A Holy City for the Twentieth Century: Urban Planning during the British Mandate

Chapter one discusses the urban plans and transformations enacted by the British, and foregrounds the chapters dedicated to each of the buildings. British urban schemes devised by William Hannah Mclean (1877–1967), Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932), Charles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942), Albert Clifford Holliday (1897-1960) and Henry Kendall (1903-?), are analysed in light of the Mandate system and its interpretations. I argue that Jerusalem’s multicultural contested space unsettles accepted premises that regard Palestine as a belated “British Colony.” The chapter demonstrates this by investigating plans and development of the city, and by discussing British intentions, interventions and the mandatory discourses that supported these.