The “International Style” and “Brutalism” were young Israel’s architectural foundations. Jewish architects fled to Palestine before and during the Second World War carrying with them fresh modernist planning and aesthetic principles and acting as “agents” of European (foreign) cultural heritage.  I examine the act of a nation state embracing foreign visual character.

My research focuses on  the architect Zeev Rechter  and on  two of his works; the residential edifice called The Engel House, built on Rothschild Boulevard in 1933, and on the Israeli pavilion in the Biennale Gardens of Venice, Italy, built in 1952. My research explores what was fully adopted from the modernist ideals, what was left aside, and what underwent alterations on its way to Israel.