MSI Press Blog

  Excerpt from  The Subversive Utopia   by Yasir Sakr - Preface It’s been 35 years since, as an undergraduate student, I first toured the new Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. As I walked its streets, observing its new architecture and urban space, the Quarter simultaneously attracted and alienated, impressing upon me a mysterious schizophrenic perception. For many years I was unable to explain this contradictory experience. Little did I know then that 10 years later, in 1988, my new job as an archivist in the Louis Kahn Collection at the University of Pennsylvania would yield the clues I needed to understand the Quarter’s ambiguous allure. I could not have predicted then that I would one day articulate the experience of the Jewish Quarter in such a way that it would shape its perceptions by Israeli architects and scholars among others. It’s been almost 20 years since I finished my PHD dissertation at the School of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania. Following i

Introduction This book examines the critical role of modern architecture and individual architects in shaping and transforming national Israeli symbols, especially in the Old City of Jerusalem. It is generally held that Israeli national symbols image Zionism as a pioneering movement awakening the Jewish nation from a stagnant Diaspora tradition and restoring to it its biblical origin in Palestine as a sovereign progressive Jewish state. The opening section of the book analyses pre-1967 designs by architects including Baehrwahld, Geddes, Mendelsohn, “Bauhaus” practitioners, and Rau, each of whom attempted to construct a National Jewish style in Palestine. The analysis reveals the elusiveness of the hard-sought national Jewish style, and the problems inherent to the search. The Diaspora’s memory was still too vivid to be discarded, especially in regard to the Old City of Jerusalem. Indeed, the “official” Zionist memory’s suppression of more than two thousand years of Jewish experi

  A practicing architect since 1983, Yasr (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania; M. S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; B.S., University of Jordan) is an international consultant in architectural design and planning, who has won top awards in several design competitions.  He is currently an urban development strategist leading multi-disciplinary teams of international consultants in the urban re-development of the central area of the Holy City of  Makka, KSA. Previously, he was assistant professor at the Department of Architecture at the Jordan and Petra Universities and a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and the American Archaeological School in Jerusalem. Professor Sakr has lectured and published widely on architectural education, design theory, and history. For posts about Yasir and his book, click HERE . Several years ago, Dr. Betty Lou Leaver, Managing Editor of MSI Press, visited Jordan on a business trip and visited with Yasir at his home on

The Subversive Utopia   examines the critical role of modern architects in shaping and transforming national Israeli memory with special regard to Jerusalem. Using as a background the attempts of various architects since the 19th century to construct a national Jewish style, the author focuses his analysis on Louis Kahn’s design of the Hurva synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem. Th is study scrutinizes and pieces together discrepant archival documents, drawings, and accounts of intentions, interpretations, events, policies, and projects in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Th e book reveals an unrecognized crucial interplay of Kahn’s Hurvah design  with the competing traditional and national symbols of Jerusalem, such as the old Hurvah, the Western Wall, and most important, the mythical Jewish Temple and the Dome of the Rock. Th e drastic impact of Kahn’s idiosyncratic design on shaping Jerusalem and its national memory is traced through subsequent archaeologica