Israeli towns, most notably Tel Aviv, Haifa, and West Jerusalem, reflect city-wide experiments in modern architecture. In the 1930s, Jewish architects educated in prestigious European schools (such as the German Bauhaus) and apprenticed to some of the great Modernist architects of die time (such as Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe, and Gropius) had the unique chance to implement the new theories on a large scale in the fast-growing Jewish towns. One of them, Ze’ev Rechter, talked the Tel Aviv municipal authorities into allowing him to put a new building two and half meters off the ground on stilts, or pilotis, following one of Corbusier’s “five principles of modern architecture"; later this principle was incorporated in the city’s building code.

The cityscapes of Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities are still radically different from that of most European and American towns because of the Modernist planning. While the current condition of many of the original buildings leaves much to be desired (particularly in Tel Aviv), Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa are still full of fine examples of early Modernist buildings, at perhaps unparalleled concentrations.