Summary of “The Israeli ‘Place’ in East Jerusalem”

In this essay, Alona Nitzan-Shiftan questions how Israelis were able to justify the creation of a “national home” on confiscated land. She focuses on the architectural practices of the Sabra, the Israeli-born generation of architects who aimed to Israelize Jerusalem following the 1967 war. These architects criticized the high modernism that had shaped the state so far, while also pursuing modernism inspired by the Palestinian vernacular—essentially, through architecture, they appropriated Palestinian culture to define their own.

One of these architects was Moshe Safdie, who wrote of the harmonious nature of the Palestinian town, Lifta, in contrast to the “foreign” forms of a nearby settlement put together by Israel’s Ministry of Housing. His generation of architects turned to traditions of “place” that were evident in old villages and experimented with appropriated concepts like “building clusters, hierarchical circulation, and broken masses.” The sabra viewed existing Zionist architecture as “international architecture” that wiped out culture and disregarded the need for a Jewish “national home,” so they instead turned to the way Palestinian architecture worked with the landscape. Through this, they aimed to identify themselves as natives on the land. Philosophers like Bernard Rudofsky and Heidegger viewed vernacular architecture as perfect architecture with clear conceptions of place and home.

Shiftan also explains three methods in which architects aimed to legitimize their Israelizing of the Palestinian vernacular. The first involved viewing it as biblical architecture, which implied a metaphorical return home. They also viewed it as the primitive origins of the discipline and aimed to define it more broadly as Mediterranean architecture.

Summary of “Toward a Critical Regionalism”

In this article, Kenneth Frampton opens with a quote by Paul Ricoeur that suggests that the concept of universalization in architecture counts as a destruction of past civilizations and their traditional cultures; and that to be modern, a culture must root itself in the past while aiming for rationality, which often requires abandon of this past. This paradox means that new discourses must be formed to account for the way we look at modernism. To set the scene, he argues that modern building has become limited by thinking of “means and ends,” and that we can no longer create significant urban designs so easily. Next, he argues that the avant-garde has become weighed down and no longer contributes to modernization. Subsequently, modernization is no longer liberative, because of the domination of the media industry and the turn to rationality. Next, Frampton pivots to the idea that architecture must eschew the Enlightenment myth of progress without fully subscribing to the impulse to return to the forms of the pre-industrial past. He calls this the arriere-garde position. What he calls “Critical Regionalism” must temper the ideals of universal civilization by indirectly incorporating elements that are unique to a particular place and its vernacular.  He also discusses Heidegger’s ideas of place and emphasizes hat critical practice must also provide for the idea of place with a defined boundary. Critical Regionalism also involves direct relations with nature and working with the natural landscape rather than imposing changes to it. Finally, the theory also involves the idea of emphasizing tactile experiences of architecture in addition to the visual experience.

Summary of “Global Modernism and the Postcolonial”

The authors of this introduction to a larger anthology ultimately argue that reframing modernism as a global phenomenon is not simply an additive process, but rather a complex process of drawing connections that aren’t as binary as cause and effect. The authors emphasize that the history of modern architecture has traditionally been universalized when in reality it’s incredibly diverse and multivalent. They use Le Corbusier’s door design for the Capitol Complex in Chandigarh as an example of an aspirational vision of the future that fails to account for the complex convergence of forces that brought it into being (i.e. the city’s global history). To supplement this, they offer Julie Mehretu’s Migration Direction Map, which better illustrates the true complexity behind the design of specific moments. As illustrated by these two visuals, historiography always involves a gap between true history and history as it is told. In reframing modernism, we must also decolonize the idea of the West and the non-West, which ensures that non-West voices are adequately represented and that Western voices are liberated from the burden of being separately defined. This reframing allows for a more egalitarian and freely communicative historiography that is truly global. In a postcolonial world, we must recognize the way that colonial systems impacted modernization while looking to the future. Overall, the authors argue that we need to move beyond the old “hub-and-spoke” model of Eurocentric modernism and look at modernism more like a tangled, global web of threads that all impact (and are impacted by) each other.

Critical Response

Reading “The Israeli Place in East Jerusalem” really impacted me, especially considering the current situation in Palestine. From its inception, Israel has been located on Palestinian homeland, and this article served as a bleak reminder of how occupiers/colonizers aim to legitimize their claims over stolen land. There are so many layers of hypocrisy at play. In one sense, Israeli architects aimed to distance themselves from the very idea of Palestine by viewing the existing architecture as biblical, primitive, or broadly Mediterranean. Yet, they paradoxically idolized and appropriated Palestinian designs because they were so in tune with the landscape. This kind of ideological cherry-picking enables occupiers to gloss over the reality of what they’re doing and lowers the chances of two cultures being able to peacefully coexist. I can also see a relation here to Frampton’s idea of critical regionalism as a balancing act between universalizing modernism and incorporating local vernacular. However, I question whether it’s ethical for architects (or anyone) to utilize forms or techniques that were developed by the cultures they’re oppressing.

Application & Interpretation

Kenzo Tange’s Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum is a good example of the line between universalized modernism and local vernacular that critical regionalism aims to walk. The way the structure utilized pilotis and board-marked concrete was clearly influenced by Le Corbusier, but the raised building faced with vertical slats echoed the traditional zakuri style of Japanese architecture. It was also built during the American occupation of Japan, and Tange had to present the plans to CIAM and essentially gain the West’s permission to get it built. Thus, the building also has ties to the dichotomy between the West and non-West which the authors of “Global Modernism” hope to break away from. Still, Tange’s ability to bring some sense of Japanese influence to the building helps advance the web of global influences that combine to a post-colonial view of modernism.

Take-aways

• Occupiers will draw from local vernacular, while trying to legitimize their own claim to the land
• In thinking critically about architecture, we must consider the opposing forces of universal modernism and local vernacular
• A truly global history of architecture must be complex and decolonized, rather than additive