Page 322 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

Wilhelm Hecker (1876-1945)
Wilhelm Hecker, an architect and contractor in Jerusalem. Born in Krakow, Poland, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he studied in Vienna and Hamburg. He made Aliya in 1913 and is considered to be the first to use iron and cement castings. Among other things, he planned the silent film theater in Tel Aviv – "Eden". During World War I, he served as an engineer in the Turkish Army. In the early Twenties, he established in Jerusalem, along with Eliezer Yellin (see below), the "Hecker Yellin" Company for Development and Construction. The company engaged in planning of buildings and establishment of neighborhoods and settlements, including Rehavia in Jerusalem and Herzliya in the Sharon Region.
Dov Hershkovich, an architect and engineer. A native of Russia who worked in his profession for about twenty years in Czarist Russia, and after the Revolution – In Bolshevik Russia. He made Aliya in 1923 and adapted well to Tel Aviv. He was chosen as the second City Engineer, after Yehuda Magidovitch, and it was during his tenure that the City Master Plan, prepared by Patrick Geddes, was approved.
Hershkovich planned a long series of buildings in Tel Aviv, including the Ehad Ha'am Boys School and the Tel Nordau School. The "Hadassah" Hospital on Balfour Street was also planned by him, as well as the "Red House" on HaYarkon Street. The architectural change that Dizengoff House on Rothschild Boulevard underwent is also credited to him – from a single- story building that was established in the first days of Tel Aviv to a luxurious two-story building (the current building was changed and was adapted in the Thirties by Carl Rubin to serve as a museum).
Richard Kauffmann, a city planner and architect. Born and educated in Germany, he made Aliya in 1920. One of the greatest planners of the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel, both urban and rural, he planned 644 projects during his lifetime, half of which were actually built. Kauffmann planned over one hundred cities, settlements and urban neighborhoods. Among his most famous works: Nahalal – the first moshav ovdim, Kfar Yehoshua, Geva, Ein Harod, most of the settlements of the Jezreel Valley and Hefer Valley, the garden neighborhoods of Jerusalem – Rehavia, Beit HaKerem, Kiryat Moshe, Bayit VeGan and Talpiot. Among his other works – the Hadar HaCarmel, Merkaz HaCarmel, Ahuza and Neve Sha'anan neighborhoods in Haifa, Ramat Gan and the colony (now city) of Herzliya. In the Levant Fair of 1934, he planned the "Tozeret HaHaaretz House". He also planned many private houses, the most famous of which was Beit Ussishkin in the Rehavia Neighborhood (1931). When he was sixty, an exhibition was held in his honor at the Bezalel Museum.
Dov Hershkovich (1878-1935)
Richard Kauffmann (1877-1954)
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