Richard Kauffmann

Richard Kauffmann (1887–1958) was a German-Jewish architect who migrated to Palestine in 1920. His architecture was influenced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a proponent of the International Style, and was applied to the local landscape, laying the architectural groundwork for the nascent State of Israel as well as that of several cities including Hadar HaCarmel in Haifa, Nahalal, Afula and the White City, as Tel Aviv's International Style architecture became known.

Biography Early life, World War I, work in Europe Richard Kauffmann was born in 1887 in Frankfurt, Germany.

In 1919, Kauffmann met Arthur Ruppin, who invited him to design new Jewish settlements in Palestine

Kauffmann was asked to design the northern neighborhoods of Tel Aviv, based on the urban plans of Patrick Geddes. In 1927, he was appointed a member of the British Mandate town planning committee. He built private residences all over the country and participated in design competitions. He was one of the architects of the Levant Fair (Hebrew Yarid HaMizrah) in 1932–1934. He planned the layout of the pavilions.

Kauffmann designed some new Israeli cities, such as Afula and Herzliya, and neighborhoods in major Israeli cities such as Rehavia, Beit Hakerem, Talpiyot and Kiryat Moshe in Jerusalem, and Hadar HaCarmel, Neve Sha'anan, Bat Galim and Central Carmel in the city of Haifa.

Concept and style The main idea in his urban planning was the incorporation of Ebenezer Howard's idea of Garden suburbs, as a manifestation of social ideals, with the ideals of agricultural-Zionist communities, and with the pragmatical needs of the inhabitants of those communities and the settling organizations requests. He was influenced by Neoclassicist architecture, but his urban and agricultural community planning also addressed specific environmental and climate conditions.