The trash has gone – the trash mountain remains: a new look at the international design competition for the rehabilitation of the Hiriya landfill in Israel

Abstract Hiriya landfill, in central Israel, served Tel Aviv for 50 years and became a byword for neglect and ugliness until it was recently transformed from an environmental hazard, into a beautiful park. This article explores the idea and experience of waste, as concept and matter, and its representations in the 2004 international design competition for Hiriya’s rehabilitation. Addressing the global issue of rehabilitating wasted sites, the competition encouraged landscape architects to address a polluted past and outline new cultural and ethical meanings in the reclaimed public space. Drawing from unexplored textual and visual sources, and combining landscape architecture with cultural studies on waste, we reveal that few of the 14 proposals touched upon the complexity of waste, with its cultural, ethical and social attributes. The winning entry by Peter Latz turned the mound into a striking monument to trash, but minimised the visitors’ idea and experience of the waste itself.