Review: Architecture and Development: Israeli Construction in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Settler Colonial Imagination, 1958–1973

How do we read the practice of Israeli architects in Africa during the golden age of Israel–Africa relations? Manuel Herz describes the architecture in Africa within approximately the same time frame as “the architecture of independence,” while Łukasz Stanek sets it within the context of Cold War politics.¹ Closer to the subject, Haim Yacobi describes the practice of Israeli architects in postindependence Africa as an architecture of foreign policy.² While acknowledging these earlier perspectives, in Architecture and Development, Ayala Levin calls us to consider this architecture within the discourse of development. By doing this, she frames both “an architectural history of development aid and a development aid history of architecture” (4).

In her introduction, Levin is quick to indicate her desire to unveil the often-overlooked agency of the African elites in the development of their countries, a perspective that she illuminates throughout the book. While debunking the homogeneity and neutrality of development discourse and the development expert, respectively, she points to political dimensions that conditioned the processes and practices. Although Israel offered development aid in many fields, architecture’s hypervisibility and its conflation of aesthetics and governing politics make it particularly apposite for analysis. Levin discusses Israel’s offer of cooperation, not aid, and how it played into the African psyche; how Israel positioned itself as a fellow postcolonial developing country; and how it presented itself as a “third way” between capitalism and communism based on its official neutrality in the Cold War. She contends that the development expertise Israel gained from its settler colonial experience facilitated its performance in the “theater of development” away from the “theater of war” (15–16). Here she employs the theater as a metaphor to suggest that this was often a performance with hidden motives.

The book’s five chapters examine projects in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Ethiopia, illustrating the concepts outlined in the introduction while showing the nuances of each project. Chapters 1 and 2 discuss projects by Israeli architects in Sierra Leone from 1960 to 1965. In chapter 1, the design, promotion, and execution of the Sierra Leone Parliament Building by the father and son team of Dov and Ram Karmi take center stage. Chapter 2 focuses on Aryeh Doudai’s national urbanization plan for Sierra Leone, which began as a survey to solicit United Nations funds but became a postcolonial tool despite drawing from the legacies of colonial planning. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on Arieh Sharon’s campus for the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University. The planning for the university and its campus, and the internal politics in Nigeria that conditioned it, are highlighted in chapter 3. Chapter 4 centers on the architecture of the main core of the university campus and how modernist architectural principles were deployed in contradistinction to the British approach exemplified in Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew’s campus for the University College, Ibadan, now the University of Ibadan. Chapter 5 uses the work of Zalman Enav and his Ethiopian partner Michael Tedros in Addis Ababa to illustrate the entanglement of private interests with those of the state, and how Enav mobilized his position to further Israel’s interests. The book’s postscript provides further examples of private-sector projects involving Israeli architects in Africa.

According to Ada Louise Huxtable, “Every age cuts and pastes history to suit its own purposes: art always has an axe to grind.”³ In Architecture and Development, Levin’s axe is her intention to show how the settler colonial experience conditioned the practice of Israeli architects in Africa. She emphasizes how the architects took the professional knowledge they had acquired in Europe to practice in Israel and how they then deployed both the knowledge and the expertise in Africa, where, rather than importing Israeli architecture, they applied “their experience adapting modernism to non-Western locales” (19). Although Levin crafts a smooth, well-researched narrative to support this thesis, it sometimes seems to overreach. For example, while Arieh’s association with kibbutz planning is a fact, it may be going too far to say that it informed his location for the agriculture of the Obafemi Awolowo University (119), because this argument breaks down when one considers his location of the faculty buildings within and outside the campus core. Nevertheless, there is other evidence not included that could have strengthened the narrative, such as references to illustrate the competition between the regions in Nigeria that played a role in the establishment of the Obafemi Awolowo University (99). Furthermore, other perspectives, such as the motives of the patrons and the roles of other actors, could also be centered. The possibility of writing a totalizing history for any phenomenon is remote; however, Levin does a decent job presenting a convincing narrative about this complicated historical period.

Architecture and Development sheds light on some lesser-known and forgotten phenomena. One of these is the role of construction companies in the promotion of state interests, such as the Israeli state-backed construction company Solel Boneh, the story of which was previously limited to the Hebrew-speaking world. This company operated in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Bahrain, and Cyprus (7), which seems impossible today given the hostility between those countries and Israel. The subaltern agency of Solel Boneh under the British Mandate comes to the fore as Levin provides evidence not only of its operations under the Mandate but also its subversion when the Mandate’s desires were contrary to Jewish interests. This contradicts commonly held assumptions that the Mandate often supported the Jewish settlers in Palestine and that, in turn, they only did the Mandate’s bidding. The competition between the United States (through the U.S. Agency for International Development) and the United Kingdom to provide aid to African countries for political reasons is worthy of note, as these parties performed in the “theater of development.” Israel’s periphery alliance, an effort at diplomacy that is now largely forgotten, appears in Levin’s analysis as well, albeit marginally.

Another refreshing aspect of Levin’s book is that the author does not hesitate to critique the actions and intentions of Israel and the African countries. This breathes an air of objectivity into the narrative, enabling the reader to see the many facets of various issues. Levin makes distinctions where necessary, however; for instance, she differentiates between Israel’s internal and external policies and the external policies concerning the individual countries. She also does not avoid including evidence of outliers that do not align with her main narrative of “cooperation, not aid” (4), such as Israel’s granting of loans to promote the projects (104–5). She does all this while largely avoiding anachronisms, thereby presenting a rich tapestry of history. The book’s subtitle will surprise anyone vaguely familiar with the relationship between Israel and Africa given the current political hostilities and the possible misreading that Israeli actors were working in colonial Africa as settlers. Still, Levin addresses these issues pointedly in her postscript (195).

Good-quality historical photographs and plates complement the narrative. Although one is tempted to want more, gratefully, other publications provide more images of the projects for readers not previously familiar with them.⁴ Nevertheless, a little more graphic illustration, including plans of some of the buildings, could have done the volume better justice. There are a few odd errors in historical facts, which might not be unexpected for a study spanning projects in three countries. These missteps include statements about Nigeria’s 1975 coup turning the University of Ife into a federal institution (124) and the appearance of grooves only on the walls of the Library and Assembly Hall buildings (164). A few editorial errors also manifest, like the existence of two images each labeled 1.1 and 1.2. Nevertheless, these do not significantly detract from the central narrative or the overall quality of the book.

All in all, Architecture and Development is a good read as it illuminates hitherto obscure aspects of the golden age of Israel–Africa relations, links them to the politics and global discourse of development of the time, and compels the reader to consider the positionality of Israel, its architects and construction companies, the African countries, and their leaders as actors sometimes with competing interests. Levin surely ventures into some of the places where, as John Maass puts it, “architectural historians fear to tread.”⁵ She presents an architectural history that interrogates architecture’s relationship with politics and the discourse of development, and, in doing so, provides historical context for current debates on a subject that, with the involvement of China in recent years, potentially will remain fecund for a long time.