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Abstract
The Garden City Movement is recognized as a dominant forerunner of modern urban planning. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the broad popularity and selective adoption of Garden City concepts in Zionist circles and the Jewish Yishuv (Community) in Palestine, to document their implementation in Jewish urban settlement in Palestine, and to follow their local evolution into the creation of a unique urban fabric. We show how the Garden City ideology and its implementation in England and Germany influenced the Zionist movement, its leaders, and settlers in Ottoman and British Mandatory Palestine, and led them to adopt and adapt concepts of the Garden City model as the ‘national paradigm’ of the new Jewish urban planning in Palestine. The planning was influenced by Garden City ideas, with modifications to Ebenezer Howard's original model made to suit local traditions, public demand, and Zionist goals. The application of the message of the Garden City movement to the physical model beginning unintentionally with the building of Ahuzat Bayit (Tel Aviv) in 1909, created a guiding principle for Jewish urban development in Palestine from 1905 until 1945, and continues to exert its influence on current planning. In conclusion, the article adds a dimension to the emerging picture of early twentieth-century Zionist settlement in Palestine as a laboratory for implementing novel planning ideas of international importance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Miki Zaidman is an active architect and urban planner in Jerusalem, combining technical training (B.Arch. from the Technion, Haifa) and the social sciences (Ph.D. in Historical Geography from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem), as well as real-life practice (see www.mzaidman.co.il) with historic research. His interests lie in deciphering the concepts and processes that shaped Israeli urban planning and environment from its birth at the beginning of the twentieth century until today.
Ruth Kark, Professor Emerita of Historical Geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has written and edited 25 books and 200 articles on the history and historical geography of Palestine/The Holy Land/Israel (see http://geography.huji.ac.il/.upload/Kark/prof%20Kark.htm). Her research interests include the study of concepts and patterns of land and land ownership in traditional and civil societies including Palestine/Israel and the Middle East from 1800 to the present day; urban history; settlement processes; the role of women; the Negev Bedouin and their land claims; and Western civilizations and the Holy Land – ideologies, interests, activities, and interactions with the local populations.
Notes
1. Cherry, Urban Change; Dennis, English Industrial Cities; and Fishman, Bourgeois Utopia.
2. Its principles were first published in 1898 as Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform by Ebenezer Howard. See also Beevers, Garden City Utopia; Buder, Visionaries and Planners; Hebbert, British Garden City; and Ward, Garden City.
3. Unwin, Nothing Gained by Overcrowding, 4, where Unwin describes a Garden Suburb through ‘Garden City principles applied to suburbs’, or more recently: Miller, Raymond Unwin.
4. Sutcliffe, Introduction, 1–4 and Buder, Visionaries and Planners, 97–116.
5. Bollerey and Hartmann, “Patriarchal Utopia,” 135–7 and Buder, Visionaries and Planners, 135–6.
6. Zaidman, “Garden Cities.”
7. For a narrative of this evolution and the reasons for imitation, see Zaidman, “Emergence of Zionist Urban Fabric.”
8. UNESCO awarded Tel Aviv the title of ‘World Heritage Site’ for this fact. About the process, see, for example, Kamp-Bandau et al., Tel Aviv Modern Architecture. On the connections between international style architecture and Zionism ideology, see the introduction in Yacobi, Architecture.
9. Katz, “Ideology”; Herbert, Bauhaus; and Biger, “European Influence.”
10. Lapidus, Middle Eastern Cities, 47–79.
11. Issawi, Economic History, 100–1. As late as 1840, no city numbered over 10,000 inhabitants.
12. Shiloni, “German Antecedents.”
13. Kark, Jerusalem Neighborhoods.
14. About planning principles of the Hampstead Garden Suburb, see publications by the planner: Unwin, Nothing Gained by Overcrowding, or later analyses: Miller, Raymond Unwin.
15. Garden City ideas outside England had their earliest and strongest impact in Germany (see Bollerey and Hartmann, “Patriachal Utopia”) through the book by Muthesius, English House. The most detailed source on German Zionists’ adoption of Garden City ideas is: Sonder, Gartenstädte für Erez Israel. For later influence in East Europe, see Cooke, “Russian Response”; De Groer, “Town Planning in Russia”; and Dobrzynsky, “Housing in Poland.”
16. In German: Trietsch, “Die Gartenstadt,” The Garden City movement was aware of this initiative, see (in English): Trietsch, “Garden Cities.”
17. The translation was done by Maria Wallroth-Unterlip in 1907.
18. Sonder, “German-Jewish Literary Proposals,” 127, 130–2.
19. Fishman, Bourgeois Utopia.
20. News of Tel Aviv Municipality, no. 2, 1925, 10–11.
21. For further discussion on Ahuzat Bayit/Tel Aviv, see Zaidman and Kark, “Garden Cities.”
22. Grunebaum, “Structure”; Planhol, “Geographical Setting”; Lebon, “Islamic City”; and Kark, “Traditional Middle Eastern City.”
23. There were probably several contributors to the plan, but as far as we know, it was drawn by German-born surveyor Joseph Treidel (Tel Aviv Archive 1/40; Central Zionist Archive [CZA] Z2/615).
24. Reports of the Tel Aviv Committee, 1920, 6 (in Hebrew).
25. On Haifa's urban planning history: Herbert and Sosnovsky, Bauhaus. Also articles in Hebrew by Katz and by Carmel.
26. Katz, “Beginning.”
27. On Talpioth as well as the following initiatives, see Levontin, To the Land.
28. Shiloni, Jewish National Fund.
29. The Hovevei (Lovers of) Zion document is at CZA A24/51/1. British Ancient Maccabeans documents at CZA J15/6651, L51/58. Press reports – such as Tsfira Hebrew newspaper reporting in June 1915, No. 122: 3.
30. Yehuda Leib Maimon-Cohen, Leader of the association in May 1914 quoted in: Shmueli, 50th Anniversary, 40.
31. Oppenheim-HaRamati, “Stages in Founding.”
32. “Maagal” in Hebrew is “circle” (as the idyllic shape of Howard's scheme – Howard, Tomorrow, 13) as well as initials of “Settlement in Garden Cities as a Model” (in Hebrew: “Moshav Arei Ganim Le-Mofet”).
33. On the Warsaw initiative, see Katz, “Plans.” Members of the Byalistock associations joined the “Ir Ganim” initiative (Shmueli, 50th Anniversary, 48, 71). Other members joined the religious “Bayit ve Gan” (House and Garden) association and settled in Bat Yam.
34. On Merchavia, see Oppenheimer, Merchavia. On Technion, see Herbert and Sosnovsky, Garden City, 3–6.
35. Sirkin, “Binyan Cooperativi.”
36. Keinan, Be-Maagalei Dori.
37. Tishler, Tochnit Binyan.
38. Garden Cities & Town Planning 9, no. 8 (August 1921): 196.
39. Herbert and Sosnovsky, Garden City, 9. Sonder, Gartenstädte für Erez Israel, 70.
40. These purchases (partly by private companies affiliated to the Zionist organization) covered areas extending up to the municipal border that remained intact until 1948.
41. Geddes, “Cities in Evolution,” 253. See also a recent paper on his admiration for Zionism and his general plan for Jerusalem: Biger, “Patrick Geddes.”
42. On this personal connection, see Boardman, World of Patrick Geddes, 312–19.
43. Home, “Town Planning,” 23–8; Hyman, “British Planners,” 27–9, 714–21; and Kark and Oren-Nordheim, “Colonial Cities.”
44. Drayton, Laws of Palestine 1933.
45. On Geddes organic alternative in India, see Home, Of Planting, 144–51; on the main points of the Geddes plan, see Geddes, “City of Jerusalem”; on McLean's opinion of Garden City planning, see McLean, “Alexandria, Old and New”; on spreading Garden Cities in the colonies, see McLean “Town Planning in the Tropics” and Purdom and Chambers, “Garden Cities.”
46. Ashbee, Records of Pro-Jerusalem Council; Holliday's quotation from: “Town & Country planning” report cited in Troen, Imagining Zion. More details on actions of both planners in Palestine may be found in Hyman, “British Planners,” 371, 430.
47. The actual ‘match’ between the Zionists and Abercrombie was made by the secretary of the Garden City & Town Planning association (Letters from April and March 1924, CZA, S15/21554). For Abercrombie's activity in Palestine, see Hyman, “British Planners,” 578–697.
48. Holliday, “Town Planning Report,” 202–3.
49. The most detailed work on Kaufmann is in German: Adiv, “Richard Kauffmann.”
50. All these plans and many others are to be found in Kauffmann's personal archive (CZA, A175).
51. For Herzlia and Afula, see Amit, “American Jewry”; for Hefzi-ba, see Palestine Land Development Company publication, 1939 (in German); for Beth Naquba and Migdal, see Glass, From New Zion.
52. Rochant-Weill, “Plan de Patrick Geddes”; Payton, “The Machine.” For a newer, more critical look at Geddes: Hysler-Rubin, Geddes.
53. See note 39 above.
54. CZA, A/104/6.
55. On the Newe Yaakov site now stands a large residential neighbourhood of the same name built in the 1970s.
56. Shaw, Palestine Commission.
57. Graicer, “Social Architecture,” 287–307.
58. Klein, “New Town Planning”; compare to Radburn Garden City through: Banerjee and Baer, Beyond the Neighborhood Unit, 6. For more data on Haifa bay projects: Ruppin, “Haifa Bay Progress.”
59. Kauffmann's letter to C. B. Purdom, 18.1.1921, CZA, L/18/4; Kauffmann's thanking letter to de Soisons, CZA, L/18/1034; and Kauffmann,“Town Planning in Palestine” was (published as an editorial in Garden City & Town Planning Journal).
60. Kauffmann, “Planning,” 97.
61. CZA, S15/21554. On Oettinger's appreciation of the Garden City see: Oettinger, Jewish Colonization in Palestine.
62. Friedland, “Hadar Hacarmel” and Gurevich, Statistical Abstracts.
63. Mosse, Confronting the Nation, 65–85.
64. Herzl, Altneuland, 1902.
65. Oppenheimer defined it as ‘liberal socialism’, see Oppenheimer, State, 278 and Herzl used ‘Gemeinschaftlichkeit’ (sharing) and ‘Mutualismus’. Kropotkin, Fields, 188–240.
66. George, Progress & Poverty.
67. See, for example, Almog, Sabra, 78–80, 141.
68. Mosse, German-Jewish Economic Elite, 8.
69. Howard's Garden City was dense and compact. Its border was well defined by the circular railroad. See Howard, Tomorrow, 13.
70. It was defined as the ‘Zionist Urban Fabric’ in Zaidman, “Emergence of Zionist Urban Fabric.”
71. Taylor, Urban Planning Theory since 1945.