This article was downloaded by: [Newcastle University]On: 09 October 2014, At: 04:52Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office:Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

The Journal of ArchitecturePublication details, including instructions for authors and subscriptioninformation:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjar20

Between knowledge of landscape productionand representationZiva Kolodney aa Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning , Technion, IsraelPublished online: 24 Feb 2012.

To cite this article: Ziva Kolodney (2012) Between knowledge of landscape production and representation,The Journal of Architecture, 17:1, 97-118, DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2012.659913

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2012.659913

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”)contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and ourlicensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, orsuitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publicationare the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor &Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independentlyverified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantialor systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and usecan be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Between knowledge of landscapeproduction and representation

Ziva Kolodney Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning,

Technion, Israel

Introduction

This paper focuses on the interplay between

landscape production knowledge and landscape

representation knowledge in the making of the

cityscape. While the first emphasises the concept

of landscape as architectural and planning pro-

duction and examines landscape design processes

within historical, cultural and political contexts, the

second perceives the landscape itself as a final

product. Landscape representation focuses on

visual and textual imagery in cultural images in art,

poetry, literature, photography and cartography.

Based on the relationship between these divergent

perspectives of landscape, the paper presents the

potential of landscape as a trans-disciplinary dis-

course and a close investigation of landscape archi-

tecture’s theoretical and policy agendas. Such

premises concerning landscape, I argue, establish a

discourse of landscape architecture that is not only

interpretive of landscape production processes

through field work and planning material, but also

through ‘getting behind the scenery’ and negotiat-

ing political, cultural, social and economic agendas

as an ensemble. Such investigation of the cityscape

extends these dialectic approaches and offers

alternative readings of the urban landscape.

The paper stresses both the visual dimension and

the materiality of the urban landscape as stimulating

sources of knowledge. It presents how the visually

reproduced cityscape is associated with historically

and politically specific methods of seeing. This

exploration of ‘urban gaze’ construction, both as a

professional process of seeing and as explicit rep-

resentational evidence of the cityscape, conflicts

with the common perception of landscape as a

‘God-given’ natural object. Design practices frame

and screen a preferred ‘urban gaze’ and how that

gaze is projected onto the land as a vision of

authority and possession, a constructed landscape,

challenging its ‘natural’ materiality.1 This analytical

framework enables delineation of socio-political

strategies of landscape production based on political

empowerment and cultural practices. It asks ‘How

does landscape work as a cultural practice?’. The

emphasis is on its role as ‘an agent of power’,2

focusing on landscape reproduction’s changes of

the ‘urban gaze’ as both a real and a symbolic

terrain, a social construct.

I examine the landscape production mechanism

of the ‘urban gaze’ arising from political agendas

and cultural representations to become powerful

agents in construction of the city’s image and

everyday life. This draws attention to both the con-

crete and the perceived disposition of the land-

scape as a visionary medium linked to landscape

architecture practice. To elaborate on landscape

production and representation knowledge, I

examine the city of Haifa, Israel. Situated

between the Mediterranean Sea and Mount

Carmel, Haifa’s visual quality ‘as if sitting in the

palm of one’s hand’3 and the role landscape has

played and continues to play in its history, present

a unique opportunity to explore the making of

the cityscape as a political act.

97

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

# 2012 The Journal of Architecture 1360-2365 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2012.659913

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

My concern is with the holistic view of the city,

both as professional endeavour and visual represen-

tation. I focus on the interaction between the politi-

cal and the professional, uniting to create a panoptic

view of the cityscape of British Mandate Haifa

(1918–1948) and of the nation-building era in

Haifa (the 1950s) until the present day. It fore-

grounded a top-down view of urban planning and

management and aimed to establish a visual

control of the whole city from above and a daily

recognition of the imposition of modern urban stan-

dards. The landscape’s centrality to the construction

of urban scenery has been emphasised as an act of

socio-cultural identity-building, considering it as a

dynamic process that produced and reproduced

itself during political changes. I draw on historical

views in photographs, postcards and paintings,

and on interviews with city planners to understand

archival architectural and planning materials cultu-

rally. This joint exploration of the urban landscape

as a professional practice and a cultural and social

terrain suggests an alternative reading of the citys-

cape. My premise is that landscape architecture is

not only concerned with the making of architectural

forms, or aesthetic, stylistic and iconographic analy-

sis, but is also a political field and actual practice. My

concern is to understand ideologies and cultural

backgrounds that influence the planning process

and, most importantly, to select terms and ideas

that can interpret and frame this perception and

suggest avenues for future research.

Yet, due to rapid urbanisation and the actions of

the higher political powers in the period analysed,

the study mainly focuses on the professional

production of the ‘urban gaze’. The effect of the

latter’s plans on everyday life has to be studied

to uncover the effects of planning politics on

city-dwellers’ perceptions.

Trans-disciplinary landscape knowledge

Landscape production knowledge is based in the

field of landscape architecture and its practice.

Although landscape architecture is a relatively a

new genre, it is central to research, education and

the professional skills that have been practised for

centuries, ever since ancient Persian garden-

making and including the post-war infrastructures

of hydro-electric and motorway projects of the

1960s; the ecological and eco-systems approach of

the 1970s; landscape and urbanism in the 1980s;

up to current landscape-urban production and

sustainability concerns. Planning and design are

central to landscape production knowledge. They

emphasise landscape as an ongoing man-made

process shaping our built environment and including

site-oriented architectural form-making. Plans and

design schemes are thus vehicles for transforming

ideas into visible shapes of planning and actual land-

scapes.4 From real or imagined field trips to collect

and interpret data, and from contexts and outlines

of designs, landscape ideas are transformed first

into a sketch outlining the general concept, a site

plan, elevations and sections, and then to detailed

plans for landscape construction. Throughout the

world, this is the accepted acknowledgement of

the practice of landscape production.

It is only since the 1990s, however, that a body of

landscape-architecture theories has emerged,

evolving from the desire for better understanding

of professional processes, projects and programmes

98

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

and inspired by cultural landscape studies mainly

based on landscape representation.5 It shares a

wider heritage with other disciplines such as geogra-

phy, anthropology, archaeology, history, cultural

studies, literature and art. Landscape representation

knowledge, as it emerges from such disciplines,

views landscape as a visual and textual represen-

tation, perceiving landscape as a final product and

interpreting its meanings. The impact of the geogra-

phers Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels and

others, who emphasise landscape as a particular

‘way of seeing’,6 a visual practice involving the

relationships between the act of seeing/looking/

gazing at landscapes and the seen landscape as a

visual display, was fundamental to the study of

architectural imagery and symbol.

Their association between landscape images

(maps, paintings and photographs) and the actual

landscape, grounded the landscape as an idea or

phenomenon in the actual architectural world. The

connection between the perception of landscape

as a ‘way of seeing’ and as a socio-cultural meta-

phor paved the way for theories about landscape

as an account of ‘power’ and a form of identity,

an image in which ideological and social identities

are constructed.7 Recent discussions have shifted

from landscape as scenery to the notion of land-

scape as a source of social understanding, policy

and law, opening new horizons for architectural

and planning understanding of landscapes as politi-

cal and legal acts, and raising questions regarding

the right to and denial of landscape.8

This evolving body of landscape representation

studies and the cultural critique of postcolonial

theories have opened the field for landscape histor-

ians and for landscape architecture theory in

general.9 This new expanded field includes explora-

tions of landscape as ‘the other’, phenomenological

representation of landscapes, landscape aesthetics,

and landscape studies of race and class, among

many others. Dianne Harris’s seminal article

‘The Post-modernization of Landscape: A Critical

Historiography’ (1999)10 underlined a negotiation

between landscape’s interdisciplinarity and singular-

ity as an essential undercurrent of contemporary

landscape knowledge. Harris claims that, although

a better understanding of landscape history issues

such as race, class and gender are found in interdis-

ciplinary approaches, it is important to emphasise

the unique core of landscape design. Another

significant work, Recovering Landscape: Essays

in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, edited

by James Corner,11 paved the way for understand-

ing landscape as a medium through which political

agendas are naturalised. Inspired by W. J. T. Mitchell,

Corner looks behind the naturalising veil of land-

scape beauty and emphasises landscape’s role as

an active rather than a seen object.

More recently, Landscape theory12 emphasised the

impact of landscape as a representational system of

landscape architecture, but criticised its limited influ-

ence on landscape and garden history research.

There was also a reservation about the limited influ-

ence of the ‘spatial turn’ noted in cultural and

social studies upon the landscape architecture field.

By contrast, landscape architecture theory in

general tends to ignore the growth of trans-disciplin-

ary knowledge in architecture and urban research

fields, such as K. Michael Hays’ examination of narra-

tive as a form of understanding the object of architec-

99

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

ture, and Mark Jarzombek’s examination of architec-

ture as a philosophical project.13

As a result of these influences, it is no longer

possible to study landscape history without a

degree of interdisciplinarity and a critical reflection

on landscape production. My study of the ‘urban

gaze’ is informed by critical writings produced

outside the field of landscape architecture. Of par-

ticular relevance here are Henri Lefebvre’s14 influ-

ential analysis of the social and cultural

dimensions affecting the politics of the city and

the role of the professional in producing the citys-

cape, and Kenneth Olwig’s15 notable study on the

politics of landscape, as well as a range of cultural

landscape studies of the city’s visual represen-

tation.16 Within the arena of landscape architec-

ture, studies of spatial garden design address

manipulative screening and framing visual tech-

niques as exercises of power, claiming that

‘vision’ and object-viewer relationships are inher-

ently practical processes of landscape

performance.17 This variety of studies emphasises

the importance of the interplay between landscape

production and representation, and the potential

of the trans-disciplinary discourse on landscapes

can lead to new research directions. It evolves

from the notion that landscape production is a

socio-cultural act and landscape is both a visual

and a material political construct.

Producing and representing an ‘Urban Gaze’

Gazing at the spectacular views of the city, the

harbour and the sea from above is endemic to Haifa

(Fig. 1). The unparalleled view from the ridge of

Mount Carmel links landscape aesthetics with the

beauty and ideal composition of Haifa’s cityscape, in

which the landscape has, until the present day,

acted as an agent of political change. Richard

Kauffman (1887–1958), one of Palestine/Israel’s dis-

tinguished architects and city planners, was constantly

aware of the link between landscape planning, its

visual impact and cultural values, while planning the

entire Haifa Bay area in 1926–7.18 Gazing at the

spectacular open view toward the Bay area from

Mount Carmel ridge, he stated that:

Rarely, and actually only for the few that can fly in

a plane, can one see a bird’s-eye view of a devel-

oping city or a region, which is most important for

the practice of the city planner. But in our case

[Haifa], one can get a bird’s eye view from Mt.

Carmel down across the entire Valley of

Zebulun, a view unparalleled in beauty and mag-

nificence. The wide sea, the curved shoreline of

Haifa Bay, and the high hills of Galilee with the

snow-covered Lebanon Mountains in the back-

ground, all signify greatness and splendor. This is

a natural order to be embedded deep in the prac-

tice of planning.19

Kauffman clearly expresses his understanding of the

landscape and its power for shaping the city

monolithically, and stresses his recognition that

professional planning and design can fulfill this

vision. He also associates landscape aesthetics and

beauty with the ideal composition of the cityscape

as an art work. This is the agenda of a landscape

planner employing that understanding to exercise

control of land and people, emphasising the

empowerment of seeing the city from above as a

picture. The bird’s-eye view from hilltops as an

aerial view of urban landscape design and planning

100

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

has been a construct since the post-Renaissance

era,20 associated with clear and coherent visible

urban planning that tried to link colonised and colo-

niser landscapes into a legible network of circula-

tion.21 In the twentieth century it allowed Le

Corbusier’s megalomaniac aerial vision of urban

schemes in Brazil and Algiers to be experienced as

a modernist display through the window of a

plane.22 Likewise, gazing at the city from above as

an ‘architectural landscape’, an object of contem-

plation, like those traced in Corbusier’s writings,

paintings and architectural works, also applies to

Haifa.

As indicated in his planning scheme, Kauffman

proposed to represent Haifa from above as a

modern object to be controlled as a whole by a par-

ticular geometry of panoramic view (Fig. 2). Kauff-

man’s ideal plan aimed to urbanise the rural land

and to define the city limits, surrounded by a pro-

posed green belt, as both distant and close visual

relationships between Mt Carmel facing north to

the Bay area and the Valley of Zebulun. Contrary

to the perception of the landscape as a passive

and final visual product, Kauffman’s landscape

production is a carefully premeditated and planned

professional process. Indeed, Haifa is an ideal locus

101

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Figure 1. View from

Mount Carmel towards

the Bahai Gardens,

centre and Haifa Bay

area, 2010 (photograph

by Ziva Kolodney).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

102

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Figure 2. Richard

Kauffman, ‘Haifa Bay

Development’ Plan,

1926 (The Central

Zionist Archives Plan

Collection MM\234,

Jerusalem).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

for examining the urban scene. The city’s unique

topography makes it a showcase for a panoramic

view from above ‘as if sitting in your hand’, accord-

ing to Kauffman, and for those who planned the city

throughout the last century and until today. As indi-

cated in what follows, it also links the understanding

of urban visualisation with paradigms of modern

cityscape design and identity-building of an imperial

and later national ‘urban gaze’.

Producing an imperial ‘Urban Gaze’

‘We town planners must preserve the amenities of

this unparalleled view. . .’23 claimed Morris Bailey,

Haifa’s British District Commissioner, commenting

on the design of Panorama Road in 1933, a scenic

promenade along the Carmel ridge overlooking

the city and Bay area.24 Like the rest of Palestine,

Haifa was occupied in 1918 by the British Army.

This was the beginning of thirty years of the British

Mandate (1918–1948) and the end of four centu-

ries of Ottoman rule.25 Haifa was targeted by the

British from the outset as a colonial port city and

the economic centre of the Near East ‘likely to

develop faster than any other town in Palestine’.26

From a population estimated at 15,000 inhabitants,

of whom 1,406 were Jews in 1917/18, by 1938

Haifa’s population had risen to 100,000, and was

estimated by 1944 at 128,000 inhabitants, 52%

Jewish and 48% Arabs.27 As in other imperial

cities, town planning and urban design were

recruited in Haifa to legitimise political and financial

measures, control resources and achieve maximum

benefit to the British Crown.28 By 1935, grand-

scale plans, including a modern harbour, a terminus

of the oil pipeline from Iraq with storage and refi-

neries, a railway centre for trains from Syria and

Lebanon and new commercial centres, were

projected for the central area adjacent to the port,

clearly visible from the proposed Panorama Road

site along the Carmel Ridge (Fig. 3).

In an attempt to ‘prevent blocking the open view

from the roads located on the mountain slope

facing the harbour area’29 Haifa’s British City Engin-

eer Lionel Watson restricted the height of buildings

and fences on the Hilly Plots on the northern slopes

below the ridge (Fig. 4). According to his scheme,

‘The Carmel Plateau and Panorama Road Plan’,

there was a strict view-line of 16% from Panorama

Road (between points A-B in Fig. 4). The plan pro-

posed an open corridor view-zone towards the sea

to ensure clear visibility of the central area, the

port, Haifa Bay and the petrochemical industrial

zone.30 This imperial ‘urban gaze’ emphasised the

urbanisation, industrialisation and transport aspect

of new Imperial Haifa in the foreground, framed by

the Mediterranean Sea, and the distant mountains

in the background. It was also required that all build-

ings abutting the Panorama Road should have stone

facades to integrate with the general look of the

ridge’s ‘natural’ surroundings.

A detailed plan of ‘Panorama Road’ proposed

developing it as a planted promenade overlooking

the city. As Watson claimed when he presented

the design in 1944: ‘Quite a few world-famous

views will find it hard to compete with that seen

from Panorama Road whether by day or by

night’.31 Following the building developments on

Mount Carmel, the city engineer’s office initiated a

new plan for ‘Panorama Road’ in 1947.32 Its

purpose was to extend the road along the ridge

103

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

and to restrict building height to not more than

16%, measured 1.5 metres above ground-level at

any point on Panorama road, in order to preserve

‘this magnificent view and prevent it being

blocked out by buildings’. This selective imperial

‘urban gaze’, a product of architects’ rulers and pro-

tractors, ignored the areas of the city that would not

be included in the desired view.

This combined effort of politicians and planners

indicates that they were fully aware of the planning

and professional authorities’ power to exercise

imperial control over the territory and its inhabi-

tants. The landscape production mechanism of

the ‘urban gaze’ arising from political agendas

became a powerful agent in constructing the city’s

image as an imperial port and in its everyday life.

Although not specifically stated in planning docu-

ments, one cannot ignore the influence of the

canonic English landscape aesthetics on Haifa’s

‘urban gaze’ production process. According to the

104

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Figure 3. Panoramic

view from Mt Carmel

towards the city and

Bay area, 1935

(photograph by Zoltan

Kluger, The Jewish

National Fund Archive

G1-115, Jerusalem).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

landscape architect Gina Crandell,33 the English

school of landscape painting from the early Renais-

sance onwards assists us in characterising the visual

attributes of landscape aesthetics. It sets a ‘pictoria-

lising practice’ that defined specific compositional

techniques to represent nature in landscape

design. The understanding of this ‘stamped land-

scape’ as a collective and personal representation

narrative allows us to shed light on ‘urban gaze’

production, assisted by photographic material

found in original publications such as postcards,

posters and photographs of that era.

The view features in official and personal images

found in the city, national and international official

archives, private archives, newspapers, journals

and books. These photographs (Fig. 5) offer aerial

views of the cityscape from points on the Carmel

Ridge, framed by trees on either side. The trees in

the foreground thus present a natural and romantic

frame for the cityscape. Framing scenery with trees

(usually palm trees, pines or cypresses) or other

natural objects was a classic ‘European Orientalism’

of Zionist art, established at the Bezalel School of

arts and crafts.34 Ze’ev Raban’s painting of Haifa in

105

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Figure 4. ‘The Carmel

Plateau and Panorama

Road Plan’, 1935 (Haifa

City Engineer Archive,

HP/125, Haifa).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

1930 (Fig. 6), shows Haifa as seen from Mt Carmel,

framed by biblical images, palm trees and birds.35 It

depicts Haifa as a pristine village with a mythical

landscape blending into the greenery at the foot

of the mountain, and with sea, sky and faraway

mountains: no sign of modernisation or traces of

human life.

Similarly, photographs taken during Haifa’s indus-

trialisation era in the 1930s and 1940s show the city,

the new harbour and the industrial zone from the

same viewpoint, as a specific ‘urban gaze’. This

panoptic view of the landscape implies the mutual

relationships of observer/observed and natural/cul-

tural in terms of territory and power, depicting the

city as a ground of authority. It underlines the dual

meaning of the ‘gaze’, as both ‘aesthetic delight’

and ‘malicious intent’: a coloniser/colonised con-

struct of the picturesquely idealised and ordered

English landscape, and as a visual attribute of a ‘nat-

uralised’ landscape perception.36 The landscape’s

authorship and similar discussions have been criti-

cised recently for addressing mainly the ‘Western

eye viewing Western objects in space as conceived

in Western terms’;37 for their monolithic ‘European’

perception of the colonial landscape’s idealised and

harmonious landscape order, deriving from the

106

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Figure 5. A panoramic

view from Mt Carmel

toward the centre, the

harbour and the Haifa

Bay area, 1930th

(courtesy of The Rimon

Family Collection).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

English aesthetic perception of the ‘picturesque

gaze’;38 for their white-male coloniser attitudes;

and for the disregard of the influence of daily activi-

ties on colonial landscapes.39

Thus, Haifa’s ‘urban gaze’ production, a replica of

the imperial ‘pride projects’ seen from every window

and balcony on the mountain ridge and slopes, is

another means of emphasising the power of the

British Empire to the city’s inhabitants. Did the iconic

image of the cityscape indeed influence the city plan-

ners who constructed that ‘urban gaze’? Did they

place trees in order to capture the ‘natural’ look estab-

lished by the numerous images? Obviously it is hard to

imagine how they could be indifferent to this collective

landscape representation knowledge.

Conversely, the other view, upwards from the

coast towards Mt Carmel, was hardly photographed

and barely mentioned in the planning discourse.

Perhaps this was because hardly any planning pro-

jects were developed, apart from residential

private enterprises. Another reason might be the

planners’ perception of the mountain as a green

space that held no attraction as an imperial-pride

project of that era. ‘Choosing what and how you

view a landscape, especially what is not viewed, is

neither accidental nor naıve’ declared Haim Maor

107

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Figure 6. Haifa, from

the series ‘Ten Cities’,

c. 1930, watercolour on

paper (artist, Zeev

Raban, Copyrights of

“Sinai” Tel Aviv).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

the curator of the ‘Stamped landscape’ and ‘Stained

Landscape’ exhibition, ‘It is influenced by historical,

political, social, military, religion, ecological and nar-

rative-personal contexts’.40

Producing a national ‘Urban Gaze’’With the establishment of the State of Israel in

1948, Haifa’s urban fabric changed dramatically.

Hostilities before and during the 1948 war drove

some 65,000 Arab residents out of the city. At the

same time many new immigrants settled in Haifa,

where they could find housing and employment in

the port and industrial infrastructures left behind

by the British Mandate in May, 1948.41 Haifa Muni-

cipality, dominated by the Labor Party, quickly

evolved into a centre of influence and power at

the national level, becoming Israel’s ‘worker city’

(nicknamed ‘Red Haifa’). As in the British Mandate

era, national administrators relied on landscape

planning and design to create a new political,

social and economic cityscape in accordance with

their visions of statehood. In constructing a national

identity, together with modernisation and westerni-

sation, architecture was an important means of

legitimising and nationalising modern forms at the

local level.42 Aware of the power of the urban

form in constructing social identity, Haifa’s new

elected mayor, Abba Khoushy, declared that ‘the

city has spirit and style. As a living organism it con-

structs its people while being itself constructed’.43

Although Khoushy promoted independence from

British rule and strongly criticised its oppressiveness,

he nevertheless adopted the imperial ‘urban gaze’

and urged the city planners to implement the

concept.

In 1950, the Haifa Association of Engineers and

Architects (HAEA) initiated a scheme for the ‘preser-

vation of Haifa’s unrivalled scenery from Mount

Carmel Ridge’.44 The scheme (Fig. 7) included a per-

spective of the city, harbour and Bay area from the

ridge downward, so that the roads that would be

below it and a park along the ridge (marked red in

the plan) would encompass this view. ‘According to

artists, authors, researchers and tourists worldwide,

this view is one of the most beautiful national heri-

tages in the world’ declared the journalist Arieh

Nesher at a press conference to present the HAEA

plan in 1951.45 The projected plan framed an

‘urban gaze’ defined by a viewing angle of specific

width, height and depth. It demarcated the exact

boundaries of the desired urban scenery, leaving

the rest outside the frame.

Official photographs appeared in books and

albums celebrating the newborn state and the

socio-political role of ‘Red Haifa’. They commemo-

rated the view of the British Imperial infrastructures

that had now become the national/local pride of

the city and its new guardians who had made their

home during the 1940s and 1950s on the mountain’s

northern slopes, facing central Haifa and the Bay. The

view of the harbour represented not just an image of

their livelihood, but of the gateway to Israel through

which thousands of immigrants entered the ‘Prom-

ised Land’. The view from the Carmel Ridge

became a patriotic nation-building narrative and

made its way into numerous city publications of the

1950s. As in the imperial era, photographs of the

1950s featured the same setting between the pine

trees along the ridge. In one representation (Fig. 8)

Mt Carmel has been juxtaposed with two elegantly

108

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

109

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Figure 7. Haifa

Association of

Engineers and

Architects (HAEA)

planning scheme, 1950

(Haifa City Engineer

Archive, HP/853a,

Haifa).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

110

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Figure 8. View from Mt

Carmel toward the city,

1958 (image from the

book: Haifa: In Israel’s

Tenth Year, Haifa

Municipality Press).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

dressed ladies who are admiring the view of the citys-

cape merging with the sea and distant mountains:

this carefully staged image of the ladies, as if they

are pointing at something specific and thus directing

the viewer’s gaze, clearly derives from the English

landscape painting genre, a visualisation of the

relationship between landscape/culture and nature.

Abba Khoushy, the mayor, asserted that ‘due to

its geophysical structure, Haifa, unlike other cities,

must be planned architectonically, as a bird’s-eye

view from the top of Mount Carmel’.46 Accordingly,

he perceived the architectural plan as a generator

and determinant of his ideas of the city’s life. He

embraced the HAEA’s initiative of a ‘city window-

frame’ as the official plan. This plan proposed an

extensive park of 330 dunams47 on the northern

slopes of the Carmel, intended as a ‘balcony’ over-

looking the cityscape. The plan was rejected due

to the opposition of private and national land-

owners: only 5.5 dunams of the land were owned

by the municipality city. Instead, the city planner

initiated the ‘Mt. Carmel Northern Slope Plan’ that

increased the previous planning restrictions of the

1940s, demanding that no building or fences

would be higher than a view-line of 13%-21%,

measured 1.5 metres above the ground at any

point on the Panorama Road ridge. This is exempli-

fied in sketches (Fig. 9: A and B) which indicated

view possibilities from Mt Carmel with (sketch B)

and without (sketch A) building restrictions. Archi-

tectural directives were also enforced on developing

the downward area below the mountain ridge,

including sloping red roofs, stone-faced facades

and fences, and a defined height of vegetation in

order to preserve the open view. This ‘urban gaze’

mechanism, now associated with the national/

local vision of political empowerment, played a sig-

nificant role in the making of social identity. It was

the landscape production planning and design prac-

tice that enabled a process of domination, enforced

by professionals, administrators and politicians who

collaborated in transforming the cityscape into a col-

lective urban unit.

Afterword

Over the years the monolithic ‘urban gaze’ has

changed, becoming an upward view from the

coast towards Mt Carmel and vice versa. This fol-

lowed the decline of the city’s grand projects for

the harbour and heavy industry activities along the

seashore, followed in turn by private market activi-

ties that advanced economic projects scattered

throughout the city. With the beginning of the

new millennium, a ‘religious view’ constructed by

the members of the Bahai Faith has emerged as a

new and significant collective ‘urban gaze’

(Fig.10). The Bahai Gardens, stretching for a kilo-

metre along Mt Carmel, have since become the

city’s favourite photographic ‘sight’. Opened to the

public in 2001, the gardens were developed and

carefully designed according to the Bahais’ spiritual

aesthetic and Abdul-Baha’s vision that ‘A person

standing on the summit of Mount Carmel will look

upon the most sublime and majestic spectacle in

the whole world’.48

The beautifully situated garden terraces, planted

with lush vegetation intended to integrate with

the natural forests of the Carmel and the gold-

domed shrine at its centre, were declared a World

Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2008.49 Although dom-

111

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

112

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Figure 9. Illustration of

Haifa Association of

Engineers and

Architects (HAEA): view

from Panorama Road

according to the

approved Town

Planning schemes,

(sketch B) and without

building restrictions

(sketch A), 1950 (Haifa

City Engineer Archive,

HP/853a, Haifa).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

inating the cityscape by day and night, the gardens

are private. Visitors can gain access only by joining

an organised tour free of charge. This has become

an iconic urban view, both for Haifa’s residents

and for the thousands of visitors who visit the

garden annually. New-millennium ‘urban gaze’ is

no longer an imperial, national or civic-patriotic con-

struct. Haifa has embraced this religious icon that

appears in every commercial or tourist pamphlet,

in books, albums, posters and postcards, and can

be found on official internet sites, personal blogs

and in private archives.

Concluding remarks

Over the last hundred years, constructing the ‘urban

gaze’ has been central to the production of Haifa’s

113

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Figure 10: View toward

Bahai Gardens and Mt

Carmel Ridge, 2010

(photograph by Guy

Shachar, IMG_0240

file).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

cityscape. This study of the planning processes, the

accompanying discourse and the iconography of

the ‘urban gaze’, attempts to shed light on the dia-

lectic of production and representation in the

making of the urban landscape. This diversity of

knowledge is intended to ease the conventional

‘guarded’ architectural boundaries of professional

technical knowledge. Measuring angles and

frames, and designing the mountain ridge and

slopes’ form and materiality, re-conceptualise the

inherent dualism of nature/landscape and urban/

culture as a hybrid entity. Taming the mountain’s

slopes while disciplining an urban setting, juxtapos-

ing the industrialised city, sea, sky with the distant

mountains, arouse intellectual and practical percep-

tions of the landscape threefold.

The cross-field study of architectural and cultural

materials has helped to comprehend and integrate

the terms, ideas, concepts and methods of landscape

production within the field of landscape architecture.

Planning and architectural procedures concerning

‘urban gaze’ that were found in official and unofficial

planning archives, professional publications, compe-

titions and the archives of professional associations

and libraries have been examined. Visual sources

such as postcards, photographs and posters,

together with texts from literature, poetry and

popular journals published at the time of the plan-

ning process were also searched. The site itself was

examined in order to comprehend the changes it

had undergone. Unfortunately, few architects are

still able to give their insights concerning planning

in the 1950s, although those who could do so have

made a significant contribution to this study, enabling

me to amass an important body of information.

The dialectics of landscape production and rep-

resentation knowledge has assisted me in reading

the urban landscape culturally. As professionals,

we have been trained to read landscape architectu-

rally, using data collected on field trips, maps,

surveys, reports, sketches and site plans, sections,

elevations, axonometrics, detailed construction

plans in various technical media. Nonetheless, it

was the cultural and social understanding of

landscape production that helped me to interpret

the professional material and, most significantly, to

frame landscape concepts in critical theory contexts,

tying landscape production knowledge to political,

cultural and social links. A further step to this inter-

disciplinary investigation will be an ethnographical

study of city-dwellers and visitors regarding their

personal ‘urban gaze’ perspective of the city.

The ongoing discourse between urban materiality

and representation can enrich the understanding of

the urban landscape as form and reflection, pro-

fessional production and final product. The historical

modification of the ‘urban gaze’ in Haifa during the

last century exemplifies the centrality of the land-

scape in producing the modern city. It contests the

long-held belief that the urban landscape is subordi-

nate to architecture, opening new avenues of

knowledge for critical research.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous referees and

the editors for their valuable comments and sugges-

tions. Thanks also to Rachel Kallus, Thaisa Way and

Jeffery D. Blankenship for their constructive remarks

at the early phase of the manuscript.

114

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

Notes and referencesGeneral note: Haifa city plans are officially marked HP with

a serial number (eg, HP 723, etc.); HCA: Haifa City Archive,

HEA: Haifa Engineer’s Office Archive, ICA: Israel State

Archive.

1. On the ‘urban gaze’ relationship between landscape and

the visual, see: J. Wylie, Landscape (London/New York,

Routledge, 2007), pp. 55–185; B. Batuman, ‘The

Image of Urban Politics: Turkish Urban Professionals

and Urban Representation as a Site of Struggle’,

Journal of Architectural Education, 62:2 (2008),

pp. 54–65; G. H. Hermosilla, ‘Panoramic View and

National Identity: Two of Santiago de Chile’s Public

Spaces in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century’,

Planning Perspectives, 24:3 (2009), pp. 319–347.

2. W. J. T. Mitchell, ‘Imperial Landscape’, in, W. J. T.

Mitchell, ed., Landscape and Power (Chicago, The Uni-

versity of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 1–2. Beyond its

aesthetic role, Mitchell emphasised the landscape as

a medium through which political ideas are materia-

lised. Mitchell claimed that landscape representations

are important documents in understanding the devel-

opment of colonial, national and personal identities.

3. R. Kauffman, ‘First Planning of Haifa-Acre (1925/6)’,

in, A. Keinan, ed., Circles of Generations (Tel Aviv,

1952), p. 192.

4. See various articles in: M. Treib, ed., Representing

Landscape Architecture (London/ New York, Routle-

dge, 2008).

5. See, for example, edited volumes by: J. Corner, ed.,

Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Land-

scape Architecture (New York, Princeton Architectural

Press, 1999); A. Kahn and C. Burn, Site Matters

(London/New York, Routledge, 2005); C. Waldheim,

ed., Landscape Urbanism Reader (New York, Princeton

Architectural Press, 2006); R. Z. Delue and J. Elkins,

Landscape Theory (London/New York, Routledge,

2008).

6. The ‘way of seeing’ is a key term in the understanding

of landscape representation. It considers a particular

visual and textual imagery of the landscape and

focuses upon representations of cultural images in

art, poetry, literature, photography and cartography;

on how landscapes express both cultural, political

and economic power relationships and their spatial

attributes, emphasising landscape as a dynamic

socio-cultural participant, evidence of strategic

action, and a cultural catalyst. On the ‘way of

seeing’, see: D.E. Cosgrove and S. Daniels, Iconogra-

phy of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Represen-

tation, Design and Use of Past Environments

(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988);

P. Grooth and T.W. Bressi, Understanding Ordinary

Landscapes (New Haven and London, Yale University

Press, 1997); D. Harris, D. F. Ruggles, Sites Unseen:

Landscape and Vision (Pittsburgh, PA, University of

Pittsburgh Press, 2007) and J. Wylie, Landscape

(London/ New York, Routledge, 2007). Gillian Rose

argues that the landscape as ‘way of seeing’ is a par-

ticularly masculine European socio-economic elite’s

visual gaze that relates to the landscape scenery as

female body and as the beauty of nature: G. Rose,

Feminism and Geography; The Limits of Geographical

Knowledge (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993).

7. On the landscape as a cultural catalyst, see, for

example: B. Meyer, ‘The Expanded Field of Landscape

Architecture’, in, G. George Thompson and F. Steiner,

Ecological Design and Planning (New York, Wiley &

Sons Press, 1997), pp. 45–51; J. Corner, ed., Recover-

ing Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape

Architecture (New York, Princeton Architectural

Press, 1999); D. Harris, The Nature of Authority: Villa

Culture, Landscape and Representation in 18th

115

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

Century Lombardy (University Park, PA, Pennsylvania

State University Press, 2003).

8. On perspectives of landscape and politics, see, for

example: D. Hayden, The Power of Place: Urban

Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge, MA.,

The MIT Press, 1995); D. Mitchell, ‘Cultural Land-

scapes: Just Landscapes or Landscapes of Justice?,

Progress in Human Geography, 27:6 (2003), pp.

787–796; K. Olwig, Landscape, Nature, and the

Body Politic: from Britain’s Renaissance to America’s

New World (Madison, The University of Wisconsin

Press, 2002); D. Harris, ‘Race, Space and Destabili-

zation of Practice’, Landscape Journal, 26:1

(2007), pp.1–9; Z. Kolodney, R. Kallus, ‘The Politics

of Landscape (Re)production: Haifa, a City caught

between Colonialism and Nation-Building’, Land-

scape Journal, 27:2 (2008), pp. 173–189. On the

right to landscape, see: S. Egoz, J. Makhzoumi,

G. Pungetti, The Right to Landscape: Contesting

Landscape and Human Rights (London, Ashgate

Press, 2011).

9. See, for example: D. Harris, ‘The Postmodernization of

Landscape: A Critical Historiography’, The Journal of

the Society of Architectural Historians, 58:3 (2000),

pp. 434–443; B. Meyer, ‘The Expanded Field of Land-

scape Architecture’, in, G. Thompson, F. Steiner, Eco-

logical Design and Planning (New York, Wiley & Sons

Press, 1997), pp. 45–79.

10. D. Harris, ‘The Postmodernization of Landscape’, op.

cit., pp. 434–443.

11. J. Corner, ed., Recovering Landscape: Essays in

Contemporary Landscape Architecture (New York,

Princeton Architectural Press, 1999).

12. R. Ziady DeLue and J. Elking, Landscape Theory

(London, Routledge, 2008).

13. M. Hays, ’Notes on Narrative Method in

Historical Interpretation’, Footprint (Autumn, 2007),

pp. 23–30; M. Jarzombek, ‘The Cunning of

Architecture’s Reason’, Footprint (Autumn, 2007),

pp. 31–46.

14. H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, D. Nicholson-

Smith, trs., (Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 1991).

15. K. Olwig, Landscape, Nature and the Body Politic, op. cit.

16. See Note 1.

17. D. Harris and D. F. Ruggles, Sites Unseen: Landscape

and Vision, op. cit.

18. While working for the Zionist Organisation, ‘Palestine

Land Development Company’, (1921–1932), Kauff-

man proposed in Haifa the neighbourhood plans for

Bat Galim (1921), Neve Sha’anan (1922) and Hadar

Hacarmel (1923), a plan for the Mount Carmel Zone

(1923) and the layout for Haifa’s Bay area (1926–7).

About Richard Kauffman’s plans in Haifa, see:

G. Herbert, S. Sosnovsky, Bauhaus on the Carmel

and the crossroads of empire (Jerusalem, Yad Izhak

Ben Zvi/Haifa: Architectural Heritage Centre, 1993),

pp. 156–210.

19. R. Kauffman, ‘First Planning of Haifa-Acre (1925/6)’,

op. cit., p. 192.

20. B. Bender, ‘Subverting the Western Gaze: Mapping

alternative Worlds’, in, P. J. Ucko, R. Layton, The

Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape:

Shaping your Landscape (London, Routledge, 1999),

pp. 31–45.

21. F. Driver and D. Gilbert, eds., Imperial Cities: Land-

scape, Display and Identity (Manchester, Manchester

University Press, 1999).

22. A. Morshed, The Cultural Politics of Aerial Vision: Le

Corbusier in Brazil (1929), Journal of Architectural

Education, 55:4 (2002), pp. 201–210.

23. [HEA 1933], Minutes of the 27th meeting, Local Town

Planning Commission (March 30th, 1933), (HP 125).

24. [HEA 1935], The Carmel Plateau and Panorama Road

Plan (HP 125, approved in 1935).

25. Concerning Ottoman and Mandate Haifa, see:

M. Yazbak, Haifa in the Late Ottoman Period,

116

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

1864–1914: A Muslim Town in Transition (Leiden,

Brill Publishers, 1998); M. Seikaly, Haifa transform-

ation of an Arab society 1918–1939 (London/

New York, I.B. Tauris, 1998).

26. Palestine official census (Israel State Archive, 1918);

The Palestine Post, 14:3 (February,1943).

27. Census estimate: statistical abstract (Israel State

Archive, 1944/1945); Israeli Census (Israel State

Archive, 8.11.48).

28. In relation to British colonial plans in Haifa, see:

G. Herbert, S. Sosnovsky, Bauhaus on the Carmel

and the Crossroads of Empire, op. cit.; B. Hyman,

British Planners in Palestine, 1918–1936 (Thesis sub-

mitted for the degree of PhD, London School of Econ-

omics and Political Science, 1994).

29. J. L. A. Watson, ‘The Past Four Years in Haifa’, Building

in the Near East, 4 (1938), pp. 57–61.

30. [HEA 1935], The Carmel Plateau and Panorama Road

Plan, op. cit.

31. [HCA 1944–1945], City Engineer’s Annual Report,

1944–1945, p. 10. Professor Adolf (Peter) Rading

(1888–1957), architectural adviser to Haifa Town

Planning Department (1943–1950), was the planner

of ‘Panorama Road’ [HEA 1944], Panorama Road

Plan (HP 669, approved in 1944).

32. [HEA 1948] Panorama Road – Extension (HP 723,

approved in 1948).

33. G. Crandell, ‘Nature Pictorialized: “The View”‘, in Land-

scape History (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press,

1993).

34. The Bezalel School, founded in 1903 by Boris Schatz,

established a distinctive style in which artists portrayed

both Biblical and Zionist subjects. About early art in

Israel, see: Y. Zalmona, To the East? In The East: Orient-

alism in the Arts in Israel (Jerusalem, Israel Museum,

1998; exhibition and catalogue); D. Manor, ‘Biblical

Zionism in Bezalel Art’, Israel Studies, 6:1 (2001),

pp. 55–75.

35. Ze’ev Raban (1970–1890) was a leading artist of the

Bezalel School and one of the founders of the Israeli

art world.

36. W. J. T. Mitchell, ‘Imperial Landscape’, op. cit., p. 12.

On the English landscape approach, see, for

example: G. Crandell, ‘Nature Pictorialized: “The

View”‘, op. cit.; S. Herrington, On Landscapes

(New York/London, Routledge, 2009), pp. 33–51.

37. D.F. Ruggles, ‘Making Vision Manifest: Frame, Screen,

and View in Islamic Culture’, in, D. Harris, D.F. Ruggles,

Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision op. cit., pp. 131–

156.

38. H. V. Scott, ‘Rethinking Landscape and Colonialism in

the Context of Early Spanish Peru’, Environment and

Planning D: Society and Space, 24:4 (2006),

pp. 481– 496; M. H. Edney, Mapping an empire the

geographical construction of British India, 1765–

1843 (Chicago & London, University of Chicago

Press, 1997).

39. M. L. Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transcul-

turation (New York/London, Routledge, 1992); J. Urry,

The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary

Societies (London, Sage Publishers, 1990); G. Rose,

Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical

Knowledge (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1993).

40. H. Maor, Marked Landscapes: ‘Landscape-Place’ in

Contemporary Israeli Art (Beer Sheva, Ben Gurion Uni-

versity Gallery, 2003; exhibition and catalogue).

41. Of the 190,000 newcomers arriving in Israel between

May, 1948 and March, 1949, 24,000 remained in

Haifa. By 1948, immediately after the war, the city’s

population was estimated at 98,284, of which 96%

were Jews (Israeli Census 08.11.48, Israel State

Archive.). In 1951 it was estimated at 149,917 inhabi-

tants, 95% Jewish (Israel Bureau of Statistics 1951,

Israel State Archive).

42. On the connection between planning/architecture and

nation-building, see: S. Bozdogan Modernism and

117

The Journal

of Architecture

Volume 17

Number 1

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014

Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the

Early Republic (Washington, University of Washington

Press, 2001); Z. Kolodney, R. Kallus, ‘Between Colonial

and National Landscapes’, Planning Perspectives

Journal, 23:3 (2008a), pp. 323–348.

43. [HCA 1954], Haifa City Council Meeting No.122, May

17th, 1954.

44. [HCA 1950], Town Planning Committee no. 165,

September 22nd, 1950.

45. A. Nesher, ‘We must Protect the Beauty of the Carmel

City’, Haaretz newspaper (31.01. 51).

46. A. Khoushy, Thirty Months of Work: Haifa (Haifa, Haifa

Municipality, 1954), p. 19.

47. One metric dunam ¼ 1,000 m2, a measurement used

in the Ottoman Empire and still in use in Israel.

48. http://terraces.bahai.org/terraces.en.html

49. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list; http://terraces.bahai.

org/architects.en.html

118

Between knowledge of

landscape production

and representation

Ziva Kolodney

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

New

cast

le U

nive

rsity

] at

04:

52 0

9 O

ctob

er 2

014