Architect Israel Goodovitch, former Tel Aviv city engineer, died Friday at the age of 92.
Goodovitch was one of the most prominent and outspoken figures in Israel’s planning and construction world, known for his direct style and numerous professional disputes with the planning establishment over the years.
His son Dekel, who is also an architect, eulogized him in a social media post, talking about his father’s absolute commitment to the profession.
“My father, before he was a father, was first and foremost an architect,” Dekel wrote. “It was not a workplace or a profession; it was his life’s mission.”
“His architecture was sacred work for all of society, with the goal of building for it a better place, a more special place, one that went beyond the drafting paper, past all boundaries.”
He spoke about his father’s all-encompassing approach, which began “in the morning with concrete and ended late at night with the design of a wooden chair,” noting that Goodovitch would often act unconventionally.
“Dad was always above the law. The law of gravity, building laws, and social norms. He soared to heights, freed himself from technical and bureaucratic limitations, and flew to the great sun. Now that he is truly in the heavens, he can finally rest a little from struggles and reunite with all those he loved and did everything for,” Dekel wrote.
Technion, University of Tokyo alumnus
Goodovitch was born in Haifa in 1934. He studied at Tichon Hadash Tel Aviv and at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Faculty of Architecture, and went on to earn a master’s degree from the University of Tokyo.
Abroad, he designed two stadiums in South Africa (among them the national stadium in Bophuthatswana), the sports hall in Tzemach named after Col. Gideon Bendel, the Jewish community center and Chabad’s Great Synagogue in Moscow, as well as buildings in New York.
In Israel, he designed the Aviv Towers in Tel Aviv, residential neighborhoods in Or Yehuda and Ramat Hasharon, and developed master plans for various areas, including Katzrin and the Bedouin sector, among other projects.
His work focused mainly on two regions of the country: Tel Aviv and the desert.
In the Negev, he served from 1967 to 1975 as the official in charge of rural planning at the Housing Ministry.
During that time, he designed the Hazeva Field School, whose beehive-shaped buildings gained worldwide recognition. He also designed the Na’ama Field School in Sharm el-Sheik and the Steel Division (Ha-Plada) memorial monument in Yamit.
From Tel Aviv city engineer to appearing on Big Brother
From 1999 to 2000, he served as Tel Aviv city engineer and remained publicly active in later years.
In 2013, he ran for city council at the head of the “State of Tel Aviv” list. In 2014, he was appointed chairman of the executive board of the Israel Architecture Archive association, and in 2015, he briefly appeared on the reality show “Big Brother.”
Alongside his architectural work, which he carried out for decades with his late wife, Arella, he published several books, most notably “Architecturology” (1967) and “40X40 Forty Towers, Forty Years.”
Additionally, in 2016, Ariel University announced a prize named after Goodovitch, which he himself would award.
The prize was awarded to students whose research papers focused on the history of architecture in Israel, from the beginnings of mid-19th-century settlements to the present, with a focus on architecture, urban and rural planning, public and private space, and landscaping.
