MSI Press Blog

Introduction This book examines the critical role of modern architecture and individual architects in shaping and transforming national Israeli symbols, especially in the Old City of Jerusalem. It is generally held that Israeli national symbols image Zionism as a pioneering movement awakening the Jewish nation from a stagnant Diaspora tradition and restoring to it its biblical origin in Palestine as a sovereign progressive Jewish state. The opening section of the book analyses pre-1967 designs by architects including Baehrwahld, Geddes, Mendelsohn, “Bauhaus” practitioners, and Rau, each of whom attempted to construct a National Jewish style in Palestine. The analysis reveals the elusiveness of the hard-sought national Jewish style, and the problems inherent to the search. The Diaspora’s memory was still too vivid to be discarded, especially in regard to the Old City of Jerusalem. Indeed, the “official” Zionist memory’s suppression of more than two thousand years of Jewish experi...

The Subversive Utopia   examines the critical role of modern architects in shaping and transforming national Israeli memory with special regard to Jerusalem. Using as a background the attempts of various architects since the 19th century to construct a national Jewish style, the author focuses his analysis on Louis Kahn’s design of the Hurva synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem. Th is study scrutinizes and pieces together discrepant archival documents, drawings, and accounts of intentions, interpretations, events, policies, and projects in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Th e book reveals an unrecognized crucial interplay of Kahn’s Hurvah design  with the competing traditional and national symbols of Jerusalem, such as the old Hurvah, the Western Wall, and most important, the mythical Jewish Temple and the Dome of the Rock. Th e drastic impact of Kahn’s idiosyncratic design on shaping Jerusalem and its national memory is traced through subsequent arch...