Zionist Architecture and Town Planning. Nathan Harpaz
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Studies 14, no. 3 (2009): 94-119.
31.Ibid.
32.John V. Maciuika, Before the Bauhaus: Architecture, Politics, and the German State, 1890-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
33.Colin G. Pooley, Housing Strategies in Europe, 1880-1930 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992).
34.Ibid.
35.Giedion, Space, 697.
36.James Marston Fitch, Walter Gropius. The Masters of World Architecture Series (New York: G. Braziller, 1960).
The Zionist Movement’s Approach to Advanced Plans in Architecture and Town Planning
Zionism, a utopian conception that also borrowed humanitarian concepts from socialism, is the ideology behind the settlement of Jews in Palestine during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. The methods of establishing settlement companies and purchasing lands, building practices, architectural styles, and town planning were all inspired by Zionist concepts.
Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), the founder of the Zionist movement, expressed his utopian ideas in The Jewish State (1896). In the third chapter of this book, Herzl suggests the establishment of a “Jewish Company” to execute Zionist ideas. According to this plan, The Jewish Company would focus on purchasing lands and would be subjected to English jurisdiction, so its principal center would be in London.1 The company would erect its own buildings or employ independent architects.2 The utopian nature of this plan is echoed Herzl’s statement: “[The] working power, which will not be sweated by the Company, but, transported into brighter and happier conditions of life.”3
In other parts of the third chapter of The Jewish State, Herzl takes inspiration from socialist ideas, as well as concepts developed in Europe after the industrial revolution, to improve living conditions and to apply urban solutions like garden cities and working-class housing. Herzl recommends the building of “workmen’s dwellings” to be erected at the company’s own risk and expense. He rejects European solutions for workers’ housing, which are “miserable rows of shanties which surround factories,” and instead prefers a model similar to the English garden city: “the detached houses in little gardens will be united into attractive groups in each locality.” And, by endorsing young architects “whose ideas have not yet been cramped by routine,”4 Herzl advocates modernity in architecture. Even though Herzl was considered a secular Jew, he admits that a visible temple must be built because “it is only our ancient faith that has kept us together.”5 He also suggests the foundation of modern high-tech educational institutions, proposing the use of inexpensive materials and techniques to maintain a disciplined and responsible financial plan.
Herzl concludes that the ideal working day is the seven-hour day. Such an idea represented an advance in the nineteenth century, one probably inspired by socialism. Believing that the seven-hour day is not only humanitarian but also more efficient for production, he perceives this labor issue as a recruiting tool: “The seven-hour day will be the call to summon our people in every part of the world. All must come voluntarily, for ours must indeed be the Promised Land.”6 At the end of this section, Herzl summarizes: “My remarks on workmen’s dwellings, and on unskilled laborers and their mode of life, are no more Utopian than the rest of my scheme. Everything I have spoken of is already being put into practice, only on an utterly small scale, neither noticed nor understood.”7
In “Other Classes of Dwelling,” Herzl offers housing solutions for the poorer classes of citizens, proposing the building of a hundred different types of houses that would be repeated if necessary. This was again an application of modern concepts of architecture using modular, inexpensive units that would assist in developing mass housing.8 Herzl also appeals to wealthy Jews to immigrate and invest in the new venture: “If in the new settlement rich Jews begin to rebuild their mansions which are stared at in Europe with such envious eyes, it will soon become fashionable to live over there in beautiful modern houses.”9
Zionism is a territory-based revival of the Jewish people that includes aspects such as revival of the Jewish national identity, socioeconomic renewal, and cultural and linguistic rebirth. Herzl’s philosophy is rooted in the Zionist socialist and utopian traditions. There are similarities between Herzl’s utopian vision and Karl Marx’s vision of communism, as they both divided the process of social renewal into two stages: the welfare state and the utopian. The first stage was covered by Herzl in The Jewish State and the second in his novel Old-New Land. In Old-New Land, Herzl defined his utopian vision as “mutualism,” avoiding the term “socialism,” even though mutualism was a stream in the socialist movement of the nineteenth century. The establishment of the kibbutz in Israel was the major manifestation of classical utopianism within Zionism after Herzl, as the kibbutz is the realization of utopian and socialist ideas.10
While Theodor Herzl was the thinker, or ideologist, of the Zionist movement, Otto Warburg (1859–1938) was the more practical, or pragmatic, member. Warburg’s activities in Palestine and in Europe are linked to the study in this book in two areas: his involvement with the establishment of the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem (1906) and his written introduction for the Levy housing plan in new Palestine (Berlin, 1920).11
Early in his career Warburg was devoted primarily to his studies and research in botany, but toward the end of the nineteenth century he became involved in the Zionist movement. He was especially engaged with the Zionists’ practical implementations, ranging from education to agriculture, irrigation, and Jewish settlements. Warburg was introduced to Zionism by his father-inlaw, Gustav Gabriel Cohen, who met Herzl during the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, a year after Herzl’s publication of The Jewish State. As early as 1881, Cohen had written a book titled The Jewish Problem and the Future, expressing a similar conclusion to Herzl’s vision that anti-Semitism would never vanish and that the only solution would be the establishment of a Jewish state in Ottoman Palestine.12
Warburg met Herzl for the first time in 1898, when Herzl was writing Old- New Land. Herzl asked Warburg to assist the Zionist movement as a botanist in developing the flora and fauna of Palestine, as well as other natural resources, primarily water. In 1899 Warburg traveled to Palestine, Cyprus, and Anatolia. In Palestine he investigated possibilities