In preparation for the 1994 celebrations of the ‘Bauhaus in Tel Aviv’, the newly renovated city was painted white. To its numerous visitors, Tel Aviv boasted the largest concentration world-wide of 1930s modernist buildings (Figs. 1, 2). The impact of this ‘live museum’ was compounded by an abundance of exhibitions and festivities that promoted the Mandate period ‘International Style Architecture’ as a national heritage. This new awareness of Israel’s modern architecture provoked scholarly consideration. In particular, attention has been directed toward the architects who shaped the landscape of the Jewish population in Mandate Palestine known as the Yishuv. Scholars, however, have not adequately questioned the relationship forged by architectural historians between Modern Architecture and Zionism. This paper challenges the uniform treatment of this juncture by exposing distinctions between the different Zionist ideologies embedded in the architectural production of the 1930s. I will illustrate such ideological tension by focusing on the work of Erich Mendelsohn in Palestine on the one hand and on the Tel Aviv architectural circle — known by the Hebrew word for ‘circle’, Chug — on the other.