Arieh Sharon

Arieh Sharon was born in 1900 in Jarosław

Arieh Sharon was born Ludwig Kurzmann in 1900 in Jarosław, Galicia, now in Poland. As a youth he was active in the Hashomer Hatzair movement. In 1920 he moved to Palestine with a group of the movement and helped found Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, where he kept bees and planned farm buildings.

In 1926 he went to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau under Walter Gropius, Josef Albers and Hannes Meyer. After receiving his diploma in 1929, he ran Meyer's Berlin office and oversaw building the ADGB Trade Union School in Bernau. That year he married the weaver Gunta Stölzl, and their daughter Yael was born.

In 1931 he returned and opened an office in Tel Aviv, designing in the International Style. His work included Histadrut exhibition pavilions, workers' housing, the Ohel Theater building and Beilinson Hospital. From 1941 to 1947 he lectured in architecture at the Technion.

From 1949 to 1953 he headed the planning department in the Prime Minister's Office and prepared a national master plan known as the Sharon Plan. From 1950 to 1964 he worked with architect Benjamin Idelson, designing Soroka Hospital and the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem. Later he built the Ife University campus in Nigeria and many high-rise public buildings.