Richard Kaufmann

KAUFMANN, RICHARD (1877–1958), Israeli architect. Kaufmann was born in Frankfurt and studied in Munich. He worked as an architect and town planner in Germany and Norway before settling in Palestine in 1920. There he entered the service of the Zionist Executive. A large proportion of the agricultural settlements established from the early 1920s were built according to his plans, and he laid down the general design of cooperative agricultural settlements (moshavim). In Nahalal, he created an architectural model for the *moshav ovedim. Kaufmann also designed many urban settlements and neighborhoods, including Afulah, Kiryat Ḥayyim near Haifa, and Reḥavyah, Talpiot, and Bet ha-Kerem in Jerusalem. He built many apartment houses in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and also at the Dead Sea Works and in the Jordan Valley. These last two undertakings were noteworthy for their efficient solutions to cooling problems in the difficult climate of these areas. He was one of the first modern architects in Palestine, and in his buildings achieved the new aims of European architecture of the 1920s.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.