Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler (Ph.D. Tel-Aviv University, 2005) is associate professor at Sapir Academic College and head of the Visual Culture section in its Department of Communication. At Ben Gurion University of the Negev, she is a teaching fellow. Her main research areas are the modern architecture of Israel/Palestine and Israeli visual culture. Her latest book, Architectural Culture in British Mandate Jerusalem, 1917-1948 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020) is the recipient of the Concordia University Library - Azrieli Institute Award for Best Book in Israel Studies for 2021. Her edited volume, Between Conventional and Experimental: Mass Housing and Prefabrication in Modernist Architecture, was published in 2024 by Leuven University Press.
Current research projects include:
1) Israeli Women Architects, 1948-1978
2) Architecture from the Margins: the Architecture of Israeli Development Towns
2021: Concordia University Library - Azrieli Institute Award for Best Book in Israel Studies for the book Architectural Culture in British Mandate Jerusalem, 1917-1948
2019: Israel Science Foundation (ISF) Book Publication Grant for the Book Architectural Culture in British Mandate Jerusalem, 1917-1948.
2018: Israel Science Foundation (ISF). Title of Project: “Architecture as as Cross-Cultural Project: Building in Jerusalem during the British Mandate, 1917-1948.” PI: Inbal Ben-Asher-Gitler
2011: Rich Foundation Award for Advancement of Women in the Academy for traveling to a professional conference (Ben-Gurion University).
2006: Stipend from the YMCA of the USA for conducting research in the USA, investigating the artists and architects who worked on the Jerusalem YMCA building.
2016: Sapir Academic College outstanding lecturer title.
2011: Fellowship to deliver a paper at the 27th AIS Annual Conference: “Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State,” Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.
2010: Ben-Gurion University President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
2008: Scott Opler Emerging Scholar Fellowship for delivering a paper at the Society of Architectural Historians’ 61st Annual Meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio.
2006: Fellowship to deliver a paper at the General Assembly of the YMCA of the USA, Nashville, TN. (incorporated with stipend listed below in Research Grants)
Ph.D. Dissertation
Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of the Arts, Tel-Aviv University
Title of Thesis: The architecture of the Jerusalem YMCA building (1919-1933): constructing multiculturalism
Supervisor: Dr. Edina Meyer-Maril
275 pages
Scientific Books – Published (Refereed)
Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, Architectural Culture in British Mandate Jerusalem, 1917-1948. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
Edited Books and Special Journal Issues
1. Regine Hess, Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, Yael Allweil, and Tzafrir Feinholz, Between Conventional and Experimental – Mass Housing and Prefabrication in Modern Architecture, Leuven University Press, 2024.
Open Access [and print]: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/93588
2. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal and Anat Geva, Israel as A Modern Architectural Experimental Lab, 1948-1978, Edited book for series: Critical Studies in Architecture of the Middle East, edited by Mohammad Gharipour & Christiane Gruber, published in association with the Society of Architectural Historians of the USA, Intellect Books, 2020.
Reviewed by Noam Shoked, JSAH 80.3 (2021): 365-366.
3. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, Yael Allweil, Dana Gordon and Eran Tamir (Eds.), Timely Teaching: Educational Idealism and Modern Architecture, Architects House Gallery (Israel Association of United Architects), Tel-Aviv Yafo, 2017 (Hebrew and English).
4. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal (Ed.), Monuments and Site-Specific Sculpture in Urban and Rural Space, Cambridge Scholars Publishers, Newcastle on Tyne, 2017.
Articles in Refereed Journals
1. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Modern Typologies as Spaces of Inter-Religious Engagement in British-Mandate Jerusalem, 1917–1938,” Religions 15 (no. 12, 2024), 1490. Special issue: Inter-Religious Encounters in Architecture and Other Public Art.
DOI: 10.3390/rel15121490
2. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, Book Review of: Ayala Levin, Architecture and Development: Israeli Construction in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Settler Colonial Imagination, 1958-1973 (Duke University Press, 2022). Israel Studies Review 38 (no. 2, 2023), 170-172.
3. Allweil, Yael & Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler “Middle-Class by Design: Mass Housing Estates and the Consolidation of the Israeli Urban Middle-Class,” DoCoMoMo Journal 68 (2023): Middle Class Mass Housing, 18-25.
4. Lachover, Einat and Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, “Gendered National Memory on Israeli Postage Stamps: From Gender Blindness to Feminist Commemoration.” Israel Studies Review, 37 (no. 3, 2022): 109-133.
5. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal “What’s in the Mix? Mixed‐Use Architecture in the Post‐World War II Years and Beyond,” Urban Planning 7, no. 1 (2022). https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v7i1.4802.
6. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal and Bar Leshem, “Creating Museum Culture in British Mandate Palestine: Vision and Reality,” Israel Studies vol. 26, no. 3 (2021), pp. 138-157 (Special issue New Scholarship on the British Mandate in Palestine, edited by Ilan Troen and Natan Aridan). https://doi.org/10.2979/israelstudies.26.3.09
7. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal and Einat Lachover, “Gendered Memory and Miniaturization in Graphic Design: Representations of Women in Israeli Postage Stamps,” Design Issues, 37:3 (2021): 18–32. https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00645
8. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “New Brutalism, New Nation: Ram Karmi’s Assimilation of Brutalism in Israel’s Arid Region Architecture,” The Journal of Architecture 26, no. 3 (2021), 316-339. 2021DOI:10.1080/13602365.2021.1896566
9. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Die Wüste formen: Bauhauserbe in Israel,” Jüdische Geschichte & Kultur 3 (2019), 38–41. [German].
https://www.dubnow.de/publikation/juedische-geschichte-kultur-magazin-des-dubnow-instituts-3
10. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Visualizing Democracy, difference and Judaism in Israeli Posters, 1948-1978,” Israel Studies (22, no. 3, 2017), 48-76.
DOI: 10.2979/israelstudies.22.3.03
11. Har-Gil, Amir and Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, “Landscape and Architecture of the Israeli Kibbutz as represented in Film and Television,” Israel Studies Review, 30, no. 1 (2015), 101-129. DOI: dx.doi.org/10.3167/isr.2015.300107
12. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Between Gender, Architecture and Design: Some visual perspectives of online journalism,” History and Theory: The Protocols, Vol. 20: “Readings,” April 2011. Online Journal of the Bezalel Academy of Art, http://journal.bezalel.ac.il/he/protocol/article/3272 [Hebrew]
13. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Reconstructing Religions: Jewish place and space in the Jerusalem YMCA Building, 1919-1933,” Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, (60, no. 1, 2008), 41-62.
DOI: 10.1163/157007308783360543
14. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Biblical Imagery in the Sculptural Program of the Jerusalem YMCA, 1919-1933,” Motar (15, 2007), 95-106 [Hebrew].
https://arts.tau.ac.il/Researches/journals/motar
15. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “‘Marrying Modern Progress with Treasured Antiquity’: Jerusalem City Plans during the British Mandate, 1917-1948”, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review (published by IASTE, University of California, Berkeley) (15, no. 1, 2003), 39-58. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41758029
16. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “C.R. Ashbee's Jerusalem Years: Arts & Crafts, Orientalism and British Regionalism”, Assaph: Studies in Art History, 5 (2000), 29-52 [Hebrew]
https://arts.tau.ac.il/Researches/journals/asaf-art-history
Under Review:
Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Knowledge Transfers in the Architecture and Built Environment of Israel/Palestine in the Heyday of Ottoman Rule and during the British Mandate,” submitted to a special issue of Israel [Hebrew].
Articles or Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Scientific Books
1. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, and Yael Allweil, “Another Slab, Sheet, and Brick in the Wall: The Surge of Prefabrication in Israeli Housing, 1960-1980,” in: Regine Hess, Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, Yael Allweil, and Tzafrir Feinholz, From Conventional to Experimental — Mass Housing and Prefabrication, Leuven University Press, 2024, 121-142.
2. Dalit Shach Pinsley, Idan Porat, Liran Duani, Noa Zemer, Adi Hamer Yacobi, Yael Allweil and Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, “Israel,” in: European Middle-Class Mass Housing: Past and Present of the Modern Community Edited by Inês Lima Rodrigues, Dalit Shach-Pinsly, Kostas Tsiambaos, Vlatko P. Korobar, COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), 2023, 290-317.
3. Lachover, Einat and Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, “A stamp of her own: design and commemoration in Israeli stamps depicting women,” in Na’ama Sheffi and Edna Lomsky-Feder, eds., Memory, Objects and Representations, Pardess Publishers, 2023, 307-336. [Hebrew].
4. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Some notes on Applying Postcolonial methodologies to Architectural history research in Israel/Palestine,” in: Martha Langford (Ed.), Narratives Unfolding: National Art Histories in an Unfinished World, McGills-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 2017, 100-122.
5. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, and Shlomit Tamari, “The Marcus Family Campus: New Design and Contemporary Architecture,” in: Yehuda Grados and Isaac (Yanni) Nevo (eds.), Science and Scholarship in the Negev: The Story of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, Beer-Sheva, 2014, 551-580. Section 4, chapter 2 [Hebrew].
6. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Campus Architecture as Nation Building: Israeli Architect Arieh Sharon’s Obafemi Awolowo University Campus in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 1962-1976,” in: Lu, Duanfang (Ed.), Third World Modernism: Architecture, Development, and Identity, Routledge, Oxon and New York, 2011, 112-140.
Articles or Chapters in Scientific Books related to Exhibitions
1. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal and Anat Geva, “Brutalism and Structuralism in the South: The Impact of Eldar Sharon,” in: Arieh Sharon: The State’s Architect, Eran Neuman )Ed.), Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2018, 424-431. [Hebrew].
1a. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal and Anat Geva, “Brutalism and Structuralism in the South: The Impact of Eldar Sharon,” in: Arieh Sharon: The State’s Architect, Eran Neuman )Ed.), Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2023.
2. Engleman, Adi and Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, “Dani Karavan: Square of Tolerance: Tribute to Yitzhak Rabin,” in: UNESCO Art Collection – in honor of UNESCO’s 75th Anniversary, 2021.
3. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Arieh and Eldar Sharon,” in: Benno Albrecht (Ed.), Africa: Big Change Big Chance, Trienalle di Milano, Editrice Compositori, Bologna, 2014, 157.
Articles in Conference Proceedings
1. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal and Yael Allweil, “Timely Teaching – fostering public and professional awareness and action,” Proceedings of the16th International DoCoMoMo Conference: Inheritable Resilience: Sharing Values of Global Mobilities, Docomomo International / Docomomo Japan, 2021, 642-647.
2. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal and Ruth Verde Zein, “’A mass of tradition and association:’ reviving and reliving the buildings of Brutalism,” Proceedings of the 14th International Docomomo Conference: Adaptive Reuse – The Modern Movement Towards the Future, Docomomo International / Casa de Arquitectura, Lisbon, 2016.
3. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Not all that’s grey is ‘Brutalism’: Architectural concepts in planning Beer Sheba, 1950-1980,” Tichnun Annual Conference Proceedings 2015, 30 [Hebrew].
4. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Be’er-Sheva as an Architectural Laboratory,” Architecture and Landscape: Proceedings of the 2014 Annual Conference, 14 [Hebrew].
5. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, and Naomi Meiri-Dann, "Looking Back and Looking Now: Thoughts on Architecture’s construction of History," Proceedings of the European Architectural History Network (EAHN) Annual Conference, Turin, Italy, 2014.
6. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, and Shlomit Tamari, “Mediating Modernism in Campus Architecture: Preservation and Revival in Israeli Universities”, in: (Revised) Proceedings of the 12th International Docomomo Conference: The Survival of Modern – From Coffee Cup to Plan, Docomomo.
Other Scientific Publications
1. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Nation Building through Campus Architecture: Israeli Architects Arieh Sharon and Eldar Sharon’s Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Campus in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, 1962–1976,” Bauhaus Imagenista, 2019. http://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/articles/3797/nation-building-through-campus-architecture
Other Works
1. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Should the Ukranian Model be Adopted in Reconstructing Homes on the Gaza Border?”, Ynet, 25 December 2023. https://www.ynet.co.il/architecture/article/s19c111kvp
2. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “No More Karavillas: Israel should implement 21st century emergency architecture,” Spiralla (“Writing War” section), 20 December 2023. https://spirala.sapir.ac.il/34843/
3. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “A Pyramid named “ranger’s tent,” Ha’aretz, 24 April 2023 (digital and print edition).
4. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “Bet Hasofer: Historical Background and Architecture,” Essay for publicizing Ben-Gurion University’s establishment of a Scholars’ Guest House in an historic Mandatory residence in the Old Ottoman/British City of Be’er Sheva, Ben-Gurion University, 2018 [Hebrew].
5. Ben-Asher Gitler, Inbal, “About what’s not concealed in the plans for the future Gush Dan Metro,” 19 July, 2016, D+A Magazine, http://www.urian.co.il/תרבות-וסגנון/על-מה-שלא-סמוי-מן-העין-ברכבת-הקלה-העתידי/ [Hebrew].