Mosaic

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Richard Kauffmann was an architect and urban planner who was born in Germany and immigrated to Israel in 1920.  He was invited by the settlement division of the Jewish Agency to plan the new settlements in Israel.

His most famous projects were the first moshav - Nahalal, and the first kibbutz - Ein Harod. In order to plan the design of the kibbutz and the moshav, which were unprecedented ideas in the world, the architect met with the pioneers to learn about the ideologies that shaped their lifestyles. 

An example of this ideological design can be seen in the round shape that Kauffmann planned for the moshavim of Nahalal and Kfar Yehoshua. The round shape was inspired by the principle of equality. The pioneers asked for all of the lots to be the same size, and for the distance between every home and the center to also be equal.

The mosaic and the memorial site were built in 2003, at the initiative of the artist Eli Shamir, who also planned them. Creating the mosaic required the participation of many busy hands and took six months. It was a joint community project of the residents of Kfar Yehoshua, young and old alike.

The building is octagonal, reminiscent of the shape of the base of the nearby water tower.

The mosaic is meant to express that Kfar Yehoshua is a meeting point of cultures. According to Shamir, the founders of the moshav wanted to disconnect themselves from Europe and from the diaspora mentality that it represented to them. Yet, European culture is still evident in the style of the monuments on the boulevard.

The mosaic, which integrates images and texts, is reminiscent of an ancient map.

Eli Shamir relates:

“The sources of inspiration were, on the one hand, the stone map in Gan HaNadiv in Zikhron Ya’akov, which shows all the communities sponsored by the baron in a map etched in stone. In addition, the Byzantine mosaic maps of the Middle East, the Madaba Map, and other maps that depicted a world map as a mosaic.”

This mosaic shows a schematic map of Eretz Israel, with Kfar Yehoshua at its center. The map includes the names of neighborhoods and communities planned by Kauffmann throughout the country, and it depicts the immense impact that he had on the characteristics of the settlement movement in Israel.

At the top of the mosaic is a portrait of the architect, Kauffmann. Shamir placed the map of Kfar Yehoshua at the center of the mosaic, referencing the article that he wrote - “All roads lead to Kfar Yehoshua,” which is a play on words from the expression, “All roads lead to Rome.” 

The city of Paris is represented as one red stone on the map of the moshav, which notes “You are here,” inspired by the mosaic maps at the Metro in Paris. The city of Rome is represented at the bottom of the mosaic, where a section appears from Raphael’s famous fresco, The School of Athens, located in the Vatican. This section depicts the Greek mathematician Euclid, considered the inventor of geometry,  bending down to the ground and holding a compass. In the same painting, Raphael, the Italian Renaissance artist, portrayed the great scientists and cultural figures of ancient Greece. 

In this manner, he expressed the idea of the Renaissance, which strived to revive the cultural development of ancient times. The appearance of Euclid in the mosaic is a gesture to the renewed architectural spirit that was Kauffmann’s Zionist work.