Moment of Silence for Dan Zur (1926-2012)

 

Dan Zur (pictured) and Lipa Yahalom laid the foundations of modern landscape architecture in Israel.

Dan Zur and Lipa Yahalom collaborated on many projects: Gan Hashelosha-Sahne National Park (pictured), and the campuses of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot and Tel Aviv University, just to name a few.

Dan Zur, a top landscape architect of Israel's founding generation, passed away Dec. 10, 2012 at the age of 86. Zur and his partner, Lipa Yahalom (1913-2006) established the firm Yahalom-Zur, a pacesetter in Israeli landscape architecture for many years. Zur and Yahalom received the Israel Prize for architecture in 1998.

For over six decades they played a key role in shaping the "homeland's landscape." Their work together is the other half of "we will dress you in a gown of concrete and cement" (from Nathan Alterman's poem, "Morning Song" about efforts to revitalize and beautify the Land of Israel). They spread a carpet of gardens, lawns and trees over the land.

Zur was born on Kibbutz Tel Yosef to parents who had emigrated from Ukraine. He studied art at Machon Avni and agriculture at Mikveh Yisrael. With no formal training in landscape architecture, Zur and Yahalom combined an amazing ability to read and understand spaces with a vast knowledge of botany to build perfectly orchestrated, harmonious man-made landscapes.

The parks Zur and Yahalom designed and the changes they made in the landscape, like the removal of existing, native landscapes, "were not to them, a matter of trend and taste, but a goal in and of itself, an act stemming from the ideology of planting a new identity in the earth of the homeland. It is not for naught that they are considered the ones who laid the foundations of modern landscape architecture in Israel," states the comprehensive survey of their work published earlier this year, "Arcadia: The Gardens of Lipa Yahalom and Dan Zur" (Babel publishers, in Hebrew).

In 1953, Zur joined Yahalom in the landscape architecture firm where they remained partners until Yahalom's retirement in 1993. During their years working together, they received, in addition to the Israel Prize, many awards in recognition of their work. Many of their parks are milestones in landscape architecture. In 2005, landscape architect Lior Wolf joined the firm, and the firm of Zur-Wolf follows in its predecessor's footsteps, with its own different style and character. Zur is one of the founders of Kibbutz Nirim in the Negev, where he will buried Friday. He is survived by his wife, Ora, and three children, Nirit, Neta and Micha.

Zur's projects comprise the image and substance of Israeli Zionist landscape on the kibbutz, in the village and in the city: commemorative sites, leisure sites, national parks and gardens, residential areas (including the amazing garden of the Givatayim housing complex where I grew up), educational institutions and hospitals. Zur worked with Yahalom on designing the Gan Hashelosha-Sahne National Park, the grave site of Paula and David Ben-Gurion in Sde Boker, the campuses of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot and of Tel Aviv University, and many more. In 1992, Yahalom and Zur designed Yad Vashem's well-known Valley of the Communities. With Wolf, Zur designed among others, the Yoo Towers complex, the renovation of Sheinkin Street and the German Colony complex, all in Tel Aviv.