A committee of prominent international architects and landscape designers expressed severe criticism yesterday of the Jerusalem Municipality’s master plan to rebuild and landscape the Old City and its approaches. Mayor Teddy Kollek responded by announcing that he will invite a leading town planning expert from abroad to review the master plan. The committee was invited by the Jerusalem Municipality to serve as voluntary consultants on the project. The invitation was extended in acknowledgment that Jerusalem is the concern of the entire civilized world. But the experts almost unanimously condemned the plan for a variety of reasons. Christopher Alexander, a California architect, said it failed to solve the problem of transportation between East and West Jerusalem. Another American architect, Louis Kahn, said the master plan puzzled him because “I don’t sense the principles behind it.” Werner Duttman, of West Berlin, agreed, remarking that the plans were devoid of any central idea. Goren Sidenblat, of Sweden, criticized the plans to raze the old commercial center and replace it with a modern one. According to Henry Mansfield of Canada, the Municipality was on the wrong track in trying to create an artificial architectural style to reconcile Jerusalem’s ancient mode with modern vogues.
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