Description
Book SynopsisAyala Levin charts the settler colonial imagination and practices that undergirded Israeli architectural development aid in Africa.
Trade Review“A remarkable addition to the growing literature on the intrinsic plurality of global development experiences. Placing architectural expertise at the center of knowledge transfer between the newly-formed nation-states of Israel and on the African continent, Ayala Levin depicts state building as a parallel activity being undertaken by both provider and receiver of expertise, undoing received notions about ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ contexts. The sections comparing Israeli approaches toward kibbutzim at home and rural-urban migration patterns in Sierra Leone and Nigeria are nothing short of spectacular.” -- Arindam Dutta, author of * The Bureaucracy of Beauty: Design in the Age of Its Global Reproducibility *
“In this rich and wonderfully detailed study, Ayala Levin provides a careful, learned, and multidisciplinary assessment of Israel’s architectural and developmental impact in Africa in which the characters and mindsets of Israeli architects and planners come alive. Scholars of Israeli-African relations, African development studies, African and Israeli architecture, and urban planning in the global South will find Levin’s exposé of Israeli-African geopolitics to be a valuable contribution.” -- Garth Myers, author of * Rethinking Urbanism: Lessons from Postcolonialism and the Global South *
“Levin takes the reader on a well-detailed and multifaceted journey.” -- Gabriel Schwake * Connections *
"Architecture and Development provides far more than the sum of its case studies: this volume presents excellent scholarship. ... It significantly enriches our knowledge of Israeli and African planning and architecture. It critically reveals fascinating connections between national ideologies and international relations and provides new perspectives on global junctions of architecture culture and knowledge production."
-- Inbal Ben Asher Gitler * Israel Studies Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction. Settler Colonial Expertise in the Theater of Development 1
1. Fast-Tracking the Nation-State: The Design and Construction of the Sierra Leone Parliament 25
2. Rootedness and Open-Ended Planning: The Sierra Leone National Urbanization Plan 68
3. Planning a Postcolonial University Campus: The University of Ife, Nigeria 97
4. Designing the University of Ife: Climate, Regeneration, and Ornament 125
5. Israeli Aid, Private Entrepreneurship, and Architectural Education in Addis Ababa 165
Postscript. Ghosts of Modernity 195
Notes 219
Bibliography 269
Index 295
