ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Israeli architectural and urban planning on a massive scale from its advent in the 1950s through its subsequent concession to real estate speculation and big business interests in the 1960s, following a brief period of active public debate over vertical construction. It explores the story of renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer whose architectural activities in Israel included grandiose plans for exceptionally large buildings in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and the Negev desert. Niemeyer recorded his impressions of the socialist Zionist enterprise and Israel's natural scenery in his diary, as well as his vehement criticism of Israeli planning conceptions, which he regarded as low and sprawling. The negation of the city stood at the heart of Zionist ideology and its settlement enterprise. Niemeyer rejected claims that horizontal construction was more economic in the face of vertical construction that would require the installation and maintenance of elevators, among other things.
