Modern landscape architecture in Israel between the 1950s and the 1970s: “A gown of concrete and cement”

Since the late 19th century, the Zionist movement brought tremendous changes to the landscapes of Palestine. As a territorial, land-based project, the landscape had a symbolic meaning as a marker of identity and pride alongside being a living environment. The process accelerated with the establishment of the State of Israel (1948). The paper examines the oeuvre of landscape architects Zvi Miller and Moshe Blum as representing Israeli modern landscape architecture. Between the 1950s and the late 1970s, the firm worked on approximately 2,000 projects, in cities and in the countryside, including housing, public parks, public institutions, roads, nature reserves and national parks. As their colleagues, Miller & Blum practiced in the service of the community and the nation and hardly for the benefit of wealthy landowners. Function was preferred over style or appearance, and materials had to be durable, requiring little maintenance and expressing the spirit of the time. Between the 1950s-1970s, even though the ecological discourse emerged in landscape planning in the USA, its influence on the local practice was still marginal. Comparing the Israeli practice with the canon of Western modern landscape architecture reveals its efforts to be part of the international arena.