Politics and architecture

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, August 10, 2002
Are Politics Built Into Architecture?
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."

"The catalog is a rare work in its power and importance for the
community of architects and town planners in Israel, who usually
separate `pure' professionalism and `dirty' politics," she said. "The
catalog shows clearly that this option no longer exists."

In truth, architecture has always been inseparable from politics in a
broad sense. No less than, say, the Egyptian pyramids, Europe's great
Gothic cathedrals were conceived as expressions of power. Similarly,
both Albert Speer's grandiose design for Hitler's Berlin and 1960's
efforts to bring social improvement through public housing were
politically inspired. But in Israel, Ms. Zandberg said, architects "seem
never to have examined their actions critically."

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

--

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org



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