The landscape’s continuity makes it a most efficient means for shaping the cityscape. Contrary to architecture/planning periodical historical approach, it is argued that the urban landscape’s dynamic requires a fresh outlook in order to portray its time–space linear structure. The paper examines the city of Haifa in transition from colonial to the nation‐building era through the landscape production mechanism that this article calls erascape. The investigation shows how this mechanism arises from political agenda to become a powerful agent in constructing Haifa’s socio‐cultural relations. Examining the remaking of Haifa Old City enables one to understand landscape production strategies as interplay between professionals (architects and planners), administrators and politicians operating in the transformative making of colonial and national cityscapes. Landscape production, as embedded through design knowledge and planning procedures, is examined in maps, drawings, diagrams and sketches, in official and private correspondence, in laws and regulations, and as it appears in historical photographs and exists in today’s spatial experience of the city.