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Architecture and Development

Architecture and Development

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In Architecture and Development Ayala Levin charts the settler colonial imagination and practices that undergirded Israeli architectural development aid in Africa. Focusing on the “golden age” of Israel’s diplomatic relations in and throughout the continent from 1958 to 1973, Levin finds that Israel positioned itself as a developing-nation alternative in the competition over aid and influence between global North and global South. In analyses of the design and construction of prestigious governmental projects in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia, Levin details how architects, planners, and a trade union–owned construction company staged Israel as a new center of nonaligned expertise. These actors and professionals paradoxically capitalized on their settler colonial experience in Palestine, refashioning it as an alternative to Western colonial expertise. Levin traces how Israel became involved in the modernization of governance, education, and agriculture in Africa, as well as how African leaders chose to work with Israel to forge new South-South connections. In so doing, she offers new ways of understanding the role of architecture as a vehicle of postcolonial development and in the mobilization of development resources. Ayala Levin charts the settler colonial imagination and practices that undergirded Israeli architectural development aid in Africa. Ayala Levin is Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California, Los Angeles, and coeditor of Architecture in Development: Systems and the Emergence of the Global South. Acknowledgments  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

“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.”
“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.”

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Weight 2 oz
Dimensions 1 × 7 × 10 in