Home Planning and Gender in Mandatory Palestine written by Sigal Davidi

Lotte Cohn, having graduated from the Technische Hochschule Berlin in architecture had a good grasp on European architecture and the modernist movement. She brought light to the need for logical planning of the domestic household to make life for women less burdensome and efficient in daily tasks. After moving to Palestine in 1921 she pursued both theory and practice to explore the role of gender-oriented design in contemporary architecture. She specifically devoted herself to focus on the kitchen as a point of contention in design as it was where most of the daily work took place and was often isolated from the rest of the house as seen in the Frankfurt Kitchen. After most a burst in growth of Jewish bought housing in Tel Aviv and the arrival of many German trained Jewish architects, the debates on modern housing for the working-class family and a shift away from a feminine oriented household as women were becoming less inclined in the role of housework. The kitchen took the biggest brunt of the change as it was the vehicle of the heaviest labor and was completely reoptimized for efficiency. Male architects were too unfamiliar with the workspace of the kitchen, and it was seen that women could do a better job at designing more functional spaces, specifically in the interior. The kitchen designs proposed by Cohn not only aided in aspects of efficiency and functionalism but also in the enhancement of status and visibility of the women.

An Alternative to Functionalist Universalism written by Ecochard, et. al.

Morocco, one of the closest geographically regions to Europe, became an experimental ground for architectural initiatives and debates. During the 1950’s the modern movement took inspiration from Moroccan vernacular architecture and building types transplanting them into the modern context. Urban/collective housing designs were proposed and experimented with throughout Morocco to test radical new solutions and design concepts. Furthermore, European architects began studying the region itself in intimate detail to place their works in harmony with the landscape. The ethnological context was also considered, and designs inspired by historical structures such as the Semiramis Building reflected the hanging gardens of Babylon. The economic growth in Morocco during the 1950s allowed for many more initiatives to be taken to introduce new projects into the region. However, the specific design concepts created a divide among ethnic groups and classes proving that the housing designs needed to adapt more to local customs than just taking the climate into account. The identity of Morocco was also at balance between the traditional and modern and ultimately needing to accept both while still remaining true to oneself.

Accumulation by Dispossession: Transformative Cities in the New Global Order written by David Harvey, edited by Swapna Banjeree-Guha

The building of a city itself reshapes the man that has built it. The right to a city is that of the collective not the individual because only through the collective processes of urbanization does a city come to fruition. The immense speed and evolution of the urban cityscape is almost beyond our control and on a path of its own leaving questions about well-being and alienation in the dust. Capitalism and urbanization go hand in hand because the production of surplus value is a result of capitalism which fuels the development of urbanization reinvesting into itself. The evolution from localized capitalist urbanism to global/international urbanism along with the massive growth of population and its convergence towards large urban cities has greatly shaped the identity of urbanism to its core making it much more widespread. The urban life has transformed people’s lifestyle to one of convenience and exclusivity with quality of life heavily depending on the amount of money you have, and furthermore fueling the cycle of illusion of being close to getting to the next steppingstone. Our understanding of cityscapes and their increasing complexity has devolved along with the lifestyles people choose to pursue in pursuit of economic gain, one of isolation, division and conflict ridden. The sharp rise of consumerism in cities has created even greater class divisions and spatial fragmentation of cityscapes into class districts, further driving people apart. Harvey argues that under all these conditions the ideals of the urban identity become increasingly difficult to maintain with a possible solution to be found in collective social movements in order to overcome this seemingly uncontrollable system.

Critical Response

In Harvey’s argument of embracing the collective identity of cities it is interesting to think about the questions raised in response to this rapid growth urbanism in relation to what the means to an end is and how it is affecting human well-being. Increasingly dense cityscapes draw in people from far away in hope of finding better opportunity; however, this reality creates strong class divisions that see the new arrivals living in sub-standard housing with poor living conditions. This can be seen clearly in the case of many of the cities in Sub-Saharan Africa that boast the fastest projected urban growth in the coming centuries and are struggling already to meet the demand of providing quality housing to the ever-growing cities. Sometimes it may seem beyond our control of how this living and breathing system’s expansion is seemingly endless, especially with increasing growth of population every year, at least for now. The identity of these urban landscapes has also become increasingly isolating, and conflict ridden with more layers of complexity upon the evolution of technologies to more efficiently pack people into these urban environments. The question is how we can find our identity and that of our community amidst this ever-expanding well-oiled machine?

Application and Interpretation

The Michenzani flats in Zanzibar Stone Town was a project erected by the East German Government to contribute to a series of socialist housing. The highly dense urban area successfully integrated these socialist housing blocks into the community despite the fact that they look like scars running across the landscape of Stone Town. However, this does not mean that this huge project hasn’t affected the community in a recollection of its colonial shackles. These buildings blocks are a representation of otherness and have led to physical urban segregation not inherent to the local communities’ practices of adding on to and improving and modernizing their homes over time. The building project dispossessed local residents and was a medium for the effort to introduce western-style housing to the region and address issues of overcrowding. While it used to be the pride of Zanzibar’s revolutionary modernization the apartments now lay in a state of decay.

Takeaways

• The evolution of gender-oriented design needed women to design spaces to ease burdens but simultaneously isolated them
• Moving away from a feminine interior design allowed for the concept of the more modern and flexible lifestyle of women
• Building projects, especially when introduced into a foreign context can’t solely rely on surveys of climate and vernacular but must also take into account local traditions and customs of the community
• We need to ground ourselves and ask the right questions in ever-growing dense urban environments to maintain our collective identity and well-being