Architecture and Development

“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

"The book is fascinating in the way it engages the post-independence dilemma faced by most of the postcolonial African states in the years 1958-1973. . . . Architecture and Development is a detailed and analytical investigation of that state-building moment." - Ryne Clos, Spectrum Culture

“Levin takes the reader on a well-detailed and multifaceted journey.” - Gabriel Schwake, Connections

"Levin’s text reveals the complex histories and background to this period in Israeli-African relations. ...  It provides an excellent source of archival information on key architects who worked in Africa in the 1950s–70s."

"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."  

"Architecture and Development is thus a valuable contribution to this scholarship by providing a novel narrative through the lens of architecture. ... Levin’s book is undoubtedly worth reading for scholars and policy-makers."

"Without a doubt, Ayala Levin has produced a masterpiece as she endeavors beautifully to use architecture and development paradigms to write history, politics, sociology, international diplomacy, and policy. This book is certainly beneficial to a wide range of scholars, students, politicians, policy makers, and the general readership." - Kwaku Nti, Journal of Global South Studies