The politics of Israeli architecture

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Aug 9 23:21:37 PDT 2002


[Eyal Weizman is the nephew of a close friend of mine, so of course we're proud he's making trouble. BTW, if you ever need some excellent maps of settlements and partition plans, you should visit his website at:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/forum/document_details.asp?CatID=127&DocID=1253]

New York Times August 10, 2002

Are Politics Built Into Architecture?

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/arts/design/10ARCH.html

By ALAN RIDING

PARIS, Aug. 9 The concept of building the State of Israel was long

central to the Zionist dream. But after Israel's independence in 1948,

the phrase took on a more literal meaning: Israel now also had to

build the villages, towns and cities that would turn it into a modern,

prosperous and secure land. As a result, urban planners and architects

assumed a central role in defining the physical appearance of the new

nation.

A half-century later, this slice of history helps explain the

intensity of a dispute currently dividing Israeli architects. Some

argue that by designing and constructing Israeli settlements in the

occupied territories, the architectural profession has, perhaps

unwittingly, contributed to escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict. Others respond that architecture is neither political nor

ideological and, as such, has nothing to answer for.

The catalyst for the debate came last month when the Israel

Association of United Architects vetoed a catalog and canceled an

exhibition that it had commissioned to represent Israel at the World

Congress of Architecture in Berlin from July 22 to 26. It decided that

the catalog, titled "A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli

Architecture," would damage Israel's image abroad by presenting a

uniformly hostile view of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and

Gaza.

Uri Zerubavel, president of the association, blamed Rafi Segal and

Eyal Weizman, the two young Israeli architects who edited the catalog.

"They used our resources, they used our public name to make one-sided

political propaganda," he said in a telephone interview from Tel Aviv.

"If you are a political party, you can do what they have done. But the

association is apolitical. It has members on the left and on the

right. Imagine if we did an exhibition praising the settlements."

Mr. Segal and Mr. Weizman, in turn, said they were surprised by what

they called the association's "extreme reaction."

"We were picked in a competition of 10 firms of architects," Mr. Segal

said by telephone from Tel Aviv. "We suggested the theme and even

mentioned some of the writers who would contribute to the catalog, so

they knew ahead. But when they saw the whole work, they suddenly got

cold feet and didn't want it."

The architects have won strong support from Esther Zandberg, the

architecture critic of Haaretz, an independent daily, who accused the

association of exercising "harsh political censorship."

continued at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/10/arts/design/10ARCH.html



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