From garden city planning to World Heritage property: the cultural significance of the nature–culture relations of Tel Aviv

Abstract

Abstract This paper identifies how the cultural significance attributed to nature–culture relations evolves over time and among institutions, using the White City of Tel Aviv as a case study. It compares how nature–culture relations, conceptualised as valued attributes in Patrick Geddes' 1925 Town-Planning Report, were subsequently recognised or reframed in ICOMOS (the International Council on Monuments and Sites) evaluation and the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) decision text that led to the property's inscription on the World Heritage List in 2003. The research employs a comparative content analysis of these three documents, adapting an established framework for heritage attributes to code natural, built, and relational attributes as well as their interconnections systematically. The coded data were analysed through code counting, a general co-occurrence analysis, and a targeted nature–culture co-occurrence analysis using Atlas.ti. The results reveal a progressive shift in how cultural significance is articulated across the three documents. Geddes' plan articulated a multiscalar, integrated vision in which built and natural attributes were equally prominent and functionally interdependent. The ICOMOS evaluation and UNESCO decision text foregrounded architectural concepts and built form, whereas natural attributes were articulated at a broader, more generic level than architectural attributes were. This shift is likely shaped both by the inclusion of a second group of heritage attributes in the inscription, the International Style architecture built within Geddes' framework from the 1930s onwards, and by the evaluative scope of the inscription process. The analytical approach is transferable beyond this case and beyond World Heritage properties to any governance level to identify how cultural significance is attributed to nature–culture relations. These findings have implications for how heritage management understands the cultural significance of nature–culture relations in planned urban landscapes and for how World Heritage management is further related to urban-planning policies.