Danzur
WHILE OTHER archit e c t s dr e a med of covering the newly established s t a t e o f I s r a e l with concrete and cement, Dan Zur wanted to shape the environment with lawns, gardens and trees. Born on kibbutz to pioneer immigrants from the Ukraine, he helped found another kibbutz, Nirim in which he lived till his career took off. So it was perhaps natural that he was drawn to the country’s landscape to the extent of becoming a top landscape architect of Israel’s founding generation
A list of projects that he and his partner Lipa Yahalom designed covers many of the important sites in Israel today. They include the two campuses of the Hebrew University, the Afek Park at the source of the Yarkon River, Yad Vashem’s Valleys of the Communities, the national parks at Sachna, Ein Avdat and Beit She’arim (the burial place of Yehuda Hanasi).
Other major designs included the burial monument to Ben Gurion, the Weizmann Institute at Rehovot, the Bringham Young Mormon University, Gan Sacher, surrounding the Knesset, the Wolfson Park in the Hinnom Valley, both sites of the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, the renovation of Sheinkin Street and the German Colony complex, both in Tel Aviv.
Each of these places shows a supreme mastery over nature and the ability to create a harmonious unity out of diverse elements in a given landscape. A member of Hashomer Hatzair in his youth, Dan Zur never took commissions in the territories captured in 1967, for purely ideological reasons.
This ability to create a man-made environment perfectly integrated with the natural landscape as well as with the local architecture is particularly surprising given the fact that Zur never trained as an architect. He studied art at the Avni college and then agriculture and gardening at Mikveh Yisrael.
He was, in architectural terms, selftaught, like many of the founding fathers of the state. He left kibbutz in 1953, though one might say kibbutz never left him. He had a feeling for landscape that was rooted in his soul.
In 1953, he joined forces with Lipa Yahalom and they laid the foundation of Israeli landscape architecture. For over six decades they played a key role in shaping the “homeland’s landscape.”
In their work together they proved their sensitivity to the land itself and an uncanny understanding of spaces and a wide knowledge of botany,. This allowed them to plan their environments while retaining the unique landscapes of the area. Their designs stemmed from the ideology of planting a new identity in the earth of the homeland.
“It is not for nothing that they are considered the ones who laid the foundations of modern landscape architecture in Israel”, according to a summary of their work in the recently published book, Arcadia: The Gardens of Lipa Yaha-
Planting a new identity in the earth of the homeland
lom and Dan Zur (published in Hebrew by Babel publishers).
After Yahalom retired he was joined by Lior Wolff). In 1998 Dan Zur and Lipa Yahalom were awarded the Israel Prize for Architecture.
He is survived by his wife, Ora, and three children, Nirit, Neta and Micha and four grandchildren.