Conflicting visions: architecture in Palestine during the British Mandate

Rapaport, Raquel 2005. Conflicting visions: architecture in Palestine during the British Mandate. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

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Abstract

The thesis started as a study of the 'Golden Age' of Modern Architecture in Eretz-Israel, its time-span covering the years of the British Mandate in Palestine (1918-1948). During that period, architectural practice flourished in the country despite civic unrest and impending political changes. In the course of research, it rapidly became apparent that the current historiography covers ultra avant-garde architectural experiments of the time - which are fundamental to the Israeli identity - but tends to overlook, dismiss and marginalise all other trends that co-existed in parallel with them. This produces a puzzling discrepancy between the story as told so far and the image retrieved by material evidence. This study therefore proposes a critique of the prevailing historiography of architecture in Palestine-Eretz-Israel during the British Mandate period. It explains why the mainstream approach has been so narrow, looking at the reasons for the emergence of the present distorted representation; this is based on extensive new research. By broadening the canon of Modernism as represented in the existing literature, the thesis attempts to reassess that narrow approach and begins to create a more accurate image of the architecture of the period. In recent years, it has been considered necessary to rewrite the history of planning and design for Europe and the U.S.A. during the interwar period. This thesis explains why it is now time to extend this revision to Palestine/Israel. It also maintains that a broadening of the modern canon will enable us to reconstruct in a better way a defining moment in the history of modern architecture, one that was much more heterogeneous and pluralistic than has been formerly thought.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Architecture
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > NA Architecture
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	27 Jul 2023 13:16
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/55429

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