Kolodny & Kallus-2008-Haifa's History & Planning

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From colonial to national landscape:producing Haifas cityscapeZiva Kolodney

a& Rachel Kallus

a

aFaculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel

E-mail: [email protected]@tx.technion.ac.il

Available online: 16 Jun 2008

To cite this article:Ziva Kolodney & Rachel Kallus (2008): From colonial to national landscape: producingHaifas cityscape, Planning Perspectives, 23:3, 323-348

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Planning Perspectives, 23 (July 2008) 323348

Planning PerspectivesISSN 0266-5433 print/ISSN 1466-4518 online 2008 Taylor & Francis

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsDOI: 10.1080/02665430802102815

From colonial to national landscape: producing

Haifas cityscape

Z I V A K O L O D N E Y * a n d R A C H E L K A L L U S * *

Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected])

TaylorandFrancisRPPE_A_310447.sgm10.1080/02665430802102815PlanningPerspectives0266-5433(print)/1466-4518(online)OriginalArticle2008Taylor&[email protected]

The landscapes continuity makes it a most efficient means for shaping the cityscape. Contrary toarchitecture/planning periodical historical approach, it is argued that the urban landscapes dynamicrequires a fresh outlook in order to portray its timespace linear structure. The paper examines the cityof Haifa in transition from colonial to the nation-building era through the landscape production mech-

anism that this article calls erascape

. The investigation shows how this mechanism arises from politicalagenda to become a powerful agent in constructing Haifas socio-cultural relations. Examining theremaking of Haifa Old City enables one to understand landscape production strategies as interplaybetween professionals (architects and planners), administrators and politicians operating in the trans-formative making of colonial and national cityscapes. Landscape production, as embedded throughdesign knowledge and planning procedures, is examined in maps, drawings, diagrams and sketches, inofficial and private correspondence, in laws and regulations, and as it appears in historical photo-graphs and exists in todays spatial experience of the city.

Introduction

This paper examines the Haifa cityscape in transition from colonialism to nationalism.Contrary to the common perception of landscape as a passive and aesthetic cultural productto be seen, the landscape explored here is a planned and premeditated production of aprofessional practice. It plays a major role in the socio-cultural processes of the city, as aconstantly changing generative form and as explicit evidence of power and knowledge. It iscreated and recreated by architects, planners and landscape architects, ideologically empow-ered by politicians and administrators. Hence, behind the tacit perception of the landscapeas a natural phenomenon, the mechanisms of landscape production are efficient tools withwhich to inculcate official strategies, ideologies and values.

*Ziva Kolodney is a practising landscape architect and an adjunct lecturer at the Technion, Israel Institute ofTechnology, where she teaches urban landscape design. Parallel to that she is completing her PhD studies at theTechnion. Her dissertation focuses on the politics of landscape.

**Rachel Kallus is an architect and town planner, associate professor of architecture, urban design and townplanning at the Technion. Her research focuses on policy measures and their physical outcomes, especially inrelation to equity, equality and social justice. She is the author of numerous publications in books and in architec-ture and planning journals on the socio-cultural aspects of the built environment and its production.


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The main assumption here is that landscapes ongoing dynamic requires a different histor-ical perspective to portray its temporalspatial linear structure. This historiographicapproach is employed for examining the city of Haifa, which nestles on the slopes of MountCarmel, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean (Figs 1 and 2). Haifas pseudo-naturalappearance, and the role landscape has played and continues to play in its history, present aunique opportunity to challenge the periodical historical approach prevailing to date in thestudy of the city [1].

Figure1. Haifaanditsenvirons.Figure2. ViewfromMountCarmeltowards downtownandHaifaBay area(photograph:GuyShachar,2006).

This study focuses on Haifas transition from colonialism to nation-building. Under theBritish Mandate (191748), Haifa was an important port city, an economic and strategiccolonial asset. Its Jewish urban working class established in the late 1920s, despite the rural-orientated Zionist ethos [2], made Haifa a political, economic and social centre of the evolving

Figure 1. Haifa and its environs.


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Producing Haifas cityscape

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nation-state, and a Labor Party stronghold during the 1950s and 1960s [3]. This paperconsiders the transition from one period to the next via landscape production. The land-scapes inherent qualities are viewed as a political-social construct and a powerful medium foradvancing ideological goals. It is asserted that, behind its natural appearance, landscape (andhence landscape production) is used to promote official strategies, ideologies and values. Thisreading of the landscape as a process-orientated phenomenon, rather than a product or acultural image, evokes its transformative qualities. This enables us to avoid the more commonperiodical-historical approach and discuss the transition from colonial

to national Haifa

.From a professional perspective, landscape design is rooted in hegemonic power. In this

aspect, landscape is a political space [4], and landscape production is thus a socio-culturalaction [5]. The understanding is that landscape is a powerful agent of the everyday that is inneed of taming and control. Attention is drawn to the ties between landscape materiality andits producers; architects, landscape architects, city officials, politicians and private patrons [6].As others, we also explore the socio-cultural and political dimensions of the landscape [7].But rather than looking at discrete sites such as gardens or parks, the cityscape is consideredas a whole, particularly in regard to how it impinges on social relations and daily life. Thus,

Figure 2. Current view from Mount Carmel towards downtown and Haifa Bay area. (Photograph:Guy Shachar, 2006.)


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the focal questions of this study are: What were the landscape mechanisms that evoked thetransition from Colonial to National Haifa? What were the political and socio-cultural forcesbehind these mechanisms? How did they attempt to shape the urban image? How didthey establish the citys spatial experience and how did this experience define the identity andeveryday life of its residents?

Context and background

LANDSCAPE AND URBAN PRODUCTION

What is landscape? More specifically, what is urban landscape? Landscape is consideredwidely as a passive and aesthetic cultural product to be seen [8]. Discussions, mainlybeyond the field of architecture i.e. in geography, anthropology and cultural studies tendto depart from Carl Sauers traditional definition of landscape as a land shape [9]. Theyconsider its visual and textual imagery and often focus on the way landscapes express power

relations, and their spatial attributes [10]. Conversely, current debate on visual culture viewslandscape as a dynamic socio-cultural participant, an evidence of strategic action and acultural catalyst [11]. Instead of asking what landscapes mean, researchers have asked howlandscapes activate a specific socio-cultural reality. In this study of Haifa, the focus is onlandscape and, in particular, on landscape production, as embedded in design and planningprocedures, a premeditated process based on the spatial knowledge of the professional prac-tice of landscape architecture.

Landscapes are perceived traditionally as natural as opposed to man-made phenomena,or as a way to negotiate between organic and manufactured worlds. But beyond the binarylimitations of man-versus-nature stemming from a post-war criticism of denatured modern-ization, contemporary landscape architecture involves a wide range of landscape processes

while attempting to mediate between natural conditions and man-made constructions [12].Landscape production in cities, particularly in the context of nineteenth and twentieth centuryurbanization and modernization, has become a major issue for research and professionalendeavour. Maria Kaika suggested the need to integrate economic, political and socialprocesses in what she called urban natures urban landscapes that are products of nature,technology and urban design [13]. These processes were central to the radical sanitationprojects of the nineteenth century, the production of urban growth and the technologicalinfrastructures of the twentieth century. Transformative production of dams and water urban-ization, telecommunication and railway networks are examples of what Erik Swyngedouwcalled technonatural materiality and imagery landscapes [14]. Elizabeth Mossop argued thatlandscape design focuses on urban built/un-built relationships, and the search for an urban

ecology that produces the city image [15]. Further to these notions, this article is interested inthe urban landscape and its production mechanisms. But, more so, it is interested in under-standing how landscape production is related to ideologies or derived from political inten-tions; and how it constructs the citys appearance and establishes socio-cultural relations.

The urban landscape is seen currently as an ongoing process of production and reproduc-tion, suggesting an ecological approach to contemporary cities [16]. James Corner emphasizedurban phenomena as resulting from a continuous urbanization process. He asked how things


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work in space and time, rather than how the city is formed as a unified product [17]. FollowingIan McHargs influential study of the effect of ecological processes and natural systems onhuman settlements, Corner remarked on the dynamic nature of the urban space as an ecolog-ical system: cities and infrastructures are just as ecological as forests and rivers, he said [18].In line with timespace ecology, landscape urbanism emphasizes its continuity as an interre-lated network. However, to date, little attention has been paid to socio-cultural processes oflandscapes and their political implications [19]. From a professional perspective, landscapedesign is rooted in hegemonic power, in which spatial changes are part of programmaticvisions integrated in planned schema. Like Kenneth Olwig, the focus is on the politics oflandscape and an examination is made of landscape production mechanisms arising frompolitical agenda to become powerful cultural agents in everyday life. The urban landscape isconsidered in its entirety, and how it determines the image of the city and its spatial socio-cultural relations.

TIMESPACE HISTORIOGRAPHY

The ongoing and constantly changing character of the landscape is inherently dynamic andtemporal. It is expressed in the cycle of nature, seasonal changes, growing plants and theeternal bond between people and the land. Yet, not unlike architectural emphasis on aspecific site or situation, landscape studies also frequently focus on specific landscape forma-tions (gardens, parks); personalities (such as Fredrick Law Olmsted and Garrett Eckbo), orthey investigate particular historical eras, events or narratives of site-specific settings. Recentlandscape-architecture historiographies are often informed by current critical approach, andare more attuned to the transformative experiences [20].

As pointed out by Lefebvre, enduring landscape phenomena are rooted in power rela-tions, enforced by hegemonic control, and immersed in socio-economic cycles [21]. Variousaspects of landscape production have been studied recently, both in general and specifically

about Palestine/Israel. Kenneth Olwig discussed the political nature of landscape asmanaged by authoritarian power [22]. Diane Harris considered the politics of landscapeproduction and power relations in the context of eighteenth century Italian villas [23]. AlanBalfour examined the connection of political figures with the production of landscape [24].Robert Home emphasized the transformative character of planning policies as convertedinto land laws and regulations that control the landscape. His examples include Palestine/Israel during the transitions from Ottoman to Colonial to National rule [25]. He exploredthe modifications of the Ottoman land code system, its integration into the British colonialplanning ordinance to later become a building block in the Israeli states social and territo-rial construct. Shafir and Peled, similarly, examined the ties between British colonialism andthe Zionist movement in terms of ideology and administrative practices, and the influence of

both on the State of Israel [26].Recent post-colonial studies of cities have emphasized this pivotal phase of progress and

development as manifested in planning and architectural modernism and modernization[27]. The decentralization of the new towns and their barren mass-housing projects is oftenused as a reason for the integration of landscape techniques into planning in transition fromcolonialism to statehood [28]. Home claimed that transformative landscapes are central tocapital cities because of their power in the colonial system and, later, in creating a national


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identity [29]. Gandhis and Nehrus competing versions of Indian history are cited inaccounting the architecture of New Delhi, Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar and Gandhinagar, asthe battlegrounds on which the colonial legacy was transformed into nationhood in themaking of new state capitals [30]. Also Alona Nitzan-Shiftan has showed how the Mandateplan for Jerusalem was re-enacted by the citys powerful mayor as an architectural reunifica-tion strategic rationale following the 1967 war [31]. In terms of landscape, a transitionbetween periods that overcomes a periodic context has yet to be examined.

Studies of planning and architecture in Haifa have also taken a periodic context. The fewstudies available focus mainly on the colonial period, presenting architecture/planning histo-riographies related to personalities, monumental buildings and architectural styles. Herbertand Sosnovsky, for example, devoted their research to the international-style buildings inthe city, related to the attempt to bring a new urban style to Haifa during the colonial era[32]. Fuchs dedicated his study to the British architect Austen St. Barbe Harrison and hisdesign for the Municipal Court House during the British Mandate [33]. The urban land-scape of Haifa has not been studied yet, though a few works look at garden designs or treeplantings during the British Mandate [34].

This papers premise is that the urban landscape is a continuous timespace phenomenon.Haifas unique topographical situation, which enables one to see the city as if it sits in thepalm of the hand, is an opportunity to investigate landscape evidence of timespace histori-ography of the cityscape as a whole. Haifas urban environment is examined as a profes-sional venture, formed in transition between colonialism and nation-building. Thus, the areaof interest lies in architectural material, but also in supporting official documents. The inves-tigation is based on archival sources covering the period 193456 [35]. This primary mate-rial includes architectural drawings, plans, reports and memoranda, as well as official andprivate correspondence of people of influence. It is based on research at various nationalarchives (State Archive, Jewish National Fund Archive, Abba Khoushy Archive, NationalMaritime Museum Archive and I.D.F. Archive), municipal archives (Haifa Municipal

Archive and Haifa Engineers office Archive) and private archives. The archival materials aresupported by interviews with professionals, former officials and others, whose oral historiesshade light on the period and its controversies. Further to textual material, the researchrelies also on substantial visual material, such as maps, aerial photographs, drawings andvarious snapshots of the city at different times. All this primary material is supported bysecondary material of diverse sources, mainly various academic work on Haifa in differentrelated fields, but also literary works of writers working in and on the city.

Haifa between colonialism and nation-building

Founded in the eighteenth century, Haifa is a relatively new city [36]. Until that time it wasa small, walled village port, which later became Haifa Old City, with a population estimatedin 1895 at 9908 inhabitants (Fig. 3) [37]. By the end of the nineteenth century, new neigh-bourhoods were developing outside the city walls, to the west on the route to Jaffa, and to theeast towards Acre and Beirut. The new DamascusHaifa railroad, built in 1905 under Ottomanrule, brought economic prosperity, and new residential quarters, roads and public serviceswere built outside the Old City walls. Following the Ottoman system, these communities


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were divided according to their inhabitants religious affiliations, creating a demographicpattern of Christian neighbourhoods to the west, Muslims to the east and the newlyestablished Jewish community at the foot of Mount Carmel to the south of the Old City [38].

Figure3. Viewfromthe BaytowardsMtCarmel andBurj-el-SalaamcitadeloverlookingthewalledOld City(paintingbyCooper Willyams;source:NationalMaritimeMuseumArchive,1801).

In 1918 Haifa, along with the rest of Palestine, was occupied by the British army. ABritish Mandate over Palestine had been granted by the League of Nations at the end of theFirst World War. This was the beginning of 30 years of British government and the end offour centuries of Ottoman rule. Haifa, with a population estimated at 15 000 inhabitants, of

whom 1406 were Jews, by 1917/8 [39], was targeted by the British from the outset as aneconomic centre likely to develop faster than any other town in Palestine [40]. As claimedby Lionel Watson, the British City Engineer: Haifa has a promising future. [It] is a naturalgateway for the exchange of goods and ideas between East and West [41].

As elsewhere in the world, town planning and urban design were recruited in Haifa tolegitimize political and financial measures, gain control over resources and achieve maximumbenefit for the imperial power based in London [42]. By 1935, grand-scale plans included

Figure 3. View from the Bay towards Mt Carmel and Burj-el-Salaam citadel overlooking the walledOld City (painting by Cooper Willyams). (Source: National Maritime Museum Archive, 1801.)


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projects such as a modern harbour, a terminus of the oil pipeline from Iraq with storage andrefineries, a railroad centre for trains from Syria and Lebanon, and new commercial centres.All these projects were planned for a new downtown area, adjacent to the Old City and thenew port zone (Fig. 4).

Figure4. Aerialviewof OldCityand colonialdowntown,portandindustrialareas (source:I.D.F.Archive,1947).

The Jewish community was a major influence on Haifas development. Encouraged by theBalfour Declaration of 1917, which promised British support of the Zionist plan for aJewish national home in Palestine, the JewishZionist organizations initiated a vast planningscheme for Haifa [43]. Renowned planners, such as Patrick Geddes, Richard Kauffman andPatrick Abercrombie, were invited to advise on Zionist-owned and prospected lands, and onplanning and architectural perspectives in Palestine in general and Haifa in particular [44].

Figure 4. Aerial view of Old City and colonial downtown, port and industrial areas. (Source: I.D.F.Archive, 1947.)


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When visiting Palestine between 1919 and 1920, the noted biologist and urban plannerPatrick Geddes was commissioned by the English military governor to conduct an extensivesurvey of Haifa and a New City Plan, in collaboration with Haifa city engineer AsaphCiffrin. At the request of the London-based Zionist office, he also compiled reports onJewish estates in the city. These assignments paralleled his efforts in Jerusalem (a generalplan, the Hebrew University scheme, and some garden suburbs) and were followed by hisreports on Tiberias (1920) and Tel Aviv (1925). The architect Richard Kauffman, whocame to Palestine from Germany at the invitation of the Zionist Organization in 1920,followed Geddes example. While working for the Jewish Palestine Land DevelopmentCompany (192132), Kauffman proposed a garden suburb model for the neighbourhoodsof Bat Galim (1921), Neve Shaanan (1922) and Hadar Hacarmel (1923); a plan for theMount Carmel Zone (1923), and a layout of the Haifa Bay area (1926), suggesting a differ-ent location for the port than proposed by the British Government [45]. A comprehensiveplan for the Haifa Bay area was created ultimately by the British town-planner PatrickAbercrombie (1930). Commissioned by the Bayside Land Corporation and the JewishNational Fund, and in co-operation with Clifford Holiday, a British architect and townplanner based in Palestine between1922 and 1935, Abercrombies plan (H.P.222) wasapproved in 1938, in collaboration with the British government, Haifa Municipality, theRailway Company, the Oil Company and various landowners, mostly Jewish. The HaifaBay Plan incorporated urban-orientated land zoning with emphasis on capitalist interests a far cry from a Garden City or garden suburb model [46].

The British development plans for Haifa opened up grand economic opportunities for thecity. They boosted the labour market and attracted entrepreneurs interested in investing innew industries and businesses. The city attracted Arab workers from the surrounding coun-tryside as well as incoming Jewish immigrants, mainly from Eastern Europe. This changedthe demographic construct of the city dramatically. By 1938 Haifas population had risen to100 000 inhabitants, a growth of almost 600% in two decades. This rapid population

increase was followed by the development of new residential quarters. Residential patternsfollowed those of the Ottoman period. Arabs settled around the Old City, near the water-front and the new harbour, adjacent to existing mosques and churches. Jews moved to thenew areas on the slopes of Mount Carmel and in the bay, near the new industrial zone.

The influx of Jews into the city shifted the Arab majority 91% at the beginning of theBritish Mandate and equalized it by the end of the 1930s. With its large Jewish labourforce, Haifa soon became the Zionist workers city, nicknamed Red Haifa. Facing such amassive shift in the demographic balance, and as a consequence of political and economicpower struggles, the city soon faced ethno-national tensions. Attempts to boycott Jewishproducts by the Arab Executive Committee (1929) were followed by Arab revolts in19369 that led to segregation of the two communities and eventually weakened the Arab

population [47]. The struggle included attempts by the Jewish labour organizations tooverwhelm Arab labour, mainly in the port. As a result, by 1938/9 the Jewish workersnumbered 1300 (56.5%), a growth of 500% from 1931/2 when they represented only10% of the work force [48]. These stressful ArabJewish relations were influenced bothby the strong connection of the Jewish community with leadership abroad, and the slowmodernization processes of the Arab society and its failure to counteract the Jewishnation-building incentives.


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With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Haifa lost its geopolitical dominanceas a Middle East trade centre. The new Jewish State was cut off from its Arab neighbours,and operation of the IPC pipeline bringing oil from Iraq to Haifas refineries ceased, as didthe operation of the DamascusHaifa Railway. Haifas urban fabric changed dramaticallyduring and following the 1948 war. Hostilities before and during the war drove some65 000 Arab residents out of the city, leaving downtown Haifa and the Old City area practi-cally deserted. According to Goren, during the year before the fighting reached Haifa inApril 1948, between 35 000 and 40 000 Arab residents had already left the city. During thefighting in April 1948, around 30 000 Arabs left the city, assisted by British ships waiting inthe port and headed north towards Acre and Lebanon [49]. The remaining 3566 Arab resi-dents, Christians and Muslims alike, were confined by the Israeli authorities in the WadiNisnas neighbourhood and its immediate surroundings, adjacent to the deserted Old City[50]. In comparison to Haifas 1944 population, estimated at 128 000 inhabitants (52%Jewish and 48% Arabs), by 1948, immediately after the war, the population was estimatedat 98 284, of which 96% was Jewish [51]. The circumstances encouraged the new State todemolish the ostensibly deserted Old City, except for the churches and mosques. The demo-lition left a large portion of the downtown area abandoned and in ruins, and it remainspartially so even today (Fig. 5).

Figure5. Aerialmapof demolishedarea,OldCity (circled)(source:HaifaCityArchive,1949).

The British urban infrastructure, still evolving around the port and the petrochemicalindustry, has been the major economic base of the city from the early years of the State untilthe present. Many new immigrants arriving in the newborn State settled in Haifa, whichoffered them housing and employment [52]. The Haifa Municipality, dominated by theLabor Party, had quickly evolved into a centre of influence and power at the national level,with strong ties between the centralist socialist government and local politicians. As undercolonial rule, national administrators relied on urban planning as an instrument of controlover land and population. The struggle for national independence often went hand in handwith modernization and Westernization, through architectural efforts to legitimize modern

forms and nationalize them. Hence, the Municipal Council proposed rebuilding the oldtown and the adjacent Arab neighbourhoods according to a modern planning scheme.

Taming the city

Following the typologies of landscape mechanisms developed elsewhere [53], this articlefocuses on the erascape

mechanism as applied to Haifas Old City. Erascape

serves as ananalytical framework for studying attempts to envision the city and the strategies used forimplementing particular planning schemes. It exposes the politico-professional bondingefforts in city-making in transition from colonial to national Haifa. Through the lens of this

typology, landscape production is reviewed as it supports urban transformation from oneregime to the next. Based in landscape continuity, the entire urban framework is investigated.

Erascaping

a mechanism based on erasing an existing landscape to make way foranother, involving fundamental transformation over time and space is a powerful methodof creating new spatial order by uprooting and displacing. Erascape

undermines basic foun-dations and contradicts the ground definitions of landscape its continuity and materiality.The erasure of landscape (

erascape

) is a physical act causing absence that challenges the


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conceptual presence of the landscape as a confiscated memory that refuses to unfold [54]. Inthis sense, Kenneth Olwigs landscape as a historical document containing evidence of longprocesses of interaction between society and its material environs poses the questionwhether landscape could ever be erased. Could the erasure be just a temporary situationawaiting new planning and design to transform its material absence into what is considereda landscape [55]?

As a landscape production typology, erascape

usually derives from dramatic events suchas war or natural disasters. In regard to Haifa Old City during the 30 years of BritishMandate, the 1948 War and the establishment of the State of Israel, it underwent significantterritorial and social transformation, including considerable demolition and reconstruction.

Erascape

is not, however, unique to Haifa. It prevailed throughout the British colonies andwas based on the necessity of providing legitimization for modern town planning and enforc-ing regulations for land-use zoning, public health and hygienic standards [56]. Erascape

in

Figure 5. Aerial map of demolished area, Old City (circled). (Source: Haifa City Archive, 1949.)


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this sense, is what Don Mitchell calls the production of both groundwork and dreamworkof empire a material and conceptual evidence of landscape changes made by the rulingpower [57].

Recent studies of colonial planning/architecture, and of nation-building, indicate theconnection between professional practice and hegemonic power. They explain how architec-ture and planning have become central to establishing new spatial orders to control socio-cultural definition [58]. As in Haifa, the modernization of Delhi, Calcutta and Singaporenecessitated drastic urban demolition. Patrick Abercrombie, in his article Slum clearanceand planning, implied that cleaning slum quarters by demolition is an immediate and obvi-ous outcome of national plans to emulate healthy English towns [59]. In Delhi, as in othercities throughout the empire, the British campaigned for town planning and sanitation, andlegislated for public health standards which included segregating sanitary and unsanitaryareas [60]. A similar colonialist strategy was applied in the re-making of Singapore [61].These developments of town-planning policies and strategies legitimized this campaign, link-ing sanitary systems such as sewage and drainage with modern advances in transportation,communication and energy networks [62]. Together with this process there arose a demoli-tion vocabulary of urban planning, including clearance, re-construction, re-modelling,removing, renewing and improving [63].

French-colonial urban works in Algiers were also concerned with public hygiene, to theextent that the municipal authorities agreed to raze whatever existed of the Old City (theCasbah) in order to resolve its chaotic structure, meanwhile displacing half of the popula-tion residing in the area [64]. In Palestine, large sections of Jaffas Old City were demolishedby the British in 1936, following a local uprising. The idea was to control the mostly Arabpopulation, to prevent further uprisings, and to implement spatial improvements [65]. Thesemeasures played a major role in making the urban landscape where sanitation discourse hadbecome an eloquent forum for modernization and for legitimizing the eradication of dirtyurban spaces.

Patrick Geddes was one of the few colonial planners who criticized this destructiveapproach, which he called death-dealing Haussmannizing [66]. However, in 1920, heplanned a through road in the heart of the Old City of Haifa that would involve severedemolition. But, most British planners claimed that demolition was crucial to modernizingand civilizing the cities and taming their natural landscapes. Erascape

thus signifies thetime required for creating a new spatial order of existing terrain as a means to reshape socio-cultural identities through imported or invented landscapes. Haifas colonial cityscape wasalso based on demolition and the implementation of a new modern spatial order. Thenational planning effort that followed colonial endeavours intended to adjust the landscapeto the vision of the new nation-state.

Colonial and national plans for Haifas Old City

Lionel Watson, the British City Engineer (193451) saw Haifas old town as a typical MiddleEastern urban agglomeration, unsuitable for modern living. As seen in the Haifa survey planand a partial detail (Fig. 6), the irregular urban fabric was dotted with private courtyards indense residential clusters of one- or two-storey buildings and a dense system of alleyways and


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steps connecting with other parts of the city. The area was mainly residential, with an arrayof religious centres: churches in its western quarter (Maronite, Latin, Greek Catholic andGreek Orthodox); mosques in the eastern quarter (the Jraineh, the Small Mosque and El-

Istiklaal); and five synagogues in the south-eastern part, with public squares in front of publicbuildings. Commercial facilities were scattered around the city gates, the market area, andalong the main road. As the detail of the plan shows, the walled courtyards and squares withwells supplying water for the residents were planted with olive and palm trees.

Figure6. SurveyofOld Cityarea(outlined)and viewofa typicalstreet(source:HaifaMunicipalArchive,1939) anda detailofthe OldCitysurvey. El-KhamraSquare(upperleft)indicatesthe westernOldCitygate andthe locationofthe citywallsdestroyedin theearlytwentiethcentury(source: HaifaCityArchive,1939).

This chaotic urban pattern, totally lacking in any consistent geometric order, was an obvi-ous threat to a modern plan based on systematic control. Watson claimed that although theOld City [has] a romantic oriental heritage, it presents serious problems to modern city plan-ning, as well as serious sanitary and transportation problems [67]. Furthermore, as evidentin the Haifa survey of 1936, the Old City separated the port from the industrial zones andinterfered with the transportation system. I didnt realize, until this survey was made, justhow bad the condition of the Old City was, complained Watson to Kendall, the chief Palestine

Town Planning adviser [68]. As the city engineer reported, following an epidemic of plague,the colonial authorities allocated resources for dealing with the epidemic by spraying D.D.T.in the Old City and a concentrated rat-hunt [69].

The condition of the Old City could be clearly viewed from Mount Carmel (Fig. 7). WhileBailey, Haifas District Commissioner, was working on the design of Panorama Road, ascenic route along Mount Carmel ridge overlooking the downtown area [70], he remarked:We town planners must preserve the amenities of this unparalleled view [71]. In an

Figure 6. Survey of Old City area (outlined) and view of a typical urban fabric (source: HaifaMunicipal Archive, 1939) and a detail of the Old City survey (source: Haifa City Archive, 1939).


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attempt to prevent blocking the open view from the roads located on the mountain slopefacing the harbor area [72], building height was restricted. This ensured good visibility ofthe bay, the downtown area, the port and the industrial areas from any point on the ridge. Itsecured the daily view of colonial pride projects, from every window and balcony another means of emphasizing the power of the British Empire, which required an orderedand well-maintained downtown.

Figure7. PanoramicviewfromMt CarmeltowardstheOld City,downtown,portand thebayareas (photograph:ZoltanKluger, 1935;source:JNFArchive).

The demolition of the Old City, proposed in terminology analogous to that of a surgicalprocedure, was seen as a necessary intervention in the virtual heart of the town [73].Demolition was undertaken in three strategic steps over a period of ten years. Based on adetailed survey of the area (1936) and Geddes and Ciffrins New City Plan in 1920, thefirst step, initiated by the British military government, opened a broad thoroughfare

George V Avenue through the centre of the Old City, parallel to the coast, to allowmobility and access to the port (Fig. 8) [74]. It was integrated in the Skeleton ZoningScheme of 1934 [75], and included a demolition proposal of City Block no. 39 (detailed ina sketch added to the plan) [76]. The road scheme (HP 519) would extend beyond the OldCity towards the German Colony in the west, allowing the establishment of commercialfrontage on both sides of George V Avenue, and making it the main artery of the citycentre [77].

Figure 7. Panoramic view from Mt Carmel towards the Old City, downtown, port and the bay areas.(Photograph: Zoltan Kluger, 1935; source: JNF Archive.)


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Figure8. Surveyofthe OldCityshowingthe proposedGeorgeVAvenue(source:Haifa MunicipalArchive,1936)anda detailedsketchofthe demolitionproposalforCityBlockno. 39,dueto theplanfor GeorgeVAvenue(source:Haifa CityArchive,1939).

Although the Skeleton Zoning Scheme (HP 229) of 1934 did not specifically requiredemolition, this was the implication of designating the Old City as a reconstruction area(total 265 dunams

[78]) and modern building designs were manifested in plot size, setbacks,elevations and open spaces [79]. Planning instruction no. 4/4, for example, indicates that nonew building, alternations, additions, or annexes to the existing structures will be permitted,unless owners of land in any parts of the Reconstruction Area submit reconstruction orparcellation schemes to the Local Commission provided that all such lands lie togetherand their aggregate area is not less than five standard dunams [80]. These restrictions were,

in fact, the death sentence for the Old City.A detailed plan for the Old City and its environs was proposed in 1938, covering an

area of about 335 dunams

. It included sections of the downtown area, adding a further 70

dunams

(HP 428) [81]. Watson claimed that the plan was in the interests of the town as awhole [82]. The third step of the plan, from 1947, called for a complete demolition, inorder to clear the slums, along with rebuilding that would enable property owners todevelop their properties on up-to-date lines [83]. The plan addressed the problems of the1938 Plan (HP 428), considered a serious handicap to the development of Haifa, mainlybecause it prohibited the construction of new buildings in the Old City. A new scheme, toenable property to be developed in the area forming the virtual heart of town [84], wasdrawn up. Surprisingly, the demolition plan encountered few objections from local resi-

dents and owners [85]. In June 1945, a Reconnaissance Survey of the Old City wassupervised by Professor Adolph Rading, Haifa Municipalitys head architect [86]. Thedetailed survey of land, buildings and demography was an additional justification for thedemolition, since it asserted that the Old Citys slum conditions were a potential hazard tothe rest of the city.

A planning competition for rebuilding the Old City was initiated in June 1947. The TownPlanning Committee proposed two development strategies to be integrated in the proposed

Figure 8. Survey of the Old City showing the proposed George V Avenue (source: Haifa MunicipalArchive, 1936) and a detailed sketch of the demolition proposal for City Block no. 39, due to the planfor George V Avenue (source: Haifa City Archive, 1939).


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plans: establishment of an Improvement Trust (owners would give up their individualholdings and become shareholders in the property of the Trust), or a Re-parcellationScheme (the exchange of existing property for other plots of land elsewhere). On 4 June1947, delegates from Arab and Jewish architects and engineers associations were invited toattend a special town-planning meeting. Both organizations agreed to participate in thecompetition. Ironically, their only reservation was that the competition should be open toentrants from the whole of Palestine and, if agreed by the Municipality, the Middle East[87]. Thus, less than one year before the region was completely transformed by the 1948war, Arab and Jewish professionals participated in implementing the British vision of a newMiddle East [88].

None of the three demolition plans came to fruition during the Mandate, even thoughthey were officially approved and included in the schemes for Haifas Old City and down-town area. This was mainly due to the high cost of reimbursing property owners. Clearingwas initiated finally only after the area had been abandoned largely during and after the1948 war. It was carried out by the Israeli defence authorities, according to an order issuedby David Ben Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense [89],mainly between May and July of 1948. Apart from the Old City area, the demolitionincluded several buildings that were considered dangerous, buildings with rundown sani-tary conditions, and structures impinging on officially declared roads in the approved cityplans [90].

An undated confidential memorandum concerning urgent rehabilitation work in Haifa,entitled A time to destroy and a time to heal [91], stated that

the exodus of the Arab population from Haifa and the almost complete evacuation of thedowntown area and the neighborhoods between downtown and lower Hadar [neighbor-hood] offer an unprecedented opportunity for conducting preservation work linked to demo-lition The designated buildings were damaged during the war and must be demolishedaccording to the dangerous building by-laws. This eases the situation and gives additionalreason for the required work [92].

The memorandum also indicates that the demolitions are recommended in order to preventoccupancy (squatting) of the vacant houses by new Jewish immigrants and returning Arabrefugees [93].

Shabetai Levi, Haifas Mayor at the time, stressed that Haifa Municipality was notresponsible for the demolition or for the moral and financial implications thereof. Mostof the Old City area and its environs marked reconstruction in the British plan of1938 (HP 428), mainly Arab-owned vacant mixed-use residential and commercial prop-erties, was partially or totally demolished, although unoccupied dwellings were alsoutilized to house new Jewish immigrants who settled in Haifa directly after the war

[94].As with other colonial town-planning systems, the plans for Haifa attempted to main-

tain control and reinforce order. A new reconstruction plan (HP 803) for the areaconsisting largely of what was considered now abandoned property [95] was drafted in1949. It extended the boundaries, amenities and regulations of the 1938 Mandate plan.Like the latter, the new plan called for drastic re-parcellation to unify singular plots,and proposed a new, modern architectural image for the area. It also included plans for


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reconstructing the Arab neighbourhoods adjacent to the Old City Wadi Salib, WadiNisnas, the German Colony and residual plots around the area, summing altogether thetotal of 295 dunams

(68 dunams

of the demolished area and 227 dunams

of builtareas) [96].

An open competition to design downtown Haifa was initiated in 1951, calling for aschematic plan. It attempted to rehabilitate the Old City and the adjacent area, seen as acentral obstacle to the citys progress and its architectural image [97]. In a press conference,Uriel Shalon, Head of the Municipal Development unit, declared that the original plan wascreated by the British, but could only now be implemented after the destruction of the area.Only with the evacuation of Haifas Arabs after the city was conquered was a radical solu-tion possible, he declared [98]. Competitors were directed to take into account the views toand from the area, and to create their plans according to modern urban-planning concepts.The remaining churches, mosques and synagogues of the Old City were declared of reli-gious value, regardless of their architectural interest.

Thirteen Israeli architects submitted plans to the competition. Among the jury were AriehSharon, director and chief architect of the National Planning Agency, in charge of theNational Plan. He challenged the competitors with the plan for post-war Rotterdam, whichalso derived from the connection between downtown and the harbour [99]. This factor wasalso identified in Sharons plan (1952), perceiving Haifa as an international city, asopposed to Tel Aviv, the Israeli city. No first prize was awarded, but the jury decided toaward two second prizes. Michael Shavivs functional and geometrically ordered design, atotal contrast to the original chaotic urban fabric, was received cum laude and declared thewinner (Fig. 9).

Figure9. MichaelShavivswinningproposalforDevelopmentofthe CityCenterCompetition(source:HaifaCityArchive, 1953).

Shavivs winning plan united the practical and the poetic [100] and confirmed Israelsdomination and sovereignty over Haifas cityscape. It echoed the architectural thinking ofthe time, perceiving the city as a functional machine, with traffic flowing between free-standing buildings on a grid. The plan incorporated two building types: high-rise free-

standing buildings in a vast open park on the northsouth axis, connected with lowbuildings aligned eastwest, with a central promenade throughout its length. Shady plazasare set in front of the main buildings, with autonomous pedestrian circulation separatedfrom traffic and generous planting throughout. This produced variation in the landscapeand, as Arieh Sharon indicated, the whole area reads as a green system with open spacesorganically integrated with the buildings [101]. The plan included a dominant centralopen space set against the northern Mount Carmel slope and integrated with the moun-tain vegetation. It connected the Town Hall and the nearby government offices with apublic garden which, as indicated by Sharon, extended green fingers that penetrate thevarious buildings, public, commercial and residential.

The proposed tall buildings were the citys new landmarks, shaping its modern skyline.

They are designated as contemporary headquarters of national and commercial enterprises,including The National Bank, insurance offices, commercial centre, shipping offices, labourexchange, tourist centre, industrial centre, as well as an entertainment centre and the CityMuseum. Most importunately, the new city centre was planned to be clearly visible fromMount Carmels ridge and from its slopes. As declared by Abba Khoushy, Haifas powerfulmayor, due to its geophysical structure, Haifa, unlike other cities, must be planned archi-tectonically from a birds-eye view, from the top of the Carmel [102]. Haifas unique


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Kolodney and Kallus

topography was further referred to by Jawitz, the Municipalitys senior planner, requestingthat [Shavivs proposal] should adjust the level area to a 3-dimensional aspect, therebygiving depth and relating to the specific topography of the city plan [103]. Accordingly, athree-dimensional model of the winning proposal was prepared, to show the proposed newskyline that would convey the image of a modern city.

In 1954, while reviewing the new City Master Plan, Mayor Khoushy declared that

the planners had a relatively easy task since nature did the planning for us. Our mission is notto destroy what nature has created so wisely and in such good taste. We have mountain,slopes and a bay. Thus, the city is naturally divided into industry in the bay, commercedowntown, and residences climbing the mountain [104].

The Master Plan attempted, as Khoushy said, to provide a coherent and integrated citycenter which would prevent Haifa from looking provincial. He aimed at doubling the city

Figure 9. Michael Shavivs winning proposal for Development of the City Center Competition.(Source: Haifa City Archive, 1953.)


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population within ten years and reinforcing its status as the national workers city and theregional centre of northern Israel. Shavivs plan was to incorporate the downtown area andthe Old City in a new city centre.

According to Pearlstein, the Master Plans principal planner, Haifas reconstructionzone had already been indicated in the British plans and most of the area was abandonedproperty in a state of ruin. In an article published in a local professional journal,Pearlstein claimed that these were slum areas consisting mainly of Arab neighbor-hoods [where] the buildings are mostly old, with inferior or no sanitation, and unsafestructures densely populated [105]. This view is clearly an extension of the colonial slumclearance discourse, a planning vocabulary that was very useful for implementation of the

Erascape

concept.While Shavivs winning proposal shaped the new image of the downtown area, the master

plan defined its status as Haifas City Centre. The 620 dunam

area was allocated for acommercial, port storage, administration, cultural and entertainment centre, integrated witha detailed transportation system of roads and parking lots. Regarding the abandoned Arabbuildings, which were populated after 1948 by Jewish immigrants, the plan referred to theneed to remove these approximately 55 000 inhabitants, demolish the buildings and rebuildthe area. Jawitz, the senior planning officer, stressed that the new circumstances evolved infact from the British Master Plan (1934) and its intention to reconstruct 265 dunams

,followed by the 1938 plan for an additional 70 dunams

(overall 335 dunams

) and the Israelireconstruction plan (1949) summing it up to 790 dunams

.The 1954 plan intended to provide better living conditions for the citys residents along

a transformed urban image fit for the new state. Haifa new envisioned cityscape aimed ata better spatial order, to portray a cultural definition that replaces the old urban imagewith a city worthy of the new state. The erascape

concept was a powerful rationale forrelocating the remaining Arab residents and razing any reminders of Haifa before. These[the Arab neighbourhoods] are mostly in the city center the population will have to be

transferred to other areas, argued Pearlstein. Clearing the area for a new city was oneway of replacing the hostile cityscape of the Other, i.e. of the Arab, with an appropriateenvironment for the new Jew. This was clearly stated in Shavivs winning competitionentry and stated thereafter. As declared by Cohen, the city engineer, Haifa is no longer amixed city of populations with different social and cultural standards and differentmentalities The new plan expresses the aspirations and desires of a homogeneouspopulation, sharing a modern city planned as a single organic unit [106]. Identities wereto merge in the citys new socio-cultural image, to include both the newly arrived Jewishimmigrants and the remaining Arab residents. The new city, like a leviathan, was to swal-low them all up, wipe out their differences, and consolidate them into a new collectiveurban society.

Modernizing the Old City was the goal of colonial and national powers in Haifa alike.But, while colonial attempts to transform the landscape were made in the name of modernurban planning, the national endeavour was based on a far-reaching political agenda. Thenew national scheme did intend to provide better living conditions for the citys residents,but it was also envisioning an entirely transformed urban image. Its landscapes would createa new spatial order, a cultural definition that would replace the old urban image with a cityworthy of the new State.


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Concluding remarks

The paper perceives landscape as a timespace transitional process utilized in the making ofcityscape. It challenges the materiality of the landscape and its conceptual understanding byintroducing the erascape

, an analytical framework that enable delineation of socio-politicalstrategies of landscape production mechanism based on erasing existing landscape to makeway for another. This mechanism is used to examine the Old City of Haifa in transitionfrom colonialism to nation-building. The investigation shows how this mechanism arisesfrom political agendas and becomes a powerful agent in constructing Haifas socio-culturalrelations. Landscape production strategies, enforced by professionals, administrators andpoliticians, transform the colonial cityscape of Haifa and make place to national cityscapethat wipes out differences, and attempts to consolidate the citizens into a new collectiveurban society.

Yet, today, 60 years after the establishment of the state, the erascape

mechanism is stillshaping Haifas cityscape. Amid churches and mosques, between few remaining walls andderelict sites evidences of other times and lives of the Old City Haifas newest govern-ment centre is gradually rising (Fig. 10). Despite major national and private investments inthe area, especially in the last decade, this part of Haifa still lacks a viable and coherenturbanity. Design efforts are concentrated on overcoming the memory of the Old City,mostly demolished by now and long gone. The anxiety of new millennium architecture, oflarge-scale free-standing buildings, have little awareness of urban history and no interest inpast life reminiscences. Conscious of the citys image it aims for the future and aspires toconvey a new urban identity. The desire for a fresh image is apparent not only at street-level,where one faces sleek glass faades and empty pavements, but mainly when looking downfrom Mount Carmel and its slopes. Overlooking downtown from the Carmel ridge, the newbuildings talk of a city ambitiously inventing its future.

Figure10. OldCityarea today.TheSail Towerhousestheofficesof theMinistryof theInteriorand ImmigrantAbsorption.The mosqueandchurchjuxtaposedwiththe modernbuildingsareremainsof theOldCity andare stillusedby thelocalcommunity(photograph:ZivaKolodney,2006).

The new development is expected to pull the city out of its current stagnation and make it

once again a major national and international urban centre. With the decline in port activityand the increase in attractive developments in nearby vicinities, Haifa struggles to keep its

Figure 10. Old City area today. The Sail Tower houses the offices of the Ministry of the Interior andImmigrant Absorption. The mosque and church juxtaposed with the modern buildings are remains ofthe Old City and are still used by the local community. (Photographs: Ziva Kolodney, 2006.)


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strength as a metropolitan centre [107]. The new government centre is hoped to overcomethe decrease in business activity that Haifa has experienced in the last years, and the negativemigration rates due mostly to the young population moving to other locations [108].However, in light of the landscapes lesson of continuity, can any city endure an urbanfuture divorced of its past? Can a sustainable urban existence be envisioned for Haifa with-out acknowledging its history?

Notes and references

Archival sources:

Haifa city plans are officially marked HP with a serial number (e.g. HP 517, HP 518, etc.).

HCA Haifa City ArchiveHEA Haifa Engineers Office ArchiveAKA Abba Khoushy Archive

KKL Jewish National Fund Archive

1. About Ottoman Haifa, see M. Yazbak, Haifa in the Late Ottoman Period, 18641914: A MuslimTown in Transition

. Leiden: Brill, 1998. For a historical account of Haifa during the BritishMandate, see M. Seikaly, Haifa: Transformation of an Arab Society 19181939

. London: L.B.Publishers, 1995; T. Goren, Changes in the design of the urban space of the Arabs of Haifa duringthe Israeli War of Independence. Middle Eastern Studies

35, 1 (1999) 11533; Y. Ben-Artzi, TheCreation of the Carmel as a Segregated Jewish Residential Space in Haifa, 19181948

. Jerusalem:Hebrew University, Magnes Press, 2004 [in Hebrew]. On Haifas first Israeli years, see Y. Weiss,

Wadi Salib: A Confiscated Memory

. Jerusalem/Tel Aviv: Van Leer Institute and HakibbutzHameuchad Publishing House, 2007 [in Hebrew]. Writing about Haifas architectural history islimited, devoted also to a single period or personae. See R. Fuchs, Austen St. Barbe Harrison A

British Architect in the Holy Land

. PhD Thesis, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa,1992 [in Hebrew]; G. Herbert and S. Sosnovsky, Bauhaus on the Carmel and the Crossroads ofEmpire

. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi/ Haifa: Architectural Heritage Center, 1993; B. Hyman,British Planners in Palestine, 19181936. PhD Thesis, London School of Economics and PoliticalScience, London, 1994.

2. E. Cohen, The city in Zionist Ideology

. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, Institute of Urbanand Regional Studies, 1970 [in Hebrew].

3. On Haifa working class historical and sociological aspects, see D. De Vries, Idealism andBureaucracy in 1920s Palestine, The Origins of Red Haifa

. Tel Aviv, Hakibbutz Hameuchad.1999 [in Hebrew]; D. Bernstein, Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab Workers in MandatePalestine

. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000.4. K. Olwig, Landscape, Nature and the Body Politic: from Britains Renaissance to Americas New

World

. University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, WI, 2002.5. C. J. Scott, Seeing Like a State

. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998, 1152; W. J. T.Mitchell, Holy landscape: Israel, Palestine, and the American wilderness. Critical Inquiry

26, 2(2000) 193223.

6. D. Harris, The Nature of Authority: Villa Culture, Landscape and Representation in 18

th

Century Lombardy

. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.7. See various discussions of the socio-cultural and political dimensions of the landscape inLandscape

Journal26, 1 (2007).


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344 Kolodney and Kallus

8. See, for example, R. Muir, Approaches to Landscape. London: Macmillan, 1999, 148; J. S.Duncan, N. C. Johnson and R. H. Schein (eds) A Companion to Cultural Geography. Malden,MA: Blackwell Press, 2004, 329446.

9. I. Robertson and P. Richards (eds), Introduction. Studying Cultural Landscapes. London:Arnold, 2003, 118.

10. See, for example, D. Cosgrove and S. Daniels (eds), Introduction. Iconography of Landscape:Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1988, 110; P. Groth and T. W. Bressi (eds), UnderstandingOrdinary Landscapes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

11. See, for example, W. Raymond, The Country and the City.New York: Oxford University Press,1973; W. J. T. Mitchell (ed), Landscape and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994;B. Meyer, The expanded field of landscape architecture, in G. F. Thompson and F. R. Steiner(eds) Ecological Design and Planning. New York: John Wiley, 1997, 4579; C. Brace, FindingEngland everywhere: regional identity and the construction of national identity, 18901940.Ecumene 6, 1 (1999) 90109. See also James Corner (ed), Recovering Landscape: Essays inContemporary Landscape Architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.

12. See Cultural Geographies 13, 4 (October 2006) dealing with the paradoxical relationships

between natural and social landscape in the modern city.13. M. Kaika, City of Flow: Modernity, Nature and the City. London: Routledge, 2005, 1126.14. E. Swyngedouw, Technonatural revolutions: the scalar politics of Francos hydro-social dream

for Spain, 19391975. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers32 (2007) 928.15. E. Mossop, Infrastructure, in C. Waldheim (ed)Landscape Urbanism. N.Y.: Princeton Architectural

Press, 2006, 16378.16. C. Waldheim (ed), The Landscape Urbanism Reader. New York, N.Y.: Princeton Architectural

Press, 2006.17. J. Corner, Introduction: Recovering landscape as a critical cultural practice, in Corner (ed)

Recovering Landscape, 126.18. The quotation is from J. Corner, Terra Fluxus, in Waldheim (ed) The Landscape Urbanism

Reader, 29. Ian McHargs Design with nature has shaped landscape architecture and planning

thinking: I. L. McHarg, Design with Nature. N.Y.: John Wiley and Sons, 1991.19. For geographical studies of economic, political, cultural and process effects on urban landscapes,see, for example, E. Swyngedouw, M. Kaika and N. Heynen, In the Nature of Cities: UrbanPolitical Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism (Questioning Cities). London, NewYork: Routledge, 2006.

20. M. Treib (ed), The Architecture of Landscape, 19401960. Philadelphia, PA: University ofPennsylvania Press, 2002; M. Benes and D. Harris (eds), Villas and Gardens in Early ModernItaly and France. London: Cambridge University Press, 2001; B. Meyer, Site citations: thegrounds of modern landscape architecture, in A. Kahn and C. Burn (eds) Site Matters. London:Routledge, 2005, 93129.

21. H. Lefebvre,The Production of Space, Donald Nicholson-Smith (transl). Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.22. Olwig, Landscape, Nature.

23. Harris, The Nature of Authority.24. A. Balfour, Octagon: the persistence of the ideal, in Corner (ed) Recovering Landscape, 87100.25. R. K. Home, An irreversible conquest? Colonial and postcolonial land law in Israel/Palestine.

Social & Legal Studies12, 3 (2003) 291310.26. G. Shafir and Y. Peled (eds), The New Israel: Peacemaking and Liberalization. Boulder, CO:

Westview Press, 2000.27. For the modernist project and its implementation in the colonial and/or the post-colonial phases,

see, for example, R. Kalia, Modernism, modernization and post-colonial India: a reflective essay.


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Producing Haifas cityscape 345

Planning Perspectives21, 2 (2006) 13356; R. W. Liscombe, Independence: Otto Koenigsbergerand modernist urban settlement in India. Planning Perspectives21, 2 (2006) 15778. See alsoS. Bozdogan, Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the EarlyRepublic. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001; A. Kusno, Behind the PostcolonialArchitecture, Urban Space and Political Cultures in Indonesia. London: Routledge, 2000;

L. Kong and B. S. A. Yeoh, The Politics of Landscapes in Singapores Construction of Nation.New York: Syracuse University Press, 2003.

28. R. K. Home, Transformation of the urban landscape in British Malaya and Hong Kong.Journalof Southeast Asian Architecture2, 1 (1997) 6372.

29. Ibid. See also L. J. Vale, Architecture, Power and National Identity. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1992.

30. See Kalia, Planning Perspectives21; H. Campbell and R. Marshall, Professionalism and planningin Britain. Town Planning Review76, 2 (2005) 191214.

31. A. Nitzan-Shiftan, Israelizing Jerusalem: the Encounter Between Architecture and NationalIdeologies 19671977. PhD Thesis, M.I.T Cambridge, Massachusetts., 2002.

32. Herbert and Sosnovsky, Bauhaus on the Carmel.33. Fuchs, Austen St. Barbe Harrison.

34. About colonial landscape in Palestine in general, see M. El-Eini, Mandated Landscape, BritishImperial Rule in Palestine 19291948. London: Routledge, 2006; on Hebrew gardeningculture during pre-state Israel, see T. Alon-Mozes and S. Amir, Landscape and ideology: theemergence of vernacular gardening culture in pre-state Israel. Landscape Journal, 21, 2 (2002)4053. On Israeli landscape, including Haifa in brief, see K. Helphand, Dreaming Gardens:Landscape Architecture and the Making of Modern Israel. Charlottesville: University ofVirginia Press, 2002.

35. This refers to the planning period between Skeleton Zoning Scheme of the British Mandate andHaifa Master Plan of national Haifa.

36. In 1761, Daher El Omar, the Bedouin ruler of Galilee and Acre, destroyed and rebuilt Haifa in itsnew location, surrounding it with walls. This event marked the beginning of the towns modernera (A. Carmel, The History of Haifa under Turkish Rule. Haifa: University of Haifa, Pardes

Publishers, 2002, 5466 [in Hebrew]).37. Seikaly, Haifa: Transformation.38. Ibid.39. Palestine official census, 1918.40. The Palestine Post, 14 February, 1943, 3.41. The Palestine Post, 12 November, 1948, 6.42. On the British colonial plans in Haifa, see Herbert and Sosnovsky, Bauhaus on the Carmel;

Hyman, British Planners. On gardens and tree planting patterns in Haifa during the beginningof the 1920s, see: S. Burmil and R. Enis, Landmarks in the urban landscape of Haifa. DieGartenkunst16, 1 (2004) 31838; N. Goldschlagar, I. Amit and M. Shoshani, Green ideas at thebeginning of the twentieth century: Planning the Ahuza neighborhood in Haifa. Catedra 109(2003) 87100 [in Hebrew].

43. As far as we know, no organized Arab-orientated planning was initiated in Haifa during theMandate period. Arab architects were professionally active, designing buildings mostly for Arabclientele.

44. See G. Herbert and S. Sosnovsky, The Garden City as Paradigm: Planning on the Carmel, 19191923. Technion Haifa: Document 10, 1986; Hyman, British Planners.

45. Frederick Palmer of the London-based company RandallPalmerTriton, suggested in the early1920s the location of Haifa future port and also carried out its construction plans (Hyman,British Planners).


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46. This contradicts the claim by Herbert and Sosnovesky (The Garden City) that Abercrombiefollowed Geddes idea.

47. Seikaly, Haifa: Transformation.48. Bernstein, Constructing Boundaries.49. There are different counts of the exact number of Arab inhabitants that left the city between

1947 and 1948. Morris claimed that 20 00030 000 left before April 1948 (B. Morris, The Birthof the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),while Goren estimated a higher number (T. Goren, From Dependence to Integration: Israeli Ruleand the Arabs of Haifa, 19481950, A Historical and Geographical Analysis. Haifa: Universityof Haifa Press, 1996 [in Hebrew]).

50. T. Goren, The Fall of Arab Haifa in 1948. Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press,2006 [in Hebrew]; T. Segev, 1949 - The First Israelis. Jerusalem: The Domino Press 1984 [inHebrew].

51. Census estimate: statistical abstract 1944/1945; Israeli Census 8 November 1948.52. Of the 190 000 newcomers arriving in Israel between May 1948 and March 1949, 24 000

resided in Haifa (Weiss, Wadi Salib). Haifas population in 1951 was estimated at 149 917inhabitants, 95% Jewish (Israel Bureau of Statistics, 1951).

53. Z. Kolodney and R. Kallus, The politics of landscape re(production): Haifa between colonialismand nation-building. Landscape Journal27, 2 (2008) (forthcoming).

54. On the cultural idea of landscape and vacancy, see C. I. Corbin, Vacancy and the landscape:Cultural context and design response. Landscape Journal22, 1 (2003) 1224.

55. K. Olwig, Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic, from Britains Renaissance to AmericasNew World. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002, 226.

56. On landscape as a groundwork and dreamwork of empire, see D. Mitchell, Cultural landscapes:Just landscapes or landscapes of justice? Progress in Human Geography27, 6 (2003) 78796;Mitchell (ed), Landscape and Power; Olwig, Landscape, Nature.

57. D. Mitchell, ibid.58. On colonial planning/architecture, see G. Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial

Urbanism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991; B. S. A. Yeoh, Contesting Space: Power

Relations and the Built Environment in Colonial Cities. New York: Oxford University Press,1996; R. K. Home, Of Planting and Planning: The Making of British Colonial Cities. London:Spon, 1997; El-Eini, Mandated Landscape. On planning/architecture and nation building, seeL. J. Vale, Designing national identity: post-colonial capitols as intercultural dilemmas, inNezar AlSayyad (ed) Forms of Dominance: On the Architecture and Urbanism of the ColonialEnterprise. Aldershot: Avebury, 1992, 31538; J. C. Scott, The high-modernist city: an experi-ment and a critique, in Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condi-tion Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, 10331; Bozdogan, Modernism andNation Building.

59. P. Abercrombie, Slum clearance and planning: the re-modeling of towns and their externalgrowth. Town Planning Review16, 3 (1935) 195208.

60. M. Mann, Delhis belly. Studies in History23, 1 (2007) 131.

61. Yeoh, Contesting Space.62. P. Tomic, R. Trumper and R. H. Dattwyler, Manufacturing modernity: cleaning, dirt and neo-liberalism in Chile. Antipode38 (2006) 50829.

63. See, for example, Abercrombie: in Slum clearance and planning, he wrote of urban improve-ment or internal remodeling, which will be rendered physically possible by the actual clearance ofwhole areas (Abercrombie, Town Planning Review16, 196).

64. . Zeynep, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers under French Rule. Berkeley:University of California Press, 1997.


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Producing Haifas cityscape 347

65. D. Gavish, Repressing the Arab revolts in Jaffa, 1936. Kardom 51 (1981) 602 [in Hebrew];T. Hatuka and R. Kallus, Loose ends: the role of architecture in constructing urban borders inTel Aviv-Jaffa since the 1920s. Planning Perspectives21, 1 (2006) 2344.

66. Home, Of Planting.67. City Engineers Annual Report 19411942, 26 (HCA).

68. Watson, in a letter to Kendall (26 May 1937), HP 229 files (HEA).69. City Engineers Annual Report 19471948 (HCA).70. Panorama Road Plan (HP 125) approved in 1933 (HEA).71. Minutes of the 27thmeeting, Local Town Planning Commission (30 March 1933), HP 125, (HEA).72. J. L. A. Watson, The past four years in Haifa. Building in the Near East 4 (1938) 5761 [in

Hebrew].73. Shabetay Levy, Chairman of the City Planning Committee. Minutes of the second special meet-

ing of the town planning sub-committee, 6 May 1947 (HCA).74. The New City Plan of 1920, by Geddes and Ciffrin, suggested a central avenue, cutting through

the Old City, in order to connect it to its new developments. This approach meets the attempt ofCleaning and brightening the Old City, mentioned in his report entitled Town Planning inHaifa (Hyman, British Planners).

75. The Skeleton Zoning Scheme(HP 229, HEA), based on the town planning ordinances 19219,was approved in 1934.

76. This meant interference with 13 private lots.77. George V Avenue: section Hamra Square-Carmel Avenue (HP 519, approved 1938, HEA).78. A dunamis a unit of area (a metric dunam is 1000 m2) used in the Ottoman Empire and still

used, in various standardized versions, in many countries formerly part of the Ottoman Empire.79. Other reconstruction areas were Wadi Salib; Wadi Nisnas; Old Haifa, Ard-el-Yahoud, the

Carmelites Gate and Wadi Rushmiah (HP 229, approved 1934, HEA).80. Haifa Town Planning Regulations (HP 229, approved 1934, HEA), prepared in 19313, based

on the town planning ordinance of 19219.81. Old City Plan (HP 428, approved 1938, HEA).82. Annual Report, City Engineers Department (12) 193940 (HCA).

83. Shabetay Levy, Chairman of the City Planning Committee. Minutes of the 2nd

meeting of thetown planning sub-committee, 6 May 1947 (HCA).84. Ibid.85. The Old City area covered 130 dunams, comprising 989 privately owned parcels: 466 Moslem,

314 Christian, 74 Jewish and 43 others(HP 428, approved 1938, HEA).86. Haifa Municipal Archive, 01943/13 (HA), see also in T. Goren: Initiatives and actions for

renewal of the Old City of Haifa during the Mandate, in Y. Bar-Gal, N. Kliot and A. Peled (eds)Eretz Israel Studies Aviel Ron. Haifa: Haifa University Press, 2004, 99124 [in Hebrew].

87. Minutes of the second special meeting of the town planning sub-committee, 4 June 1947(HCA). For other reconstruction areas, see note 79. According to the Arabic newspaper ElWahda, residents of the Old City opposed the demolition plans as being in the Zionist interest(Goren, Initiatives and actions).

88. Forty years later the vision of a New Middle East was revived following the Oslo Accords.89. Goren, Initiatives and actions.90. Memorandum (undated), File A1/51:3, AKA.91. Title refers to Ecclesiastes 3(3).92. Memorandum (undated), File A1/51:3, AKA.93. Ibid.94. This influx changed the citys demography from 94 718 in 1948 to 145 000 in 1952 (Haifa

Master Plan, 1954).


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95. By Israeli law, any building or land left unoccupied after 29 November 1947 became aban-doned property. The Government Custodian was authorized to develop this property throughthe Development Authority, a legal body established in 1951 and used by the Israel LandAdministration to govern the property of Mandate-Palestine Arab residents who left the countryduring the 1948 war.

96. Haifa Master Plan, 1954 (HCA).97. Quoted from the competition rules, 21 June 1951, (HP 87, HEA).98. Press conference memorandum, 26 November 1951, (HP 87, HEA).99. Meeting of the competition committee, 6 May 1952 (HP 87, HEA).

100. Meeting of the competition committee, 23 May 1952 (HP 87, HEA).101. Meeting of the competition committee, 6 May 1952 (HP 87, HEA).102. A. Khoushy, Thirty months of work, in Haifa. Haifa: Haifa Municipality, 1954, 19 [in Hebrew].103. I. Yawitz, Molding the future shape of Haifa.Journal of Engineers and Architects Society14

(1956) 10 [in Hebrew].104. Minutes, 122ndmeeting of the local planning commission (17 May 1954) (HCA).105. I. Pearlstein, Molding the future shape of Haifa.Journal of Engineers and Architects Society14

(1956) 29 [in Hebrew].

106. J. Cohen, The implementation of the master plan for Haifa.Journal of Engineers and ArchitectsSociety14 (1956) 10 [in Hebrew].

107. In Haifa Regional Master Plan (HRMP 6, HEA), completed recently, Haifa is still considered ametropolitan urban centre.

108. General migration rate for 1000 inhabitants in 20005 was -8.5 (-19.7 for the age group of 304and -22.1 for the age group of 259) (Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics).

Documents

Kolodny & Kallus-2008-Haifa's History & Planning