Paper short abstract:

This study examines how the architecture profession responds to perceived threats to the status of the government and the hegemony. It analyzes the ways in which Israeli architects dealt with the fear of Mediterranean Arab cultures during two historical eras, using political violence.

Paper long abstract:

This study analyzes the ways Israeli government-employed architects dealt with the fear of "Arabism" – native Mediterranean Arab cultures – during two decades in the 20th century. During the first decade (1948–1956), the architects erased Arab cities and villages and rejected any signs of Arab architecture in the new cities planned for the Jewish population. In the second decade (1967–1977), the architects fought against the increased power and the heightened protests of Jews of Arab descent who posed a threat to the ruling hegemony.

Through this case study, we examine the relationship between three concepts in an architectural context: profession, hegemony, and government, focusing on times of crisis. The crisis is caused by two types of perceived threat: one is overt and recognized by the government, and the other is covert and not officially acknowledged, posing a latent threat to the hegemonic order. In both cases, the threat has the potential to overturn the power hierarchy and thus damage the status of the architects. The findings indicate that in a time of crisis, which is perceived—even by the authorities—as a threat to society at large, the architecture profession makes itself entirely available to assist the governmental authority to preserve the existing hegemony, exercising state-sponsored political violence. By contrast, when the ruling authorities do not consider the crisis to constitute a threat to the hegemonic order, the architecture profession ‘chooses its battles’ based on its interest in preserving the hegemony, to retain its own power and status.