Founded as a suburb of Jaffa, Tel Aviv has evolved by the mid-1930s to become the most prominent city of the Jewish citizenry of Palestine under the British Mandate and that due to an influx of immigrants coming mostly from Eastern and Central Europe in search of a safe haven from anti-semitic policies. Graduates of the Bauhaus and similar schools in Europe have supplied the demand for housing and urban development in the rapidly developing city. Jaffa, remaining the leading city of the Arab citizenry, also boasted the international style of that time, but to a lesser extent, it was less conspicuous against the backdrop of the previously built environment.
Tel Aviv was distinctive in its ensemble of an almost complete urban fabric based on a master plan of a Garden City in conjunction with its International Style built environment. Nowadays, approximately 4,000 International Style buildings, set into the Garden City urban planning, form part of the UNESCO proclaimed World Heritage Site under the appellation of "White City of Tel Aviv: The Modern Movement."
This year, in cooperation with the White City Center (WCC), the Summer School will focus on the concept of 'Societies on the Move'; i.e. the movement of people, materials, and cultures as a central element of modern architecture and this element's influence on the urban landscape. The Summer School wishes to explore historical and contemporary relationships through representations of identities, examining how migration and mobility affect individuals, cities, and cultures while reshaping their identities.