Values and sites, attitudes, and development-the status of cultural “built heritage” in the Kibbutz

This chapter discusses the important role of vernacular heritage for the economic developments of the kibbutzim in Israel by examining their location and potential for tourist development. Since vernacular assets represent mundane culture, and since they are regarded as common buildings with common uses, both kibbutz members and planning authorities have negative attitudes toward them. The kibbutzim are rural settlements and, as in the entire Western world, they are undergoing significant identity-shaping changes. In the kibbutz settlements there is a high inventory of sites and buildings with historical and architectural values that represent local memories and national memories. The vernacular embraces not only the physical form and fabric of buildings, structures and spaces, but the ways in which they are used and understood, and the traditions and the intangible associations which attach to them". Built assets were declared cultural built heritages for representing "the past," the intimate story, and the collective memory.