Mickey Mouse House

On the night of October 16th, 1946, just before a visit by a UN delegation sent to determine the borders of the partition plan (for the two states to be established), eleven settlement points were erected throughout the Negev desert. The action was designed and carried out with the intention of demonstrating Jewish presence in and ownership of Negev land. At each settlement a safe house was built. These houses were called “Mickey Mouse houses” by the settlers, due to the protruding “ears” that enabled better control and surveillance of the surrounding area. Some of the settlements were relocated to other spots, but the structures remain in place to this day.

An abandoned object that has stood nearly 80 years as a monument to the local narrative and ethos, even as it blends modernist European architectural principles and American popular culture.