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Kibbutz Planning 1	The Kvutza as Commune 2	The Kibbutz – “Neither Village nor City” 3	The autarkic Kibbutz The Kvutza as Commune The first Kvutza, Degania, founded in 1910, was housed in a courtyard type layout, set up by the Zionist settlement organization, following on from previous examples, especially Merchavia, Oppenheimer’s unsuccessful co-operative venture founded in 1906. Architect Richard Kauffman, was appointed chief settlement planner by Arthur Ruppin and after a brief period of applying the courtyard plan, began to develop configurations more adapted to the growing communal – Kvutza –movement. Clearly based on his rich background of German Garden Suburb planning, Kaufman literally invented the prototype of Kibbutz Planning with its separation of farm and community. The Kibbutz – “Neither Village nor City” In the 20’s, itinerant “Workers Battalions” gathered near Harod’s spring at the foot of the Mount Gilboa and decided to set up a permanent settlement which would be different from the intimate and purely agricultural Kvutza commune: “The Kibbutz”. This was to be a large and growing collective based on agriculture and industry, the forerunner of the future socialist state. Two separate settlements were the result: “Ein Harod” (Harod’s spring) and “Tel Yosef” (The Mount of Joseph”). After intensive discussions as to form of this future enterprise, Kaufman proposed what was to become the paradigm not only of Kibbutz planning but an early blueprint of a regional collective conglomerate, “Neither Village nor City”, incorporating the two Kibbutzim, (to be joined by a third Kibbutz after the division of Ein Harod in the 50’s), a regional school, health and cultural institutions, service center and municipal institutions. The Autarkic Kibbutz Although the idea of the intimate agricultural Kvutza continued, the 30’s saw a dramatic increase in the number of Kibbutzim, associated both to the Meuchad an Artzi movements. Based on Kaufman’s paradigm the configuration of the Kibbutz reflected its autarkic nature: community, production, collective education, communal dining halls, laundry and clothes stores as well as cultural and recreational facilities, collective housing, all set within an integrated landscape: the Kibbutz Garden.

The three periods of Kibbutz Planning and Architecture 1	The Heroic Period 2	Consolidation 3	Individualism and Closure The Heroic Period: 1910 - 1940 Kaufman and his assistant Lotte Cohn not only created the planning paradigm but had to find solutions to new and discrete collective demands: the communal dining hall and kitchen, children’s’ houses suited to collective education, the Kibbutz school etc. and a whole new Kibbutz typology was created together with the attendant Kibbutz garden. Economic restraints demanded functional solutions to communal demands, dismissing stylistic applications, resulting in what could be termed a “Socialist Kibbutz Vernacular” often mistakenly associated with “Modernism” and “Bauhaus”. Kaufman himself was no “Modernist” his original suggestions for the Ein Harod dining hall were distinctly Neo-classical which after cost reduction resulted in a totally functional “Modern” building. It was Architect Leopold Krakauer who created the beginning of a truly collective public architecture, both stylistic and even poetic, exemplified in his Dining Hall for Kibbutz Tel Yosef. By the end of the 30’s the Heroic period came to an end with the increasing number of Kibbutzim and the need to widen the scope of Kibbutz planning and its attendant architecture by setting up ‘in house’ planning facilities. Consolidation: 1940 – 1970 In the 20’s Kibbutzim and Kvutzot were federated into three movements: Kibbutz Ha’Meuchad (The United Kibbutz), Kibbutz Artzi (The National Kibbutz) and Hever HaKvutzot (Union of Kvutzot). By the 30’s each had formed its own technical and building department to supervise the execution of institutional plans and to no small extent, to adapt them to their discrete needs leading ultimately to the setting up, in 1943, of in-house planning offices [>] exemplified by the works of Architects S. Mestechkin and S. Bikeles. Leading architects of the period also participated in this ever widening planning process, further developing a unique planning configuration and typology. With the creation of the state in 1948, the subsequent wave of newly established Kibbutzim were nearly all planned by the Jewish Agency technical department and its affiliated planners, whilst the Kibbutz departments consolidated their professional skills in their ever growing involvement in the development of a specific Kibbutz typology: dining halls, housing, children’s houses, farm buildings etc. In the late 40s, the Meuchad movement sent a number of its young members to study at the Technion in Haifa, amongst them two to the Architectural faculty. Meanwhile young kibbutz architects from Brazil and the UK joined the Ichud office, newly established after the split in the Meuchad movement and later, in the 50’s, new architects began working in the Artzi office after their studies at the Technion. During the following 30 years these three offices, jointly numbering a staff of some 250 architects, engineers, specialists, technicians and administrators became responsible for the planning of every aspect of the Kibbutz, including its industry, farming, landscaping and infrastructure as well as its regional educational and production facilities. Research teams studied the planning needs arising out of ongoing changes as well as proposing policy plans for regional settlement in the impending decade. Seminars were held for those responsible for planning within each Kibbutz, a quarterly magazine was published twice a year and a close professional relationship was established both with the state planning bodies as well as with the movements and its individual kibbutzim. Kibbutz members working in these offices were not paid wages, remuneration went directly to their kibbutzim; the offices, being extensions to the kibbutz ethos, were in many ways highly developed “Planning Communes”. Individualism and Closure: 1970 - 1990 These were to be the last two decades of kibbutz planning. The "United" planning department meanwhile was still affiliated to the two kibbutz movements, the Ichud and Hakibbutz Hameuchad, which in 1983 united into The United Kibbutz Movement, the Takam, and the planning department was renamed accordingly. During the previous years a considerable number of young architects, engineers and technicians joined the department. This was a new generation, most of them born in their kibbutzim, well versed in aspects of its life and venue, and with very definite ideas about their professional standing and ambitions. The new architects soon professed their independence from external dictates and proclaimed their right to self-expression, contending that the era of modernist solidarity and modesty was over, change was in the air, and the time had come to move into a postmodern mindset. As many of them came to work in the Tel Aviv office from the far reaches of the country and at the same time wanted to be with their young families, they rarely stayed in town, preferring to commute on a daily basis. This wear and tear ultimately led to the establishment of regional branches which, although nominally affiliates of the central office, soon became semi-independent, serving the kibbutzim and other clientele of the region and operating on their own budgets. The Tel Aviv office thus became the de facto central branch of this conglomerate, serving as the administrative center and from time to time hosting the regional branch staff for co-coordinating planning policy, joint project management, and budgetary follow-up. Under these circumstances the implementation of central "movement" policy became increasingly difficult, and by the end of the decade became irrelevant. The financial crisis which struck the country in the 80’s profoundly affected the economic basis, not only of each and every Kibbutz, but also the financial basis of the Kibbutz movements which ultimately closed the planning departments and left the individual kibbutzim to fend for themselves as they privatized themselves into a very different kind of community following its own planning agenda.

Epilogue and Aftermath With the closing of the Kibbutz Planning offices, Kibbutz planning, as a specific discipline, came to an end. The closing of most public facilities further reduced their relevance as a unique typology arising from a communal totality. The separation of production and community, the legitimation of private income and the privatization of services, created a situation wherein the kibbutz configuration no longer served the aspirations of the “Renewing  Kibbutz”, the synonym for a cooperative community village, not much different to the layout of the “Community settlement” which, in the 80’s, became an attractive, suburban type, rural alternative. To legitimize these aspirations the “Renewing Kibbutz” had to re-plan its configuration in accordance with national planning and land use regulations, further strengthening their dependence on advisors and architects versed in the near esoteric language of establishmentarian planning. Preserving the remnants of the architectural heritage, historic usage and the uniqueness of the Kibbutz landscape became a mandatory demand in preparing structural plans, has become the subject of academic study and has been documented through the Kibbutz Archive. Whilst the remaining 40 or so un-privatized Kibbutzim continue to develop and change within the near original Kibbutz ethos: “Neither City nor Village”, more than 200 have yet to define their new community identity within the periphery of Israeli neo-liberal urbanism; suburb or meaningful ex-urban alternative.