Zionist women’s organisations in Mandatory Palestine (1920–48, hereinafter MP) 1 took various actions to support immigrant women. Seeking to help these women adapt to their new land, these women’s organisations set out to build autonomous modern establishments, which were planned and managed by women for women. The different women’s organisations espoused an agenda of advancing women by introducing modernisation and effciency into the household. Their planned establishments were to be modern both in appearance and in their built-up space. Such an establishment might have seemed like a modernist building of the 1930s but in fact it represented a preconceived ideal of living in a well-planned and healthy environment for women [1]. Bright and airy spaces equipped with cutting-edge technological appliances were to promote the concept of ‘rationalisation ’2 in the domestic sphere [2]. history arq . vol 20 . no 3 . 2016 217 history Through a uniquely committed cooperation between women architects and women’s organisations, concepts of European modernism were implemented in Mandatory Palestine. By women for women: modernism, architecture, and gender in building the new Jewish society in Mandatory Palestine Sigal Davidi 1 Women resting in the sunny balcony, engaged in leisurely reading and sewing, Domestic Science and Agriculture school, Tel Aviv, 1936. 2 Dining room, Domestic Science and Agriculture School, Tel Aviv, 1936. doi: 10.1017/S1359135516000452 arq (2016), 20.3, 217–230. © Cambridge University Press 2016 1 2