Zionist Architecture and Town Planning. Nathan Harpaz
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evaluations of specific architectural works due to the absence of more scientific methods of research.
Today, the most common research method for the history of architecture is an interdisciplinary approach. Modern architectural research, like the study in this book, mines other disciplines to find interpretative frameworks, research methods, and primary and secondary sources. The methodology of architectural history used here also involves qualitative research. I follow Norman Denzin and Yvonne Lincoln, authors of a comprehensive three-volume handbook on the subject, who suggest that qualitative research concentrates on multi-methods, integrating an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. Therefore, qualitative researchers study different materials in their natural setting, and provide interpretations to the phenomena. Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials.
The process of qualitative research in the field of architectural history starts with data collection. The techniques of data collection range from conducting interviews, focus groups, surveys, and observation to researching artifacts and buildings or archival documents. The next step is to reduce the data to a manageable scope by coding it and eliminating any irrelevant information. The data are then displayed in charts, graphs, or tables, and, in the last step, the researcher identifies patterns, provides explanation, and evaluates the findings.
The strengths of qualitative research as it is manifested in this book are its capacity to take in rich, holistic qualities of real life circumstances; its flexibility in design that includes procedures allowing adjustments in the process; and its sensitivity to the meanings of artifacts and processes of human activity. The weaknesses of qualitative research are the challenges of dealing with vast quantities of data, the lack of established sets of guidelines or systematic procedures, and the questionable credibility of qualitative data within the post-positivist paradigm. Though qualitative research emerged from the social sciences, this research method remains similar to the interpretive-historical method used in the history of architecture. The processes of collecting data, coding, displaying, and evaluating are all applicable and relevant. The field of architecture utilizes humans as subjects of research in its study of human interactions inside architects’ studios, human behaviors inside architectural structures, and the engagement between architects and their clients.
Although the research in this book does not include humans as subjects—because it is historical in nature and the subjects are artifacts (buildings)—it works with many components of qualitative research. This study benefits from the concepts of qualitative research in the areas of comparative study and evaluation of the gap between theory and practice. Architectural structures constitute “natural settings” and can be researched through qualitative parameters. My research also incorporates “grounded theory,” in which data leads to ideas and conclusions.
In addition, I apply “interpretive historical research” in my analysis. This method offers an investigation into social-physical phenomena within complex contexts, with a view toward explaining those phenomena in a holistic, narrative form. Historical inquiry is similar to qualitative inquiry; in both, the researcher attempts to collect as much evidence as possible concerning a complex social phenomenon and seeks to provide an account of it. Historical inquiry requires searching for evidence, collecting and organizing that evidence, evaluating it, and constructing a narrative that is complete and believable.
My collection of data or evidence consisted of researching manuscripts, documents, correspondence, photographs, architectural plans, and buildings. Next, identification and organization included identifying sources, gathering facts, observing, taking notes, and filing or organizing data. Evaluation dealt with description, analysis, assessment, determination of truth, and triangulation. Finally, narration generated description and “story.”
This study adapts the approach of historiography of modern architecture with the method of the grounded theory where the data collection leads to the theory of the research. It deals with change in architectural styles as a reflection of place, time, and ideology. This approach also enables the application of qualitative research strategies to achieve greater credibility and accurate results.
The data in this book, which was collected over three decades, and the examination of its research material provide insight into the mind and soul of the Zionist movement in a crucial time. The results of World War I generated new hopes to the future of the settlement of Jews in Palestine. Even though some advanced plans, like Levy’s proposal, for building in the “new-old” homeland were executed, the implementation of such programs failed in the early stage. The city of Tel Aviv missed the opportunity to adapt modernity in the decade after the war and submerged itself into chaotic town planning and eclectic architectural styles. Finally, in the 1930s the gap between the theoretical and the practical was closed and Tel Aviv turned into a global center for modernity and advancement.
The Concept of Modernity in Early Twentieth-Century Architecture and Town Planning
The examination of architects and movements of early modern architecture and town planning is a vital part of this study. European architects and town planners significantly influenced the urban vision of the Zionist movement in theory, on such projects as the Levy plan (1920), on the implementation of plans such as the garden city (Tel Aviv, 1909) and Geddes’s town planning (1929), and on the extensive use of the International Style (1930s).
Modern architecture emerged in the early twentieth century with a dramatic change in the relationship between aesthetics and function. It followed the concept of “form follows function” and eliminated historic styles and overuse of ornamentation. During the first half of the twentieth century, modern architecture was considered experimental, and it gained massive popularity only after World War II.
Though some scholars associate the development of modern architecture with social and political revolutions,1 others see it as a reflection of progress in science and technology. The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design, for example, focuses on the masses: mass education, mass entertainment, mass transportation, universities with huge enrollments, hospitals with thousands of beds, and stadiums seating hundreds of thousands.2 The element of the masses together with the speed of transportation expressed the “technological fanaticism of the age.”3 Science, technology, mass transportation, mass communication, and mass production and consumption all affected the development of modern architecture and design. They also reflected the predominance of the city over the small town and the country, as architects tried to develop solutions to problems encountered in designing for the masses by using new materials and new techniques.4
The first criterion of modern architecture was that architecture for the masses must be functional. This idea was a continuation of the principles of French seventeenth- and eighteenth-century rationalism. In 1841, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–1852), Great Britain’s foremost architect and designer of the nineteenth century, wrote in True Principles of Christian Architecture that “there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety … the smallest detail should … serve a purpose, and construction itself should vary with the material employed.”5
Other key movements in the early stage of Modernism were the English Arts and Crafts and the German Werkbund. The German Work Federation (Werkbund) was cofounded in 1907 by Herrmann Muthesius, author of The English House (1905), who surveyed