The Politics of Landscape (Re)Production: Haifa Between Colonialism and Nation Building

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distant sea dominate the cityscape. The nearby Mount Carmel National Park is a green continuum in counter-point to the Mediterranean, and both provide for ample leisure activities.

A study of Haifa reveals that, behind the land-scape’s “natural” appearance, landscape production is an efficient tool for implementing official strategies, ideologies, and values. The sociopolitical construction of Haifa has been dominated by landscape production for more than a century, and landscape still plays a key role in constructing the city’s identity. This paper ex-amines how a spatial platform for the city’s social and cultural processes was created through landscape ma-nipulation, and how the landscape defi ned Arab- Jewish relationships and assisted the integration of new Jew-ish immigrants, solidifying them into a national com-munity. This sheds light on the landscape as a “political space” (Olwig 2002) and presents landscape production as a sociocultural act.

Extending the current debate on spatially- oriented studies, in which landscape is perceived as a dynamic sociocultural production agent (Corner 1999; Meyer 2005; Mitchell 2002), this article addresses the landscape both as evidence of strategic action and as a political catalyst. However, unlike specifi c studies of landscape production, individual settings and historical events (Benes and Harris 2001), formation types (Berrizbeitia 1999), or personalities (Treib and Imbert 1997), we fo-cus on the production of the cityscape. Our premise is that the urban landscape must be seen as a whole—a time- space continuum of multiple elements of the ur-ban experience, in which the city itself is the database. Urban landscape production is legible in professional documentation such as maps, drawings, diagrams, sketches, and reports, as well as in official guidelines, regulations, and laws. It also exists in unofficial repre-sentations such as photographs and literature, but most of all in the city’s actual appearance and everyday use. Our investigation is limited to the hegemonic arena, fo-cusing on the politics of production of Haifa’s cityscape between colonialism and nation building, a period in

ABSTRACT This paper examines landscape production as embedded in design and planning procedures and based on spa-tial knowledge of landscape architecture. It investigates Haifa’s landscape production in the contexts of colonialism and nation-alism, focusing on planning mechanisms, design strategies, and political tactics utilized to create the cityscape. Contrary to the common perception of landscape as a passive and aesthetic cultural product, the landscape examined here has been care-fully premeditated and planned. It is created and recreated by professionals—landscape architects, architects, and planners—and empowered by politicians and administrators in an effort to construct the city’s image and identity. The case of Haifa dem-onstrates the major role played by landscape in the sociocultural formation of the city, as a continuous agent of form and produc-tive knowledge, and as an effi cient tool for integrating offi cial strategies, ideologies, and values into spatial conditions.

KEYWORDS Landscape production, landscape- production mech anisms, colonial / national landscapes, urban landscape, Haifa

This paper focuses on the politics of landscape. It ex-amines landscape- production mechanisms arising

from political agendas and how they become powerful agents that construct the city’s image and everyday life. Landscape production presents inherent contradictions due to its natural / cultural ambiguity. While landscape is perceived as natural phenomenon, landscape pro-duction is associated with wo / man- made processes.

These contradictions are endemic to Haifa, a mixed Jewish- Arab Israeli city, nestled on the slopes of Mount Carmel on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean (see Figures 1 and 2). Haifa offers a unique opportunity to tackle the contradictions inherent in landscape pro-duction because of its pseudo- natural appearance and the role landscape has played and continues to play in its formation. Landscape has dominated Haifa’s politi-cal and social construction for more than a century and still plays a key role in the city’s existence.

The city’s unique topography is dominated by steep mountain slopes and dry riverbeds (wadis) that frame and border the built areas with “green fi ngers.” The urban fabric follows the topography and is inlaid both with native greenery and fl ora of the Mediterra-nean forests and with many planted trees.1 Spectacular panoramic views toward the mountains, harbor, and

The Politics of Landscape (Re)ProductionHaifa Between Colonialism and Nation Building

Ziva Kolodney and Rachel Kallus

174 Landscape Journal 27:2–08

population soared in 1944 to about 128,000 (52 percent Jews), becoming a multicultural city. With the hostilities before and during the 1948 war, when only 3,500 Arabs were left in the city, the population had a Jewish ma-jority. In the 1950s it became a stronghold of the Labor Party, an economic and social “blue- collar” center of

which the city developed swiftly and landscape became the productive mechanism of the dominant political powers. Under the British Mandate (1918–1948), Haifa was an important port, an economic and strategic as-set. From a small, walled village with a population estimated in 1895 to be 9,908 (mostly Arabs), Haifa’s

Figure 1. Haifa’s urban area and its environs. (Courtesy of Haifa Municipality, GIS Department)

Figure 2. View from Mount Carmel toward the Baha’i gardens, downtown, and Haifa Bay area. (Photograph by Guy Shachar, 2006, used with permission)

Kolodney and Kallus 175

scape reveals, presents, and encodes a dynamic inter-relation of hegemonic powers. Focusing on the land-scape’s quality as a powerful cultural production agent, Mitchell (2002) analyzes constructed social formations. A growing body of landscape architecture studies try to gain insight into how the landscape “works and what it does” (Corner 1999, 4). This approach presents the landscape as a process that affects both individuals and societies. Harris (2003) addresses the connection between landscape products (gardens, groves, fi elds) and their producers (landscape architects, city officials, politicians, and private patrons). Concerning the con-struction of cultural life and its values, she maintains that landscapes are “active agents in the formation of culture” (2).

Disregarding the traditional aesthetic context of the city park, Berrizbeitia (1999) demonstrates land-scape architects’ active role in making the city. Her claim is that landscape architects adopt “a program of ‘productivisim,’” and that landscape design is a tech-nique (or a set of techniques) rather than a product of aesthetic inspiration (188). This defi nition of landscape production as a sociopolitical process necessitates an autonomous professional approach (Fung 1999; Girot 1999; Treib 1999).

Understanding of landscape construction mecha-nisms within professional boundaries increases under-standing of the landscape as a “political space” (Olwig 2002). When considered as a means of “unmasking the pretended neutrality of physical space” (Harris 2003, 234), this approach retrieves the voices of the oppressed and the marginal. The intention of our study is to ex-plore landscape production mechanisms in order to re-veal spatial aspects of ethnic and national identities in Haifa, and examine the scope of landscape production in the Middle East.

COLONIAL AND NATIONAL LANDSCAPE PRODUCTION

The investigation focuses on Haifa in transition from colonialism to the nation- building era, challenges the

the evolving nation- state known as “Red Haifa” (Seikaly 1995, 20).

The circumstances of this transitional epoch offer a unique opportunity to examine the landscape as a planned process of sociocultural construction. Our study stresses the landscape’s continuity as it is shaped and re- shaped through time and space. This avoids the periodization common to historical narratives, al-lowing us to consider the landscape as an ongoing temporal and spatial entity, and to question the role of landscape in shaping people and places. The questions underlining this study, therefore, are: To whom does the landscape belong? For whom has it been produced? And, how has it been produced and for what purpose? Related to these questions, we examine the landscape as a multilayered urban memory, an experience of place and identity manipulated by opposing powers—Jewish versus Arab, Western versus Eastern, national versus colonial.

LANDSCAPE PRODUCTION AND REPRODUCTION

Current discourse on landscape production, occurring primarily outside of architecture in the fi elds of geog-raphy, anthropology, gender studies, art, and literature, considers landscape’s visual and textual imagery and fo-cuses on how landscapes express power relations (Brace 1999; Cosgrove 1998, 1999, 2007; Nash 1996; Rose 1994). Examining the spatial attributes of power relations, re-cent studies in landscape architecture do not question what landscapes mean, but how landscape motivates a sociocultural reality. This critical perspective (Anders-son 2004; Jacobs 2005; Schneekloth, Canizaro, and Hel-phand 2004; Swaffield 2006) addresses landscape as a verb rather than a noun, its visual qualities as a dynamic cultural agent (Berrizbeitia 1999; Harris 2003; Leather-barrow 2004; Meyer 1997, 2005), and as a process rather than an object (Corner 1999).

In his sociocultural understanding of the city, Lefe-bvre (1998) regards the landscape as a pseudo- natural process of political production. Mitchell (2000) shows that, behind its mundane day- to- day experience, land-


by Abba Khoushy, Haifa’s dynamic mayor in the 1950s, the colonial system enabled his new regime to “create the desired conditions for health, pleasure, work, and cultural activities in the city” (HEA 1951b).

Western town planning theories, urban legislation, and professional know- how were exported to colonies at the beginning of the 20th century (Home 1997). Co-lonial Haifa was no exception, and architecture and urban planning became central to the colonial project of extending Western modernity into the non- Western world (AlSayyad 1992; Bozdogan 2001; Jacobs 1996). Haifa’s location was of strategic importance in the Brit-ish plan for the Near East, making it the major port of the colonial network (Goren 2004).2 Patrick Abercrom-bie declared that “Haifa must become the most impor-tant industrial and commercial town in Palestine. . . . It is practically certain that the coming years will see its [Haifa’s] rise as a second Liverpool” (Department of Trade and Industry 1932, 6)

Patrick Geddes, Patrick Abercrombie, and Clifford Holliday, the renowned British town planners of the time, teamed up with local professionals and admin-istrators to establish new spatial order (Hyman 1994).3 Their individual work and their joint efforts were major factors in creating colonial Haifa. Their records, mea-surements, surveys, and maps formed a sound base for planning the city. Along with J. L. A. Watson, Haifa’s British city engineer, these planners created a series of designs, such as the Skeleton Zoning Scheme (1934), Haifa Bay Plan, or the Emek Zebulun Town Planning Scheme (1938), a series of composite town planning schemes during the late 1930s, the detailed Haifa Out-line Town Planning Scheme (1945), and others.4 Follow-ing the British example, these plans laid out new land- use patterns, enforced modern building codes, and provided recreation, education, and medical and social facilities. The Jewish community played an active role in these initiatives since much of the planned area was Jewish- owned. In fact, Zionist organizations were also active in initiating signifi cant city planning schemes such as Abercrombie’s plan for the Haifa Bay area.5

With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948,

perception of landscape as a passive natural terrain (Kaika 2005), and discusses its role in creating social relations and cultural identities. Haifa’s quasi- natural setting embodies the contradictions of landscape’s na-ture / nurture and urges us to uncover the mechanisms by which the city has been produced and managed.

This transitional period brings to light the land-scape’s continuity in time and space and how the land-scape is critical to changing perceptions, ideologies, and government. As argued by Wright (1991), AlSayyad (1992), Celik (1997), and others, the urban fabric of co-lonial cities was often transformed as an expression of economic, intellectual, physical, and symbolic domi-nance. Colonially- enforced urban landscapes offer a key to understanding the reifi cation of human construc-tion and economic power (Hosagrahar 1992). Excessive mapping and surveying enforced the colonial spatial order and “power- knowledge” systems (Brayshay and Cleary 2002; Maltess 1999) that preceded the efforts to connect communities to territory, and the study of such systems in the transition period reveals the role of the built environment in constructing an “imagined com-munity” (Anderson 1983) and the affinity of colonial and national spaces (Kong and Yeoh 2003; Kusno 2000; Scott 1998; Vale 1992). In Israel, Zionism is often viewed as yet another colonial system (Lustick 1993; Shafi r 1996; Shamir 2000; Penslar 2001).

Landscape production in Haifa and its use of spatial mechanisms such as the “green belt” to implement co-lonial order and later national ideologies is not unique. Colonial use of spatial mechanisms to enforce order by means of modern planning has been widely discussed (Celik 1997; Fuller 2007; Hosagrahar 2007; Wright 1991) as were the British “grand model” and green belt (Home 1997). However, in Haifa, adapting these systems de-pended on the landscape attributes. Under the British Mandate, colonial Haifa imported and absorbed new urban schemes through the municipality and imple-mented them via planning and designing the landscape. Similar systems were later adopted by the city’s leaders in the new State of Israel and were intended to spatialize the city’s new territorial and social framework. As stated


Transcape

Transcape, or the translocation of landscape, is often used by hegemonic powers (such as colonial regimes) to enforce top- down ideas and practices, thereby impos-ing a new sociocultural identity and repressing an exist-ing one. The Haifa Bay Plan demonstrates how the green belt concept—a hegemonic strategy of transcape—was implemented, initially by the British Mandate and later by the State of Israel in the Haifa Master Plan of 1953. Professionals, together with politicians and bureau-crats, utilized these production mechanisms to enforce progress and development, bring about social change, and construct cultural identities.

As of the late 1800s the British urban plans in-cluded a green belt, together with the concept of a “gar-den city,” with the intention of limiting urban sprawl by surrounding the city with a belt of agriculture and recreational areas (Howard 1946). It attempted to pro-mote an idyllic ecology and an aesthetic landscape that would convey local heritage and wellbeing (Hall 1989).7 The green belt notion was accepted by the Greater Lon-don Regional Planning Committee and became the basis of the 1938 Green Belt Act (London and Home Counties), which was implemented around London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh at the end of the Second World War by Patrick Abercrombie. The prototype was applied extensively throughout the British colonies as a model of political control and civic order (Cohen 1994). It was a practical instrument for demarcating open spaces, distinguishing between city and countryside, limiting urban growth, and creating zoning divisions (Home 1997).8 Hall (1989) claimed that, behind its “peaceful-ness,” the green belt principle derived from a capital-ist rationale of controlling local production by creating uniform living conditions for workers within these gar-den cities.

J.L.A. Watson, Haifa’s city engineer during the Brit-ish Mandate, adopted the green belt concept “in order to separate the industrial zone from the residential one,” claiming that this was “an ultra- modern planning idea which we hope will become the model throughout

many new immigrants settled in Haifa where they could fi nd housing and employment.6 Haifa Municipality, dominated by the Labor Party, quickly became a center of infl uence and power at the national level, with strong ties between the socialist government and local politi-cians. Again, national administrators relied on land-scape planning and design to control land and popula-tions. In constructing a national identity, together with modernization and Westernization, architecture was an important means of legitimizing and nationalizing mod-ern forms (Bozdogan 2001; Kallus and Law- Yone 2002; Nitzan- Shiftan 2004; Vale 1992). Abba Khoushy, aware of the power of the urban form, declared that “the city has spirit and style. As a living organism it constructs its people while being itself constructed” (HCA 1954a).

MECHANISMS OF LANDSCAPE PRODUCTION

Haifa’s urban history presents two modes of landscape production, which we have called transcape and era-scape. Transcape is the transfer of landscaping ideas and practices from one terrain to another. Erascape is a process of eradicating one landscape and replacing it with another. Both are analytical frameworks delineat-ing socio political strategies and are vital to understand-ing processes of landscape production. They make clear the distinction between the different strategies and agents involved in landscape production, deciphering the landscape as a sociocultural tool, and comprehend-ing the role of landscape in constructing sociopolitical relations.

Transcape is examined via the green belt as a land-scape prototype. Erascape is examined through the treatment of the urban fabric of Haifa’s Old City. In both cases the investigation is of landscape production as manifested by official bureaucracy and exercised by the professional community, of how the cityscape is con-structed, and how it supports the transformation from one regime to the next. Thus, rather than focusing on discrete events in a specifi c timeframe, the study deals with the stability and continuity of the public urban space that forms an entire urban framework.


Bay returned to sand dunes with neglected eucalyptus trees and scattered shrubbery, adjacent to an industrial area that is one of the most polluted and toxic zones in Israel.12

With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the green belt concept was whole- heartedly ad-opted by Abba Khoushy who declared independence from British rule and criticized its oppressiveness, while simultaneously urging the city planners to implement the concept. In an address to the city council he stated that he had “recently read about Abercrombie’s Greater London Plan” and that Haifa “will be the fi rst city in Is-rael to adopt the green belt concept” (HCA 1954a).13

During the 1950s, Haifa’s municipality used the cityscape as its physical platform for integrating the city in the scheme of the new state. During the 1948 War of Independence, Haifa lost its geopolitical dominance as a Middle East trade center. The new Jewish state was cut off from its Arab neighbors and operation of the Iraq Pe-troleum Company (IPC) pipeline bringing oil from Iraq to Haifa’s refi neries ceased, as did the Damascus- Haifa Railway. The infrastructure left by the British, mainly the port and the petrochemical industry, attracted many new immigrants seeking employment. It served Red Haifa as a major economic base dominated by the Labor Party. Landscape design was used to create a new political, social, and economic cityscape in accordance with the national vision.

Haifa’s new Master Plan of 1953 was not just a mat-ter of integrating new immigrants, but also a means of

the land of Israel (Eretz Israel)” (Watson 1938, 58). The Haifa Bay Plan by Abercrombie and Holiday projected a green belt between the workers’ neighborhood of Kiryat Haim and the adjacent industrial zone.9 The intention was to separate the neighborhood from the heavy in-dustrial areas round the harbor and the oil refi neries along the coast.10 Analogous to the plan proposed in his essay “The Preservation of Rural England,” Abercrom-bie (1926) situated the green belt of the Haifa Bay Plan adjacent to the agricultural area, thus creating a pleas-ant contrast to the industrial zone (Figure 3).

Despite the heated debate between land- owners11 and city planners concerning the width of the green strip, Abercrombie insisted on a minimum of 100 me ters to accommodate “public open spaces, sports grounds, natural areas . . . to provide a resource for future urban green and open- space requirements” for the worker (HCA 1934). However, during the Second World War, the green area between the industrial and the resi dential zones was requisitioned as a fi rebreak, and trenches were dug to shelter the workers in case of emergency. This was considered an ideal solution that would provide safety, recreation, and accessibility (HCA 1939).

Over the years the pastoral green belt was trans-formed into a no- man’s- land, the “backyard” of its resi-dential and industrial neighbors, ultimately becoming a dumping ground for scattered public buildings and a ‘back door’ for utilities that were pushed to the city’s edge. The incoherent and deserted open spaces of Haifa

Figure 3. The green belt between the industrial zone and the worker neighborhood of Kiryat Hayim in the Emek Zebulun Town Planning Scheme (detail) (HEA 1938a).


ers also deserve a pleasant, healthy location” said Abba Khoushy in 1954 (HCA 1954a).

The Master Plan (Figure 4) designated new resi-dential areas on the slopes of Mount Carmel, overlook-ing the harbor and the industrial zones. It allocated “a new road system [to] ensure convenient and quick routes from the residential districts on the mountain to the employment areas, offering splendid views that em-phasize the unique character of Haifa and its environs,” stated Yechiel Efrati, the Master Plan coordinator (1954, 108). As in the British plan, the roads linked the workers to their jobs in the industrial zone.

This idea played a different role in the Master Plan of 1953, where it united Haifa’s boundaries inside a green cordon (marked green belt zone and strip in

creating a new urban society of workers. The city’s lead-ers, guided by the national Labor Party, envisioned a so-cial urban scheme that would link the workers with their city, the basis of their livelihood and welfare. Against Tel Aviv, the “bourgeois city,” and Jerusalem, the “religious city,” Haifa identifi ed itself as the “workers’ city” (Sha-lon 1954, 62–63).

The Master Plan of 1953 was to “condense the city and its residents in the industrial area and the adjacent downtown center” and utilize the surrounding green areas for their enjoyment (Pearlstein 1956, 12). “I op-pose the idea of setting residential quarters in the bay area [in Kiryat Haim, as suggested by the British plan-ners]. I propose to settle the workers on Mount Carmel because it should not be exclusive to the wealthy. Work-

Figure 4. Haifa Master Plan (1953), showing the green belt area and strip around the city boundaries and the park zone that bordered the residential area, located on both sides of Mount Carmel ridgeline (HEA 1953b).


Erascape

Erascape is a landscape production mechanism denot-ing the political power of landscape in creating social relations and cultural identities. It involves fundamen-tal landscape transformation over time and space, eras-ing an existing landscape to make way for another. It is also a powerful tool for creating new spatial order and cultural defi nition by means of uprooting, displacing, and erasing.

Erasing a landscape usually derives from events such as war or natural disasters. The erascape mecha-nism in Haifa is no exception. It was apparent in Haifa during both the colonial and the national periods, and expressed the interests of both systems (colonial and national) in imposing political and socioeconomic rule on the land and its inhabitants. During the Brit-ish occupation and throughout the 1948 War of Inde-pendence and the establishment of the State of Israel, Haifa underwent signifi cant territorial and social trans-formations that entailed considerable demolition and reconstruction.

Erascape prevailed throughout the British Empire and advances in science and technology provided le-gitimization for modern town- planning, enforcing san-itary standards and regulations. For example, Delhi and Singapore, like Haifa, underwent drastic urban demo-lition (Home 1997; Hosagrahar 1992; Kong and Yeoh 2003). In Jaffa, large sections of the Old City were de-molished by the British in 1936, following an uprising that threatened urban order. This attempt to control the city’s mainly Arab population was used to achieve spatial improvements, but was intended also to pre-vent future uprisings (Gavish 1981; Hatuka and Kallus 2006). Patrick Geddes was one of the few colonial plan-ners who criticized this destructive approach, which he called “death- dealing Haussmannizing” (Home 1997). However, in 1920 Patrick Geddes, in collaboration with Haifa City Engineer Asaph Ciffrin, included a thorough-fare through the heart of Haifa’s Old City as part of the New City Plan, requiring major demolition (Hyman 1994). The British planners, as well as the Israeli plan-

Figure 4). More than 58,000 dunams14 of Mediterra-nean forest and parkland divide the built areas from the surrounding agricultural zones, including the adjacent small satellite towns of Nesher and Tira (HCA 1954a). The steep slopes and hilly terrain, like the lush English hills, became a green connecting tissue between town and countryside. This organic concept echoes the Zi-onist utopian dream of returning to the land to make a home for the Jewish people, prioritizing country and agriculture over city and industry (Cohen 1970).15

Dr. J. Winsemius, the Dutch adviser to the Master Plan, recommended that in light of shortage of land “spatial domination of the city [be established] by wid-ening the green belt area” (HCA 1954b, 2). The inclusion of “Park Zone” on the eastern and western wadi slopes on both sides of the mountain ridge was intended to border the residential zone (see Figure 4 for the park zone in the Master Plan). The abundant vegetation and seasonal streams were to be the “city’s lungs” and boundaries between neighborhoods and between the city and its environs (HCA 1954b, 2). Winsemius envi-sioned the green belt as a physical approach between residential areas and open spaces, a barrier against ur-ban sprawl, a reserve for long- term development, and a natural recreation area.

Sadly, as with other grand ideas of the 1953 Mas-ter Plan, the green belt was never accomplished. The plan was shelved to make a place for a down- to- earth master plan as demanded in the Israeli town- planning ordinance of 1965 that replaced the English one of 1936. However, this new plan has never been approved and the colonial Skeleton Zoning Scheme of 1934 is, to this day, the authorized guideline plan for Haifa.

Despite claims that British planning “promoted the Empire with no consideration for the city’s needs” (Efrati 1954, 106), construction of Haifa was based on British planning principles. The green belt, like British planning, promoted zoning, but it also consolidated the city and defi ned it for its inhabitants. Hence, a land-scape concept used in colonial planning to divide and rule was used by national planners to cohere and defi ne the evolving Zionist “Red Haifa.”


jacent new British harbor from the industrial zones and interfered with land transportation systems. “I did not realize, until this survey was made, just how bad the Old City’s condition was,” complained Watson to Henry Kendall, the chief Palestine town planning ad-viser (HEA 1937). His concern was not only for the haphazard street grid, but for housing conditions and sewage systems that were well below accepted sanitary and health norms.

Haifa’s topography enabled viewing the city from the top of Mount Carmel (Figure 6), so that conditions in the Old City were apparent even before the survey. This view from the mountain toward the city was of ma-jor concern for M. Bailey, Haifa’s district commissioner. While working on the design of Panorama Road, the scenic route along the Mount Carmel ridge,16 he said, “We town planners must preserve the amenities of this unparalleled view . . . .” (HCA 1933). Watson legislated building height limitations, to “prevent blocking the open view from the roads located on the mountain slope facing the harbor area” (1938, 58), with the intention of

ners who came later, also claimed the demolition was necessary for improving the city.

The planning approach to Haifa’s Old City, both colonial and national, called for demolition, though colonial efforts were directed at imposing Western val-ues of best practice and the national aim was to enforce and display hegemony over a conquered landscape. For Watson, Haifa’s walled Old City was a typical Middle Eastern urban agglomeration, unsuitable for modern living. He claimed that “although the Old City [has] a romantic oriental heritage, it presents serious problems to modern city planning, as well as serious sanitary and transportation problems” (HCA 1941–42, 26).

Old Haifa was established as a port and trade cen-ter in the 18th century under Ottoman rule. Its chaotic urban pattern of narrow, winding streets, inconsistent geometric order, and muddled buildings, presented a problem for the Western planners (Figure 5)—the dis-orderly, high- density urban network did not conform to modern standards. Furthermore, as the Haifa sur-vey of 1936 indicated, the Old City separated the ad-

Figure 5. Haifa Old City survey map showing the proposed George V Avenue (HEA 1939), a detailed view of the Old City (HCA 1931), and a detail of the Old City survey (HEA 1939).


the Municipality, from the whole of the Middle East” (HCA 1947). Thus, less than a year before the face of the Middle East was changed by the 1948 war, Arab and Jewish professionals participated in the British vi-sion of a new Middle East.18

None of the three demolition plans came to frui-tion during the Mandate period, even though they were officially approved and included in the planning scheme for Haifa’s Old City and the downtown area. This was mainly due to the high cost of reimbursing the property owners (Goren 2004). However, the British plans had set the scene for the demolition of Haifa’s Old City by the State of Israel.

Clearing of the Old City was fi nally initiated by the Israeli defense authorities, mainly between May and July of 1948.19 Most of the area marked “reconstruc-tion” in the British plan of 1938 (HEA 1938c), essentially Arab- owned, mixed- use residential and commercial property, was partially or totally demolished after the area had been largely abandoned during and after the 1948 war, and included all structures except churches and mosques. Removal of the urban texture has left large portions of downtown Haifa in ruins and unin-habited to this day.

An open competition calling for a schematic plan for downtown Haifa, was initiated in 1951. Competitors were asked to take into account the views to and from the area and to create their plans according to modern urban planning concepts. The competition attempted to rehabilitate the Old City and its surroundings, the “cen-tral obstacle to the city’s progress and its architectural image” (HEA 1951a). This included the mostly aban-doned Arab neighborhoods of Wadi Salib, Wadi Nisnas, and the German Colony, a total area of 295 dunams (of which 68 dunams were the demolished Old City area and 227 dunams were built- up areas) (HCA 1951).

No fi rst prize was awarded, but the jury decided to give two second prizes. Michael Shaviv’s functional and geometrically ordered design, a total contrast to the original chaotic urban fabric, was awarded cum laude and declared the winner (Figure 8). According to the jury, the winning scheme “united the practical and the

ensuring good visibility of the new downtown area, the harbor, and the industrial zones from any point on the mountain.

The Old City’s poor condition condemned it. Its de-molition, proposed in terminology analogous to that of surgical procedures, was seen as a necessary interven-tion in the “virtual heart of the town” to free the clogged city and result in better transportation and sanitation (HCA 1947). Demolition was proposed in three strategic stages over a period of ten years. Based on a detailed survey of the area (1936), the fi rst step, initiated by the British military, was to open a broad thoroughfare, George V Avenue, through the middle of the Old City, thereby clearing access to the port (marked by a solid line in Figure 5). This was integrated in the Skeleton Zoning Scheme of 1934, and, as the detailed sketch in Figure 7 shows, required demolition of City Block No. 39 (HEA 1939a). This meant that 13 proprietors would lose their property. A second road scheme would extend be-yond the Old City toward the German Colony, with the aim of establishing commercial frontage on both sides of George V Avenue, which would thus become a main artery of the city (HEA 1938b).

The Composite Town Planning Scheme of 1938 for the Old City proposed reconstruction of the whole area, about 265 dunams, and extending it to the old sections of the new downtown quarter, a further 70 dunams (HEA 1938c). This, the city engineer J.L.A. Watson claimed, necessitated demolition and rebuilding in a short span of time “in the interests of the town as a whole” (HCA 1939–40).

The third step called for complete demolition of the Old City and rebuilding it according to a scheme that was the winner of a professional competition. Surprisingly the suggestion encountered few objec-tions from local residents and owners.17 On June 4, 1947, delegates of the Arab and the Jewish Architects and Engineers Associations were invited to a special town- planning meeting. Both organizations agreed to participate in the competition. Ironically, their only stipulation was that the competition “be open to en-trants from the whole of Palestine and, if desired by


poetic” and confi rmed Israel’s domination and sover-eignty over Haifa’s cityscape (HEA 1952). In a press con-ference, Uriel Shalon, head of Municipal Development, declared that the original Old City plan was created by the British, but could be implemented now, after the destruction of the area: “Only with the evacuation of Haifa’s Arabs after the city was conquered was a radical solution made possible” (HEA 1951c).

Shaviv’s plan incorporated two building types: high- rise free- standing buildings in a vast open park on the north- south axis, connected with low buildings aligned east- west, with a central promenade through-out its length. Shady plazas were set in front of the main buildings, with pedestrian circulation separated from traffic, and generous planting throughout. The scheme produced variation in the landscape and, as Aryeh Sha-ron, the chairman of the jury stated, the whole area reads as a “green system of nature, greenery and open spaces, which penetrates organically into the tall build-ings and is incorporated into its surroundings and open spaces” (HEA 1952). It also included a dominant central open space set against Mount Carmel’s slope and inte-grated with its vegetation.

Figure 6. A 1936 panoramic view from Mount Carmel Ridge toward the Old City, the downtown, the harbor, and the bay area (Private postcard collection).

Figure 7. A detailed sketch of a demolition proposal of City Block No. 39, as resulted from George V Avenue (HEA 1939a).


identifi ed with the culture of the enemy. Rebuilding was intended to create new spaces for a new society.

Shaviv’s proposal envisioned an entirely new ur-ban image for Haifa. “Haifa is no longer a mixed city of populations with different social and cultural standards and different mentalities . . . The new plan will express the aspirations and desires of a homogeneous popula-tion, sharing a modern city planned as a single organic unit” declared Cohen (1956, 10), the new city engineer. This was a call for sectarian identities, both by the newly arrived Jewish immigrants and by Arab veterans, to merge with the new city’s sociocultural image. The new city, like a leviathan, would swallow them up, wipe out their differences, and consolidate them into a new, unifi ed urban society.

Modernizing Haifa’s Old City was thus the goal of colonial and national powers alike. However, while co-

Shaviv’s winning scheme, called Development Plan for Part of the City Center, was incorporated in the city’s new Master Plan of 1954. Isaac Pearlstein, its principal planner, maintained that the proposed reconstruc-tion area (295 dunams) was a “slum area . . . consist-ing mainly of old Arab neighborhoods . . . [where] the buildings are mostly old, with inferior or no sanitation, and unsafe structures densely populated” (1956, 29). This statement of the erascape concept was a powerful rationale for relocating the remaining Arab residents in the area. “These [neighborhoods] are mostly in the city center, in an area designated for renewal. . . The population will have to be transferred to other loca-tions” argued Pearlstein (29). Clearing the land for the new Jewish city was intended to create a fresh urban image to replace the primitive and hostile landscape of the “Other.” The Old City presented an oriental terrain

Figure 8. “Development Plan for Part of the City Center,” the winning proposal from the 1951 City Center Competition (HEA 1953a).


aims. This signifi cant fi nding points once again to the political meaning of the landscape and its effectiveness in creating social and cultural urban realities. More sig-nifi cantly, it indicates the need to extend a critical pro-fessional awareness to the complexities of landscape and the outcome of its production.

Further research into other landscape production mechanisms, formal and informal, would increase un-derstanding of the politics of landscape, and assist to “unmask the pretended neutrality of physical space” (Harris 1999, 434). However, this should not ignore the landscape’s potential to heal and reconcile. The goal of landscape research must be not only to open new av-enues to understanding landscape’s manipulative na-ture, but also to strengthen its constructive potential.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank anonymous readers and the edi-tor for their valuable comments and suggestions made to an earlier version of this paper, to Hubert Law Yone for his constructive remarks, and to Rena Minkoff for her editorial assistance.

NOTES

1. For more about Zionist ideology and tree- planting, see Alon

(2002) and Zerubavel (1996).

2. For a discussion of colonial urban infl uence on metropolitan

cities, see Jacobs (1996) and the collection of essays in Driver

and Gilbert (2003).

3. While visiting Palestine between 1919 and 1920, Sir Patrick

Geddes was commissioned to conduct an extensive survey of

Haifa and prepare the New City Plan, which he undertook in

collaboration with city engineer Asaph Ciffrin. Sir Patrick Ab-

ercrombie was invited to Palestine to prepare a planning re-

port for the Haifa Bay area (1930–1938). Clifford Holliday lived

in Palestine from 1922–1935. For further discussion of British

architects, town planners, and civil engineers in Haifa / Pales-

tine under the British Mandate, see Fuchs (1992), Herbert and

Sosnovsky (1993), Hyman (1994), and Home (1997).

4. The Skeleton Zoning Scheme (HEA 1934), based on the town

planning ordinances of 1921–1929, was approved in 1934

and is still in force since no other plan has been approved.

Following the Skeleton Zoning Scheme, Watson, Haifa’s Brit-

lonial attempts to transform the landscape were made in the name of modern urban planning, the national endeavor was based on a far- reaching political agenda. The new national scheme did intend to provide bet-ter living conditions for the city’s residents, but it also envisioned an entirely transformed urban image. Its landscapes would create a new spatial order, a cultural defi nition that would replace the old urban image with a city worthy of the new state.

AFTERWORD

Examination of the landscape production mech-anisms transcape and erascape in Haifa during the transition from colonialism to nationalism reveals the political role of the landscape. The green belt system (transcape) and the Old City’s destruction and recon-struction (erascape) expose the tactics of landscape production. In both instances—the “pastoral” greenery of the green belt and the densely built urban fabric of the Old City—the landscape has been used to organize and manage the city and its life. These case studies un-derline the importance of “landscape knowledge” when considering an entire city rather than discrete land-scape objects such as gardens and parks. They further illustrate how landscape knowledge is used by politi-cians and administrators envisioning the city. The en-gagement of professional architects and planners, side by side with politicians and administrators, bears wit-ness to how landscape knowledge is integrated into city governance and how it affects social and cultural urban realities. Thus, the landscape is revealed as a dynamic element of hegemonic power and control.

During our investigation, it became clear how similar tactics of landscape production become means to achieve different sociopolitical agendas. The green belt system served both colonial and national Haifa, but was used differently and with different intentions. Similarly, the destruction and reconstruction of the Old City was envisioned with slightly different intentions by colonial and national regimes. In this fashion, the same landscape mechanism has assisted distinctive political


ning concepts were a main infl uence in Israel and in Haifa,

in particular.

14. A dunam is a unit of area used in Israel equaling 1,000 square

meters.

15. “Eretz- Israel” is the Hebrew- Biblical term for the “Land of

Israel.” For more about Zionist ideology and Eretz- Israel, see

Chowers (2002) and Sternhell (1998).

16. See Northern Mount Carmel Scheme, Panorama Road East-

ern Section (HEA 1935)

17. The Old City area, some 130 dunams, was composed of 989

parcels of individual land ownership, mostly by Arabs (HCA

1947; Goren 2004).

18. Forty years later, following the Oslo accords, the vision of a

New Middle East was again shared by professionals and poli-

ticians.

19. Shabetai Levi, Haifa’s mayor at the time, stressed that Haifa

Municipality was not responsible for the demolition or for

the moral and fi nancial implications thereof (HCA 1947).

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The Politics of Landscape (Re)Production: Haifa Between Colonialism and Nation Building

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