Art and designהיינץ ראו

Heinrich Rau

Heinrich (Heinz) Rau was a German-born Israeli architect and town planner, known for the 1949 master plan for Jerusalem and for choosing the site of Ashdod.

1896 to 1965The Rau Plan for JerusalemChoosing the site of AshdodInternational Style architecture in Jerusalem

Born: 10 November 1896, Berlin
Died: 13 February 1965, Bad Teinach
Occupation: architect

Heinrich Rau was born in 1896 in Berlin

Rau was born in Berlin on November 10, 1896, to a religious family. He was the second of 8 children. In Berlin he studied carpentry and interior design.

He left Germany when the Nazis came to power in 1933 and moved to the Land of Israel. He first worked with the architect Richard Kauffmann and opened his own office in Jerusalem in 1935. He designed private homes in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa and worked in the International Style.

In 1949 Arieh Sharon appointed him head of initiative planning in the new Planning Department, where he served until 1952. He led the team that drew up a master plan for Jerusalem, known as the Rau Plan. It had no legal force but set principles such as building on hills, keeping valleys green, building in stone and placing state institutions at Givat Ram.

In 1950 he took part in planning the Hebrew University campus at Givat Ram. He opposed a new deep-water port in Tel Aviv and looked for a site elsewhere, choosing the mouth of the Lachish stream. A city was built there after a government decision in 1954, which became Ashdod. He died on February 13, 1965.