Summaries:

The Israeli ‘Place’ in East Jerusalem by Alona Nitzan-Shiftan

Nitzan-Shiftan’s article gives a synopsis of architectural history and trends in the settler colonial state of Israel. How these different trends took different approaches to directly contribute to destabilization of Palestinian society while appropriating their architecture/culture to the benefit of thew colonia state. As Israel was born from the fall out of WWII the country tried to separate itself from local Arab culture. As the historical ties to this region were brittle and built on displacement of the native Palestinian’s there was no true culture that could quickly arise. This changed in the late 1960s with the Sabra movement which tried to create a more united Israel by leaning into vernacular and the culture of the historical inhabitants of Palestine. Through this a sense of belonging could be manufactured as the appropriation of the culture created a false sense of historical belonging. The vernacular architecture was adopted to create false imaginary in which the colonizer felt as if they belonged to this historical community. After this Sabra approach of appropriation, the effects of using architecture as a tool of historical erasure had set its roots and the colonizer state could change its approach to a Mediterranean Architecture as this tool further displaced and removed power from the Palestinian people. Israel had created an imaginary history and now felt justified to move forward with its culture with its own best interests at heart. Interests that are predicated on the displacement and genocide of Palestinian people.

Toward a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for Architecture of Resistance by Kenneth Frampton

1 Culture and Civilization have always been in play with each other.  Often our culture would dictate the direction in which a civilization would emerge and would lead to different types of civilizations. However, it is often now that as developing countries attempt to modernize the role has been reversed and civilization is dictating the culture. The common trends of downtown skyscrapers in large metropolitan areas is an example of this pattern, but what are the larger implication of cultures emerging from following trends of modernization?

2 Rise and Fall of the Avant-Garde. The Avant-Garde movement promised a better tomorrow, but this did not align with the state of the world. A privileged form of thought that asked the people to subscribed to modernism and believe in the west as a liberation movement. However, time and time again the west and modernization had brought mankind to face some of the worst terrors such as nuclear war, genocide, annihilation of species, etc…

3 Critical Regionalism and the World Culture. Critical regionalism was a term coined by Alex Tzonis and Liliane Lefaivre. to engage in critical regionalism, one must deconstruct overall spectrum of world culture and secondly through synthetic contradiction manifest critique of universal civilization. In other words, how does one whose positionality may derive from the west cloud their ability to truly abstract themselves and question the world view that has been pushed since ones one birth. How has this view contributed to local erasure, but furthermore what evidence of local resistance stands and how can we look to these moments to break the through our own manufactured reality and bridge gaps to equally important understandings of world and culture.

4. The Resistance of the Place-Form. Physical spaces invite exchange of culture, ideologies, and lived experiences. This exchange in itself is an act of resistance and designing spaces that encourage this experience create a stronger sense of community and connection. This can work against ruling class as it provides room for critiquing a system that pretends it is a system of liberation.

5. Culture versus Nature: Topography, Context, Climate, Light, and Tectonic Form. Our cultures often form our world views and our relationship to land and nature. Western culture typically viewed land as a force to be conquered versus a relationship to be cultivated that would enhance our own wellbeing. A very straightforward example in the text is indiscriminately flattening irregular land instead of cultivating it by building with terracing. This relationship can lead to beautiful artistic expression instead of purely structural.

6. The Visual Versus the Tactile. People have the ability to quickly recognize natural and manmade patterns. This ability renders spaces to be experienced beyond just visual patterns. Sounds and smells are also patterning that the human mind can perceive consciously and subconsciously. These types of designs in combination with positionality can change how one experiences a space as we look for clues on sound, sight, and smell to tell us our relationship to this space.

GLOBAL MODERNISM AND THE POSTCOLONIAL by Vikramaditya Prakash, Maristella Casciato,
and Daniel E. Coslett

This article starts by giving a brief description on “Global History” which provides context for the Modernist movements from a different perspective. A perspective that acknowledges its wrong doings and gives voice to the people who have experience colonial oppression. It illumines that there are many histories at play and in some ways provides agency by reframing how we examine history.

Postcolonial critique – The majority of the world has been influenced by colonial rule and this has contemporary impacts even though it is believed we have begun to move into a “postcolonial” paradigm. This paradigm still highlights powers of west vs non-west or concepts like the global south.

Global Modernism – allowed for exploitative systems to be established such as colonial infrastructures, centralizing powers to colonial states (western societies).

Application and Interpretation:

Brasilia is an example of modernism in which local and regional vernacular were ignored for Brazil to present itself to the rest of the world as a Modern civilization. I can see similarities to Israel more recent movement to change to a Mediterranean style of Architecture to present a narrative to the world. These two areas have experience very different colonial histories, but similarities in which architecture and its use as a tool to drive pollical agendas are apparent.

Take-Away:

• Architecture may be a tool of the colonial empire to push agendas, but we can also use architecture as a tool of resistance.
• How can we challenge our world view by examine our positionality in hopes to birth a new paradigm
• Architecture must hold itself accountable and realize that appropriation and exoticizing cultures is not merely problematic at a superficial level but has long term impacts on social and political scales, but also on the erasure of oppressed people.