. With their arrival in pre-state Israel, these key figures, who had trained at the best architecture schools in Europe, found fertile ground for the application of progressive design paradigms on an unprecedented scale. Their work is reflected in the international style visible in both the rural and urban spheres (the “White City”); the massive housing construction projects of the 1950s; the professional discourse recorded in Israeli architecture journals; the unique characteristics of the communal Kibbutz architecture; and the bare concrete that characterized the work of architects of the “statehood” generation.

The National Digital Collection of Architecture Archives is the most comprehensive online source documenting the work processes that shaped the face of the country over the twentieth century. The collections personal and professional archives afford a look through a unique prism into the trends, experiments and even whims that contributed to the planning and building of the country. These topics and more are represented in all their originality and ingenuity through the plans, drawings, documents, correspondence and photographs of members of the Israeli architectural community.