Architecture and Spatial Justice in Palestine
A knowledge sharing seminar, organised as part of a larger solidarity action being developed by an international group of committed spatial and/or cultural practitioners based in the Netherlands. Wednesday, 13 November 2024, 18:30 - 20:30
“When I think of Gaza, I envision a house full of life, 12 grandchildren rushing in on Fridays to eat maqluba, a family feast. I long to see Gaza depicted as a place of life, not just death and destruction. I crave this comforting illusion wrapped in wishful delusion.”
— Saja Amro, in 'Is there Poetry after Gaza?', a conversation with Merve Bedir, published in The Public Review, October 13, 2024
Architecture, urban planning, and landscape management have played a significant role since the Nakba in 1948, which has been marked by occupation, exploitation, destruction. displacement, and environmental degradation.
This evening seminar explored the critical role of architecture, urban planning, and landscape design in the ongoing destruction and colonisation of Palestine. The panel talked about the urgency of understanding how these disciplines have been employed as tools and aims to exchange knowledge and challenge the perceived neutrality of spatial professions.
Beyond exploring these destructive processes, the seminar also highlighted the spatial practices and strategies of resistance that challenge colonisation and strive for emancipation across Palestine and the broader region. Through expert insights and in-depth discussion, we examined how architectural professionals can act in these times of mass destruction.
The evening began with a performative talk and food gestures by architect and educator Saja Amro followed by lectures by Léopold Lambert, editor-in-Chief of The Funambulist, Nama'a Qudah of BK Scholars for Palestine, and Yara Shari, an architect and researcher who co-founded Palestine Regeneration Team (PART). The evening was moderated by Ali T. Asad, researcher, architect, and editor-in-Chief of MAKAN Journal of Culture & Space.
Programme
18:00 Doors Open
18:30 Opening Address by Arna Mackic and performative talk with Palestinian Food Gestures
19:00 Lectures by Léopold Lambert, Yara Sharif and Nama'a Qudah + Q&A moderated by Ali T. Asad.
20:30 End of program, drinks at the bar
The event is part of a series that delves into the spatial practices and strategies which resist colonisation and work towards emancipation across Palestine and surrounding territories. It aims to exchange knowledge and challenge the perceived neutrality of spatial professions. Architecture, urban planning, and landscape management have played a significant role since the Nakba, which has been marked by occupation, exploitation and destruction. The knowledge sharing seminar will disseminate crucial knowledge on the complicity of architecture in politics, while a workshop (to be scheduled in early 2025) will provide an opportunity to critically examine the architect's current engagements. The ultimate goal of this series is to collectively write a statement letter to Sigrid Kaag, UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2720 (2023).
This event is supported by the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) and the Independent School for the City. It is organised as part of a larger knowledge dissemination solidarity action being developed by an international group of committed spatial and/or cultural practitioners based in the Netherlands.
About the Speakers
Léopold Lambert
Léopold Lambert is the editor-in-chief of The Funambulist. He is a trained architect, as well as the author of four books that examine the inherent violence of architecture on bodies, and its political instrumentalization at various scales and in various geographical contexts. He is the author of Weaponized Architecture: The Impossibility of Innocence (dpr-barcelona, 2012), Topie Impitoyable: The Corporeal Politics of the Cloth, the Wall, and the Street (punctum, 2016) and La politique du Bulldozer: La ruine palestinienne comme projet israélien (B2, 2016). His new book is called States of Emergency: A Spatial History of the French Colonial Continuum (Premiers Matins de Novembre, 2021).
Saja Amro
Saja Amro is an architect, educator, and designer based between The Netherlands and Palestine. Her work investigates the influence of spatial design on social dynamics in education. In her practice, she disrupts traditional classroom structures, aiming to rebuild them on the principles of radical pedagogy. As a tutor at the Architecture Department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Saja uses the classroom as a place to collaborate with her students and reimagine spaces inspired by popular education methodologies, and roots of indigenous cultures.
Nama’a Qudah
Nama’a Qudah is an interdisciplinary researcher, currently completing her doctoral studies at Delft University of Technology, at the architecture department as part of (Methods of Analysis and Imagination) group. Her research focuses on the architecture of displacement, particularly Palestinian Refugee Camps, with the help of methods from the fields of architecture, anthropology and creative writing. Nama’a obtained her bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the German Jordanian University and her master’s in Theory and Design from the University of Nottingham. Her professional career was divided between practice and academia, having worked between Germany, the UK and Jordan.
Yara Sharif
Yara Sharif is a practicing architect and academic employing design as a tool to rethink contested landscape with a new take on spatial practice. She co-founded Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) - and recently Architects for Gaza; a design-led research group that aims through speculative and live projects to search for creative and responsive spatial possibilities in a fragmented landscape. Yara’s work through research and design intersects to disrupt colonial power with its supremacy and hierarchy of knowledge production. Instead, she calls for an alternative narrative and expression in architectural and spatial practice that is inclusive for all.