National parks in the service of nation building: the pioneering work of Lipa Yahalom and Dan Zur in Israel
2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 32; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14601176.2011.601893
ISSN1943-2186
Autores Tópico(s)Ecology, Conservation, and Geographical Studies
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgement The paper is part of a comprehensive research on the work of Yahalom and Zur that I carried out while a fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, Garden and Landscape Studies. I am grateful to John Beardsley for his thoughtful comments and to the DBO community, fellows and staff, for providing the most beautiful and enriching environment. Quotations throughout the text are based on personal communication with Dan Zur and on notes and letters written by Lipa Yahalom. Plans and early photographs are part of the visual archive of Yahalom and Zur, and I am grateful to both families for sharing these valuable sources with me. I wish to thank my friends Merav Gold and Racheli Merhav (landscape architect for the NPA 1990–1999) for their enlightning comments and endless support. Notes 1. Zionism: the political, social and religious movement to establish a Jewish state in its ancient homeland. The first Zionist Congress was held in Basel in 1897, convened by Benjamin Zeev Herzl, a Jewish journalist from Vienna. 2. From the explanatory notes of the judges, Israel Prizes 1998, p. 101. Committee members were: Architect Yacov Rechter (chair), Prof. Robert Oxman, Prof. Yarom Vardimon and Arch. Bracha Hayutin. 3. Kibbutz (pl. Kibbutzim): communal, egalitarian agricultural settlements, with land and property in communal ownership. The kibbutz and its members have been central to Israel's culture and ideology. 4. On Yahalom and Zur see: Kenneth Helphand, Dreaming Gardens: Landscape Architecture and the Making of Modern Israel (Santa Fe, NM: Center for American Places, 2002); 'Excerpts from Talks with Lipa Yahalom', in D. Raz (ed.), Point of View: Four Approaches to Landscape Architecture in Israel (Tel-Aviv University: The Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, 1996), pp. 41–44. 5. See in particular the monumental study by Zvi Efrat, The Israel Project: Construction and Architecture, 1948–1973 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Art Museum, 2004) (in Hebrew). On the history of the national parks see: Yossi Katz, Stop the Bulldozer (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan Univerity, 2004), pp. 59–123 (in Hebrew). See also: Zvika Tzuk (ed.), Early Buds: The Beginnings of the National Parks Authority in Israel: Converation with Yaacov Levinson (Jerusalem: The Nature and Parks Authority, 2004) (in Hebrew); Uzi Paz, To Till It and Keep It: Nature Conservation in Israel (Jerusalem: Ariel, 2008), pp. 101–125 (in Hebrew). 6. Efrat, 'Tavnit' [pattern], in The Israel Project, pp. 992–1018. 7. Tell: artificial mounds of hills which cover ruins, often of cities. 8. Arieh Sharon, 'Archaeology and Planning', Israel Radio, 2 August 1949. 9. Eliezer (Leonid) Brutzkus, 'Aims and possiblities of regional planning', Binyan, 3, 1938, p. 35 (in Hebrew). 10. Israeli State Archives, Folio C 17/5548, A Proposal for National Parks, 3 March 1950 (in Hebrew). 11. Ibid. 12. The Jewish National Fund is a Zionist organization established in 1901 as a means of raising funds from Jews to buy land in Palestine and preparing it for Jewish settlement. 13. Talmud: the basic codification and compilation of Jewish Law, combining the Mishnah [the Oral Law] and the Gemara [commentaries on the Mishnah]. The study of the Talmud is the fundamental source of Jewish learning. 14. Israeli State Archives, Folio C 11/2736, Ben-Gurion, letter to committee members, 2 January 1950 (in Hebrew). 15. Ibid. Committee's recommendations of 30 April 1950 (in Hebrew). 16. Israeli State Archives, Folio C 5548/3737, Yevin, letter to Minister of Education, 10 March 1950 (in Hebrew). 17. Ibid. 18. Israeli State Archives, Folio C 5442/1611, Tourism Center memorandum for January to October 1954 (in Hebrew). 19. Ibid. 20. Yacov Yanai, 'Review of the department for Landscape Improvement and Historical Sites Development, The 15th Annual Conference of the Israel Exploration Society, October 1959 (in Hebrew); National parks for debate at the Council of National Parks and Nature Reserves, 12 May 1964 (in Hebrew). 21. Israel State Archives, Folio C 10/2756, 'National parks and nature reserves — commentary and definitions', undated (in Hebrew). 22. Israel State Archives C/102756, Sharon, Keynote address, 10 March 1964 (in Hebrew). 23. Z. Efrat, 'Colloquium on Landscape Architecture', in D. Raz (ed.), Point of View: Four Approaches to Landscape Architecture in Israel (Tel-Aviv University: The Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, 1996), pp. 56–66. 24. Merhav, R., 2010, personal communication. 25. Thomas, D. Church, Gardens are for People (New York: Reinhold, 1955). 26. This argument is well argued by Ethan Carr, 'The Natural Style and Park Design', Siteline (Vol. 5, no. 1, fall 2009). Carr's writing on the idea and experience of national parks in the USA is most enlightening. See: Wilderness by Design: Landscape Architecture and the National Park Service (University of Nebraska Press, 1998); Mission 66: Modernism and the National Park Dilemma (Library of American Landscape History and University of Massachusetts Press, 2007). 27. The National Parks, Nature Reserves and Memorial Sites Act (1998). National park is defined as 'an area serving or designated to serve the public's leisure needs in nature, or to promote assets of historical, archaeological, architectural, natural or scenic importance, etc., whether in its natural state or created for these purposes'. 28. Benjamin Mazar, Beth She'arim: Report on the Excavations during 1936–1940, Vol. I (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1957) (in Hebrew); Nachman Avigad, 'Excavations at Beth She'arim', Israel Exploration Journal, 4, 1954, pp. 88–107; idem, 'Excavations at Beth She'arim', Israel Exploration Journal, 9, 1959, pp. 205–220; idem, Beth She'arim, Vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1972) (in Hebrew); Lee I. A. Levine, 'Beth She'arim', in Eric M. Meyers (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, Vol. I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 309–311, with earlier literature. 29. Helphand 2002, pp. 51–52. 30. Gan Hashlosha: literary 'the garden of the three', in memory of Haim Shturman, Aharon Atkin and David Mosinzon who were killed in 1938. 31. Beyer, 'Gan Hashlosha, Israel: A Dip at Heaven's Gate', Time magazine (1996); Zandberg, 'A Man-made Garden of Eden', Ha'aretz (6 April 2001) (in Hebrew). 32. 'From the personal notes of Z. Bahir on Gan Hashlosha' (no date), a copy is owned by Gad Bahir. 33. The concrete bridge has since been demolished by administrative decree, thereby robbing the park of one of its key features. 34. Tamar Berger, 'Arcadia Academica', in Lipa Yahalom and Dan Zur: Design of an Homeland (2011, forthcoming). 35. National Park Authority, Minutes for the open competition for the design of Ben Gurion Burial Ground, in Yahalom-Zur Archive (no date) 1974, p. 5 (in Hebrew). The judges on the committee were: Yigael Yadin (chair), Yaacov Yanai, architects Arie Sharon, Arie Elhanani, Alfred Mansfeld and Yacov Rechter (all four recipients of the Israel Prize), the author Yizhar Smilansky, Amos Ben Gurion and Yehoshua Cohen. 36. National Park Authority, Judege's protocol, in Yahalom-Zur Archive, 6 September 1974, pp. 2–5 (in Hebrew). 37. Zandberg, 'Sometimes uprooting is preferable to planting', Ha'aretz (13 May 1996) (in Hebrew). 38. Yahalom and Zur, Explanatory Notes (no date). The original idea was to emerge from darkness into light, but it was rejected by the competition judges, who preferred an open passageway to a tunnel. 39. Knesset Proceedings, Jerusalem, 12 June 1962, p. 2278 (published 11 December 1962). 40. Yahalom, 'Cities in Green', notes for the annual meeting of The Council for Beautiful Israel, 17 February 1987 (in Hebrew); Zandberg, 'We will spread for you carpets of gardens', Ha'aretz (19 September 2006) (in Hebrew).
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