ΒΟΟΚ:Zvi Efrat-The Object of Zionism. The Architecture of Israel,Spector Books

Contrary to popular belief, the architecture and spatial politics of Israel were not born haphazardly out of emergency or speculation. The Israeli built environment is the deliberate response to a unique objective, how to design and build a model state nearly instantaneously. To do this, space had to be remade: a new terrain was molded, and dozens of new towns and hundreds of rural settlements were constructed. Fashionable postwar architectural trends like Brutalism and Structuralism were appropriated as signifiers of national vigor. Architect and Architectural Historian, Zvi Efrat was Head of the Department of Architecture at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (2002-010). He has taught at the Technion Institute of Technolgy, the Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University, among others. He has lectured worldwide, published extensively in various periodicals and books, and curated numerous exhibitions in Israel and in Europe. His book “The Object of Zionism: The Architecture of Israel” published by Spector Books is a critical study of Zionist spatial planning and the architectural fabrication of the State of Israel from the early decades of the 20^th Century to the 1960s and 1970s. It scrutinizes Israel as a singular modernist project—unprecedented in its relative scope and rates of growth, its political and ethical circumstances, and its hyper-production of spatial and structural experiments. This project entailed the molding of a new terrain, the construction of dozens of new towns and hundreds of new rural settlements, and the appropriation of post-war architectural trends, especially Brutalism and Structuralism, as signifiers of national vigour and cultural ingenuity. Contrary to common belief, the State of Israel was not born of emergency routine or speculative ventures, but rather with the objective of designing an instantaneous model state.–Εfi Michalarou