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Ariel Golan

Ariel Golan was a Soviet-born Israeli researcher of architecture and traditional material culture, known for his studies of Caucasus architecture and of Frank Lloyd Wright.

1921 to 2007Research on Caucasus traditional architectureStudies of Frank Lloyd WrightThe book Towers in the MountainsTheories on prehistoric religious symbolism

Born: 10 December 1921, Kherson
Died: 2 December 2007, Jerusalem
Occupation: researcher
Education: Kharkiv National University of Construction and Architecture, Soviet Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture

Ariel Golan was born in 1921 in Kherson

Ariel Golan was born Arkady Goldstein in Kherson, Ukraine, in 1921. He fought in World War II in the Red Army and was wounded in battle in Hungary.

In 1951 he graduated from the architecture faculty of the building engineering institute in Kharkov and then worked as an architect in Saratov. He completed doctoral studies at the Soviet Academy of Building and Architecture with a thesis on Frank Lloyd Wright. His Russian translation of Wright's book on the future of architecture appeared in 1960, and his own book on Wright appeared in 1973.

He taught architecture at Dagestan State University for 9 years, where he turned to the traditional architecture of the Caucasus peoples. His 1977 book Towers in the Mountains criticized local authorities for neglecting old buildings and was banned from sale. He published more than 60 research works in the Soviet Union, and the manuscript of his study on North Caucasus architecture was smuggled to Israel in the 1980s.

He immigrated to Israel in 1987 and changed his name to Ariel Golan. In Israel he developed a theory linking traditional ornaments to a prehistoric pantheon of gods, published in books such as Myth and Symbol in 1991. He died in 2007.