Introduction

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After ten years of a rich and fruitful partnership, Idelson and I separated in 1964, in spite of our mutual understanding and constructive cooperation in many important projects. A new architectural era began for me, my partnership with my son Eldar, the young Israeli avant-garde merging with the older Bauhaus avant-garde. Eldar is a "sabra", the Hebrew name of the prickly pear, very rough and sturdy outside, but gentle and sweet inside, which is supposed to typify the young Israeli. He finished his architectural studies in the Haifa Technion and was decisively influenced by Professor Neumann, a former member of CIAM (Congrès Internationale d'Architecture Moderne), and an enthusiastic disciple of Corbusier.

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Eldar returned to our workshop. Both of us were very happy that the "prodigal" son was joining the father again, bringing with him new, dynamic ideas on building and planning. Of course, we both had some doubts about the prospects of our working together, but hoped that with some measure of goodwill and common effort, we would be able to find a synthesis between the two generations, to combine our architectural and human experience and find positive and true solutions to architectural problems. We knew that very much depended on our ability to find a common architectural language, and to bridge differences in age and temperament. In this we succeeded, as the President of the Thai University in Bangkok remarked, while raising his glass for a toast - "to the young Sharon and to the still younger Sharon."

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Gropius once said that the architect never received a mandate from the government or the people to conceive and design the possible framework for a desirable way of life. It's true: we didn't receive any mandate from society to plan cities. But we cannot expect society to take initiative, and to start fighting our battle for architectural town-planning and urban design. It is up to us, the architects, to explain, to convince, to fight for the integration of architecture into housing and town-planning.

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