Lawrence Halprin, designer of Jerusalem's public spaces, dies at 93
Jerusalem's unique development over the years, from religious backwater 100 years ago to the glittering metropolis it is today, has afforded a few inpiduals with the power to mold the city's image. Moses Montefoire set the stage with the creation of Mishkenot Sha'ananim during the Ottoman area, Britain's Sir Ronald Storrs and co. decreed all buildings be built with Jerusalem stone facades during the Mandate period, giving the city, and much of Israel, the unique look it maintains until today. Teddy Kollek moved Jerusalem into the modern era with large projects and architect Ram Karmi's designs for government buildings, both created and imagined, have also influenced the city's spaces.
But one designer whose works are probably used more than any other is little known, even in Jerusalem, outside urban designing circles. And it was only with the passing of Lawrence Halprin at the age of 93 last month, that Jerusalemites found a renewed appreciation of his work. And what a body of work it is.
Halprin, an American landscape architect, designed both Jerusalem's best place to be seen and the best place for the city to be seen. The Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall, which pretty much encapsulates modern Jerusalem, especially for the throngs of westerners that crowd the popular city center, was Halprin's design, as was the Haas Promenade (Tayelet, pictured) in East Talpiot which provides unparalleled views of the Old City, modern Jerusalem, and on clear days the Judean Desert and Dead Sea. Both sites, which melded urbanism with the environment, were illustrations of Halperin's unique, much-heralded style. As the Canadian Globe and Mail put it in an appreciation:
Halprin helped forge a new, sharper style of landscape architecture, often as dependent on concrete as on vegetation. 'He almost single-handedly reclaimed the city as the purview of the landscape architect,' said Charles Birnbaum, founder and president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation.
Halperin also designed other Jeruslaem landmarks, such as the Goldman promenade, adjacent to the Haas promenade, the Hadassah Hospital gardens and Hebrew University's Givat Ram campus, close to the center of Jerusalem.
Halprin was born and lived most of his life in the U.S., where some of his most famous structures stand, like the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial and a plaza in Portland that was called "one of the most important urban spaces since the Renaissance," by the New York Times.
Halprin came to pre-state Israel in the 1930s and helped found Kibbutz Ein Hashofeth, picking up Hebrew along the way. Though he eventually moved back to the United States and settled in the San Francisco Bay area, his wife says in his last months he began speaking Hebrew again, a sign of his deep connection to the Jewish people and the land of Israel.
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