An Architecture towards Peace

An Introductory Research leading to the Thesis Proposal

An Architecture towards Peace Decoding the symbiotic relationship of conflict and architecture and advancing the agency of architecture towards positive peace and reconciliation Jose Sibi | 10648479

Thematic Research Seminar

The Global Architect

Professors Gaia Caramellino, Pierre-Alain Croset, Paolo Scrivano Assistants Valeria Casali, Nicole de Togni, Alberto Guena MSc in Architecture and Urban Design_2020-2021 Politecnico di Milano

“Be not daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief Do justly now Love mercy now Walk humbly now You’re not obligated to complete the work But neither are you free to abandon it” -The TALMUD/PIRKEI AVOT

Cover page image: Source:

Memory, Peace and Reconciliation Center / Juan Pablo Ortiz Arquitectos https://www.archdaily.com/590840/memory-peace-and-reconciliation-center-juan-pablo-ortiz-arquitectos

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract

5

1. Introduction

7

2.

Of Man and Conflict

7

3.

The Global Impact and Cultural Transfer in Architecture due to Conflict/War

9

4.

The Foundational Myths of Architecture and its Modern Branches (Research: State of the Art)

11

5.

The liasion between Architecture and Conflict/War (Research: State of the Art)

13

5.1 5.2

13 15

6.

An Architecture towards Peace (Research+Design: State of the Art)

17

6.1 6.2

17 19

7.

Design Proposal

21

7.1 7.1

21 21

An Architecture due to Conflict An Architecture for Conflict

Discourse on an Architecture towards Peace What | Why: The Agency of an Architect

Where: Areas of Intervention How: Possible Design Interventions

8. Conclusion

23

Acknowledgements

24

References

24-26

Aerial views of the Hiroshima before and after the dropping of the atomic bomb, 6 August 1945, (Cohen, 2011, p.39)

“ATOM CITY: To make possible the total destruction of Hiroshima (above) and Nagasaki, another complete city (below) was conjured upfrom from nothing on the opposite side of the globe” (The Architectural Forum, October 1945)

The ‘Atomic City’ of Oak Ridge that helped the architectural firm SOM to prominence (Crowley, 2008, p.94)

4

Abstract As the Doomsday clock ticks ever so close to the dreaded hand of midnight, the world rests on a fragile sense of anxiety and hope.

Anxiety of a day when the brittle relations may spill over and give way to full blown chaos; hope to push the former by at least a day onto the morrow.

As humans, the deposition of whether violence is inherent in our nature is still a divisive debate. The reality is that conflict is an everyday global happening. It has become the norm. But why is there a significant ignorance to this in the world of architecture? Have we become so detached from this reality that we cannot cause to affect it? Is the architectural community too focused on creating the next avante-garde that it has overlooked the need for intervention at the very places where humanity exudes its worst side? Have we forgotten that the birth of architecture was to serve man in order to find a better tomorrow? Or was it ever?

“Isn’t it … [because] most people aren’t in conflict zones which means if you are unaware of the problem, you don’t seek it out and that’s why the design community at large is addressing other issues?” (Humeid, 2019).* The proposed thesis is a ‘design by research’ approach wherein the research starts with the relation of the chosen topic to the theme of the seminar and cultural transfer of architectural ideologies between warring as well as peacekeeping nations. It then focuses on the foundational myths of architecture, its connived notions and the question of whether it was meant to further the life of man in a world of taking or a world of giving. The paper further delves into the relationship of architecture and conflict and how there seems to be a strange symbiotic liaison between the both; and whether this connection can be translated to bond the values on the opposite end of the spectrum: i.e. of architecture and peace. The capacity of architecture for peace would be studied through active discourses and the agency of an architect would be addressed and comprehended. The second part of the thesis is a design proposal (with a short description in this paper) at a place of either ongoing conflict or potential zone of conflict with an agenda of prevention. The end product (upon further deliberation) could range from the redesign of ‘hateful’ war remnants such as war bunkers or decommissioned military camps to the proposal of urban intervention strategies and physical structures at volatile borders.

Positive peace was famously defined

by Martin Luther King when he spoke of a status quo “…[which] is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice [and] prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

Keywords: warchitecture, structural violence, agency of an architect, empathetic architecture, positive peace, peace breeding 5

Guernica Pablo Picasso Oil painting on canvas 1937

The Seville Statement on Violence UNESCO 1989

‘Guernica’ remains one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history https://www.biography.com/artist/pablo-picasso#surrealism

Aerial view of the centre of Cologne from the Cathedral, 1945 (Cohen, 2011, p.48)

Aerial view of the centre of Cologne from the Cathedral, 2016 https://www. trevorhuxham. com/2016/02/ colognegermany-travelmishaps.html

6

1. Introduction Do the foundational myths of architecture have a malevolent history that focused on authoritarianism, expansion and world domination?

And if so, has it evolved for - the better - into an architecture of democracy, inclusion and diplomacy?

Is there a reciprocal relationship between architecture and war? Can there not be one between architecture and peace?

What is the agency of an architect in all of this?

What are the architectural discourses on the topic of architecture and peace?

Where can an architect intervene?

How can an architect intervene?

By raising these questions and hopefully being able to answer them faithfully through research and critical analysis, this paper tries to unravel the connection between architecture and war and whether peace can be in its stead; understand the capacity of architecture to affect this cause and advance the agency of an architect for finding a three-dimensional language in order to manifest a fourth dimension of good-will, benevolence and reconciliation.

2. Of Man and Conflict “Conflict is inherent in society, as Colin Priest argues in his paper, and it is better understood as a transformative process by which opposing ideas and visions are voiced and root causes of major social problems, inequalities or injustices are challenged. The degree to which conflicts affect existing spaces and social orders depends on the capacity of communities to use internal resolution mechanisms to respond to the needs and expectations of the affected population, to adapt to the new social order, to absorb and recover from any type of collective impacts. If the institutionalized resolution mechanisms are not able to mitigate the crisis, conflicts become unmanageable and can turn to violence” (Piquard & Swenarton, 2011).

Biologist David Carrier - on the basis of his research on the human body – has observed ‘’distinguishing characteristics that are consistent with the idea that we are specialized, at some level, for aggressive behavior.” Are we thus biologically engineered for aggression and violence? Or can we postulate that conflict and aggression is of a cultural making?

Hope was kindled in 1989 when neurophysiologist David Adams and twenty other scientists from around the globe produced the ‘Seville Statement on Violence’. It declared that “it is scientifically incorrect to say that war or any other violent behavior is genetically programmed into our human nature” (Gabbatiss, 2017). It was subsequently adopted by the UNESCO and refuted the “notion that organized human violence is biologically determined” (Suter, 2005).

7

Manila Masterplan 1905 Daniel Burnham From USA to Phillipines

Aerial View of Viceroy’s House, New Delhi Edwin Landseer Lutyens From Great Britain to India Greenhouse in Auschwitz camp Szymon Syrkus, 1943 (Cohen, 2011, p.295)

Atlantic Civilization Andre Fougeron, 1953 “against American capitalisation of Europe” (Crowley, 2008, p.30-31)

8

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow, 1953 “vysotnye zdaniia (tall buildings) (Crowley, 2008, p.48)

3. The Global Impact and Cultural Transfer in Architecture due to Conflict/War Conflict and war can be debatably viewed as an inadvertent product of globalization. It would be hard to argue that the last colonial era, the two world wars and the preceding cold war period did not affect the architectural outlook of the world. Concurrently, there have been numerous instances of a cultural transfer in knowledge that took place significantly in the field of architecture between countries both allied and warring.

It can be found in the imperialistic imposition that was practiced in the Manila Masterplan by Daniel Burnham in the Philippines and the plan of New Delhi by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker by the British “[who] often viewed Indian problems through the lens of Britain’s experience in its own first era of urbanization” (Spodek, 2013).

The world wars exhibit various occasions of this transfer but none as peculiar as the projects that were carried out by the prisoners of war under foreign administrations: “… deported architects who were incorporated into groups that built and enlarged their own prison camps, such as Szymon Syrkus (early member of CIAM) in Auschwitz … [under] professionals who worked on the creation of the new towns of Aushwitz [who] were … products of the best German schools” (Cohen, 2011, p. 32, 293). Ludovico Quaroni - held as an Axis prisoner by the British army in the Himalayas - “worked on a pilgrimage church for the town of Dehradun” (Cohen, 2011, p.

369). In the cold war era, a porous transfer of ideas between the supposedly impermeable ideologies of socialist realism in the East versus the consumerist capitalism in the West is noticeable. Soviet architects looked to suburban American housing for the best solution to the housing issues of the USSR” (Cohen, 2011, p. 379). “[Another] ideological inversion was the strange phenomenon of the ‘American’ skyscraper aesthetics in Moscow … Moscow’s new towers owed much to the American skyscrapers of the early 20th century” (Crowley, 2008, p.48). The transatlantic transfer of architect scholars under the Fulbright scholarship is another case of cultural transfer.

Even the famous Unite d’habitation in Marseille (a city west of the Iron Curtain) by Le Corbusier (a man of ambiguous political leanings) is understood to be “influenced by Soviet precedents” (Crowley, 2008, p. 55).

“They functioned as laboratories, spaces for bold experimentation where ideas could be tried with practically no resistance, oversight, or consequences.”

(Immerwahr, 2019, on American colonisation in the Philippines )

These generational ties, stemming from camaraderie in uniform or in the underground resistance, ran through the transnational systems, that helped structure the world after 1945.

(Cohen, 2011, p.419 on a positive transfer post WWII)

The afore-mentioned are only but a small sample that prove a large transmission of architectural expertise was spread from (and between) the West to the global south, in and among the European nations, the Far East as well as through prominent architects and their built projects along with traveling exhibitions during times of and post conflict.

9

Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture Indra McEwen, 2003 A 1684 depiction of Vitruvius (right) presenting De Architectura to Emperor Augustus Sebastian le Clerc

10

Map of Europe, with pre-WW2 borders, showing the extension of Nazi Germany’s GENERALPLAN OST worked out 1940-1942 Di Lihagen - Wikimedia Commons

Timgad - Ancient Roman city built on the model of the military camp Algeria, AD 100 (Docevski, 2015)

Publicity photograph of Stalinallee Berlin, 1956 (Crowley, 2008, p.51)

Model “World Capital: Germania” Albert Speer + Adolf Hitler

4. The Foundational Myths of Architecture and its Modern Branches A historical study of Vitruvius’s classic ‘De Architectura: The Body of Architecture’ by Indra Kagis McEwen, shows that Vitruvius’s purpose in writing the book was shaped by the imperial Roman project of world domination. The ancient city of Timgad (in Algeria) “represents a remarkable example of a Roman military colony which was created ex nihilo (AD 100). It follows the guidelines of Roman town planning, a remarkable grid system… which is still used today... the basis of this model [being] the military encampment” (Docevski, 2015).

As the imperialist imposition (see Chapter 3) explains the domination of the occupier over the occupied during the colonial era(s), the Second World War also witnessed episodes of similar ideologies. “Architects, town planners... were active participants… in the elaboration of the different versions of the Generalplan Ost, devised… for the Germanisation of more than 200,000 square kilometers of territory that were previously Baltic, Ukrainian, Belorussian and Russian” (Cohen, 2011, p. 357). During the Cold War “the Sovietization of architectural design and city planning in Eastern Europe during the Stalin years is not an exaggeration” (Crowley, 2008, p. 52) as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Eastern Germany were all ‘prescribed’ particular models to follow in architecture style and city planning. The late 20th and early 21st centuries are no exception to this rule. Evident in both Tibet and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, where the spread of [colonial] settlements completely changes perceptions that the population has of its environment... the feeling of dispossession of places and landscapes is strengthened by the superimposition of an alien spatial and historical narrative, in which historical references and places of collective memory are renamed, reinterpreted or suppressed” (Piquard & Swenarton, 2011). Far right groups such as Identity Evropa have weaponised classical architecture and embarked on a culture war to redefine what - and who - is ‘authentically’ European (O’Brien, 2018).

Did the principles of firmitas, utilitas and venustas carry an undercurrent of architecture that was fixated on expansion and world domination and if so, hundreds of years later, has this language finally evolved and branched out to - of many others - an architecture of democracy, inclusion and diplomatic benevolence?

“For hundreds of years architectural school have taught the military engineer Vitruvius’s 1st century BCE treatise as a foundational classical text that marked the formation of western architecture as a discipline.

McEwen argues that the birth of architecture as a clearly defined discipline appears to be co-dependent with the Roman project of world dominion” (Gupta, 2020).

“[What do we do about] the dictatorial production and democratic consumption of architecture?” (de Monchaux, 2020)

“Most remnants of historical constructions are either relics of an ‘architecture of war’ (fortresses, city walls, watch towers), Herrschaftsarchitektur (power architecture), ruling-class architecture (palaces, castles, courts) or religious buildings. They were built to impress, subdue, enforce, intimidate and defend” (Junne, 2010)

Rather hauntingly in Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer wrote, “By using special materials and by applying certain principles of statics, we should be able to build structures which even in a state of decay, after hundreds or (such were our reckonings) thousands of years would more or less resemble Roman models” (Cohen, 2011, p. 384).

11

The Mostar Bridge before total collapse 9/11/1993

The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War Robert Bevan, 2007

The Drafting Room Albert Kahn Associates, 1942 “architecture is 90% business and 10% art” (Cohen, 2011, p.95)

The advent of global terrorism in the 21st century The 9/11/2001 (American date) Twin Tower AmeriAttack

Channel Heights Defense Housing, California, 1942 Richard Neutra “Max Bill judged it in 1945 ‘the most successful of all the wartime projects’” (Cohen, 2011, p.118)

Architects Data Ist Edition Ernst Neufert, 1936

Quonset House, Veteran’s Village, Colorado Otto Brandenberger, 1941 “The greatest American achievement in the field of demountable structures” (Cohen, 2011, p.258)

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5. The liaison between Architecture and Conflict/War Architecture and the built environment are among the first victims of conflict and war. “[Due to the] extent to which a people’s identity is linked to architecture… such destruction not only shatters a nation’s culture but can be a deliberate attempt to eradicate the cultural memory of peoples and nations” (Bevan, 2005), thus not only serving as an easy target for destruction but also for inflicting a significant damage and unravelling of the historically interwoven fabric and essence of that place.

But there exists another relationship between architecture and conflict/war. That of an anomalous symbiotic liaison in which one seems to feed on the other and thrive. Conflict and war have not only given birth to an architecture of imposition but have also (positively?) propagated architectural innovation and stylist movements. On the other hand, elements of architecture - in the tangible forms of walls, housing, religious edifices to name a few - have been used across the globe to separate, segregate and impose violence.

5.1 An Architecture due to Conflict

From time immemorial, architecture has dipped its hands in the erection of structures built to commemorate victory as is visible in the Roman temples in Baalbek, Lebanon to the forceful construction of “Soviet monuments in the nations liberated from Nazi rule by the Red Army” (Crowley, 2008, p.46). Industrial architecture saw a drastic rise during the world wars which led to the rise of probably the first architectural corporations such as the Albert Kahn Associates in the USA and the office of Herbert Rimpl in Germany which employed close to 600 – 700 architects and draughtsmen (Cohen, 2011, p.88, 99). The need of ‘war-resistant’ cities witnessed the (re-) justification of various ideological projects such as by Le Corbusier (Ville Radieuse), Frank Lloyd Wright (Broadacre City) and Hans Schoszberger who claimed, “The linear city is the city of the future” (Cohen, 2011, p.145, 161, 149). The world wars also saw the invention of demountable structures in the form of Dymaxion Unit and the Quonset House in the USA, the MERO system in Germany and Jean Prouve’s works in France (Cohen, 2011, p.254, 258, 263, 253). War time housing - on both sides of the Atlantic - was a major architectural endeavour that resulted in new typologies (Cohen, 2011, p.108). Oak Ridge (by SOM) was among a number of completely new and clandestine cities being built in the USA for conceiving the idea of the atom bomb (Crowley, 2008, p.94). Even the much revered Architects Data (Bauordnungslehre) by Ernst Neufert was conceived during war times (Cohen, 2011, p.310). The vysotnye zdaniia (tall building) in the USSR and the spate of television towers being built across the globe were important gauges in Cold War

In an exhibition produced in Sarajevo in 1993, the city’s Association of Architects created an unprecedented neologism to describe the city’s wartime ruin: ‘‘warchitecture’’ or war carried out through and as the destruction of architecture (Herscher, 2008) War would thus act as a kind of accelerator in the transformation of taste as The Archi Review indicated as early as 1943 (Cohen, 2011, p.75)

FL Wright stated: ‘concentration of population is murder – whether in peace time or in war. [Broadacre city] is so spread out that scarcely any damage can be done. This is what the community of the future will look like.

(Cohen, 2011, p.161)

Max Bill on Architects Data: ‘a fundamental work by that well-known German theoretician, permeated with the ideas of the ‘thousand-year Reich’, but whose core would survive it’.

(Cohen, 2011, p.310)

13

Section of Plug-in City Archigram, 1964 “a new scale of architecture” (Crowley, 2011, p.253)

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One World Terrain 3D database model for the army “city under seige” (Stephen, 2010)

Construction of new settlement houses to ‘mark’ territory Itamar, Israel “structural violence”, “violence by the home” (Allweil, 2017)

Banlieus, Paris “direct correlation between Corbusier-esque high-rises in the peripheries of French cities and the riots that took place in 2005” (Vanstphout, 2010)

A ‘scarring’ on the landscape The ‘Peace’ Walls, Belfast Brendan Beirne, The Guardian

Workers collect material to be reused for reconstruction Homs, Syria “a differentiation by architecture” (al-Sabouni, 2016)

competition (Crowley, 2008, p.48, 174). The two world wars and the preceding Cold War period would also see the nativity of movements such as Modernism, Post-Modernism, Bauhaus, Brutalism, Surrealism, Futurism, Counter-culture and “a new scale of architecture” (Crowley, 2008, p.253) that significantly affected all disciplines of design and architecture. The second half of the last century also marked the rise of temporal architecture in the form of refugee camps (Jacobs, 2017) while this century has distinctly suffered military urbanism as a result of “city under siege” (Stephen, 2010) and proactive security measures by governments which will possibly - if not already – define the shape of the city to come (Kripa & Mueller, 2020).

5.2 An Architecture for Conflict

Architecture and its disciplines in their naked form are neutral but in the wrong hands could prove to be a weapon just as any other.

Radical changes of space and environment can only lead to a radical disruption of the community (Piquard & Swenarton, 2011). When the built environment is profaned to a degree that it causes the opposite of what was intended, its very origins are suspect (see Chapter 4). Though no particular thematic is evident (in comparison to an architecture due to conflict) various examples of an architecture that has been built for conflict is observable especially over this and the last century. Housing and the innovation of typologies was a major byproduct of war (see Chapter 5.1), but the same was employed as an architectural element to conduct ‘structural violence’ to propagate the Zionist nation building program (Allweil, 2017). The wall is the simplest three-dimensional element in architecture but when something as modest can lead to segregation - as was apparent in Berlin and now in Belfast, West Bank, Nicosia and Lima to point out a few - the larger role of an architecture that easily carries the capacity to divide cannot be unseen. Architecture is also laid to blame for inciting violence.

The French riots of 2005 “occurred in one specific type of urban setting, without exception: the modernist high-rise neighbourhoods” (Vanstphout, 2010)* which originated from the ideas of the ‘Ville Radieuse’. The case of Homs in Syria shows a ‘differentiation by architecture’ which was propagated by the French policies of segregating the population based on their religion and the Brutalist style of construction that followed (al-Sabouni, 2016).*

“this declaration makes a profound and explicit statement by which citizen housing is a retaliatory act in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an act of violence rather than shelter.”

(Allweil, 2017)

“...the social arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm’s way ... The arrangements are structural because they are embedded in the political and economic organization of our social world; they are violent because they cause injury to people (Farmer,1996)

“…architecture became a way of differentiation, and communities started drifting apart from the very fabric that used to unite them, and from the soul of the place that used to represent their common existence” (al-Sabouni, 2016)

Even though this unnatural but fathomable liaison mentioned above was studied in order to understand the relationship between architecture and conflict/war, the objective has been for this comprehension to lead to other ‘instigators’ of architecture; primarily that for the polar opposite: of peace. Numerous questions can be derived and argued through this understanding but the most crucial one (related to this paper) is that if an architecture evolved even during the most trying of times, why can it not be rendered for times of peace.

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Building Communities Salvador da Bahia Brazil, 2009-10 Architecture sans Frontieres in action

Poster promoting the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace Tadeusz Trepkowski, 1948 (Crowley, 2008, p.33) Design Like You Give A Damn Part I Cameron Sinclair, 2006

Architects Without Frontiers: “archetypes for architects” Esther Charlesworth, 2006

Design and Peace Book (left), in action (right) Colloqium, 2019 Alvar Alto Foundation

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6. An Architecture towards Peace The last century was the bloodiest and most destructive century in human history. The false promise after each conflict/war was there would never be another; this century slowly seems to tread through similar patterns. Conflict seems inevitable (see Chapter 2) but it would not be presumptuous to say that architecture has not stayed quiet in the face of strife. “…emergence of new spaces of conflict considerably altered architectural discourse as extreme conditions of war, militarization… were (and still are) threatening to structurally reconfigure our living environments… these urban intrusions seem to have produced a diversified field of thinking and action in architecture…architectural practices have shown a remarkable adequacy in addressing spaces of conflict, crisis, and disaster” (Schoonderbeek & Shoshan, 2016).

6.1 Discourse on an Architecture towards Peace

The post war recovery in the last century required the extensive presence of architecture and its disciplines since the built environment was among the worst wounded. Many movements and architects jumped into this foray to positively (or at least they hoped) exploit the situation and possibly render a meaning to “Existenzfragen, ‘the questions of existence’” (Crowley, 2008, p.19).

During the Cold War, intellectuals including architects assembled at the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace in Wroclaw (1948) to deliberate the future of the world but the program ended on a disappointing note due to its pro-Soviet stance. However, along with the ‘Exhibition of the Regained Lands’ (Wroclaw, 1948) it had a significant effect on the rebuilding process in war-torn Poland (Crowley, 2008, p.38). The UNHCR along with other humanitarian bodies have also funded/developed architecture in places of conflict.

But the aim of this chapter is to zoom further and discover specific entities that have had a fervent focus on architecture and peace.

‘Architecture for Peace’ is an Australian based NGO (2003) with a motto of “…urban expertise with peace as our goal” and have completed projects in Uganda, South Sudan, East Timor.

‘Architecture san Frontieres’ (1979) is an international operation focusing on the Global South with a goal to “enable access for vulnerable communities to architectural services… in order to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability.” The ‘Architects without Frontiers’ founded by Esther Charlesworth (1998) focuses primarily in the Australia and Asia - Pacific region. A book by the same name was published that emphasizes the “political and aesthetic criteria required for rebuilding after war and calamities.” ‘Architecture for Humanity’ was a US-based charitable organization founded in 1999

“…architects get blamed for all sorts of problems in their own countries and cultures. Urban social unrest?

Blame the architect. Segregation?

Blame the architect. A disadvantaged part of the population? Blame the architect… [but] the good news is that architecture seems to matter… if architecture can have a negative impact, couldn’t the opposite be an option too?” (Oosterman, A., 2010).

“….an important contribution design could and has provided also in the past is the configuration of spaces for dialogue and safe exchanges of ideas.” (Antonelli, Design and Peace, 2019)

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Architecture of Peace Volume #26, 2010

Architecture of Peace Volume #40, 2014

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Panel of discussants The Architecture of Democracy (MIT + Harvard GSD)

Dossier, Masters in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture UIC Barcelona

that published two parts of the book ‘Design Like You Give A Damn’ which recounted architectural projects (including theirs) around the world that addressed humanitarian crisis. ‘Architecture of Peace’ is an international research and action project based out of Amsterdam and Berlin that deals with interventions at all scales of architectural capacity. Two editions of the Volume magazine have been dedicated to their work. ‘Design and Peace’ was a colloquium organized by the Alvar Aalto foundation (2019) to have a collective examination on the topics of “conflict and peace, peace in society, and spatial peace”.

‘Architecture of Democracy’ was a joint online public discussion between the architectural departments of Harvard and MIT on the character of architecture to represent peace and democracy.

In the school of ‘taught architecture’, Political Architecture: Critical Sustainability by KADK deals with “architecture’s role in enforcing, implementing and transforming a particular societal order.” The Master’s degree in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture by the UIC School of Architecture “prepares architects… to rebuild communities affected by the impact of… military conflicts… in both developed and developing countries.”

6.2 What | Why: The Agency of an Architect

During WWII, architects and historians were enlisted by the USA to systematically list the objects not to target for aerial bombardment which caused the preservation of churches and palaces… but resulted in a “detriment to the urban fabric” (Cohen, 2011, p. 241).

Hitler’s architect Speer justified his architectural action of the camps at Auschwitz claiming an ‘obsessive fixation on production’ had ‘blurred all considerations and feelings of humanity’ (Cohen, 2011, p. 295). The French riots of 2005 have been exclusively blamed on the modernist ideology of the ‘Ville Radieuse’ (see Chapter 5.2). If architects and/or their built environments have the capacity to cultivate violence and discord, can it not be wielded to harvest peace too?

The capacity of an architect is certainly not enough to attain peace - positive or otherwise - but at the same time architecture enjoys a certain privilege over other forms of representation. The privilege of being able to recast space, mould material and create a realm.

The use of this privilege is the agency of the architect in a world at conflict. Because it could be through this realm that open dialogue is encouraged, tenets are exchanged, harmonious values are advocated and good-will is endorsed.

“The discipline of architecture has a socio-political responsibility; not merely in what and where we build but also through how we design. To serve and promote democratic values we need to teach design… through design we shape our public realm, participate in a public discussion, expose beliefs, discuss values and form opinions” (Segal, R., 2020)

“…we shape our buildings; thereafter our buildings shape us” (Churchill, 1943)

“Architects focus on the future. They build for future use. Conflicting parties are often prisoners of their past. They blame each other for past atrocities.

Architects can turn their attention from what has been to what should be” (Junne, 2010).

“Architects as pathologists have the tools to diagnose the fractured urban condition, analyzing and prescribing remedies for dysfunctional and often still politically contested cities” (Charlesworth, 2006) who further developed ‘archetypes’ as roles that an architect could or should adopt in places of conflict.

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Zones of Post Conflict

Zones of Potential Conflict

architectural existing literature existing research existing on-site programs

?

n

Post War Remnants

OR / AND

Post War Borderscapes Remnants

War bunkers

Volatile International Borders

or

or

Decommissioned military bases

Volatile National Borders

or

(on basis of ethnicity, religion, language)

Concentration camps

OR / AND

al

?

desi gn pr

os op

nt

ntio ve er

desi gn i

sig n rede

tion

architectural existing onsite programs

area of intervention

area of research

n rve te in

Zones of Ongoing Conflict

Monumental Post War Architecture Remnants

Diplomacy and peace keeping buildings (UNO, Amnesty...) or

Buildings that demand a sense of tranquility (Lotus Temple, Palace of Peace and Reconcililation)

20

OR / AND

Post War ?

Remnants

?

7. Design Proposal

7.1 Where: Areas of Intervention

The physical realization for ‘An Architecture towards Peace’ can be broadly employed in three situations: 1. In post-conflict places 2. In places of ongoing conflict 3. In places of potential volatility Architectural literature and on-site programs are available in post conflict zones, but is significantly lacking in the zones of ongoing conflict and potential conflict. Hence, with an agenda of prevention as the basis of this design proposal I’ve structured my thesis in a way that depends on post conflict for research but design intervention in the other two zones.

7.2 How: Possible Design Interventions

The principles of social justice, positive peace and empathetic architecture have to be interwoven to realize an architecture that can exude a feeling of disavowing hateful warmongering; of reconciliation; of a better tomorrow. This tangible experiment to create an intangibility that may lead to positive peace can be carried out in various potentialities that include: Post War remnants as a space for redesign intervention - War bunkers - Decommissioned military bases - Concentration camps Borders as a space for design intervention - Volatile international borders - Volatile national borders (on basis of ethnicity, religion, language) Monumental architecture as examples of buildings for peace - Buildings that promote diplomacy and peace keeping (UNO, Amnesty, Red Cross + Crescent) - Buildings that demand a sense of tranquility and quietude (Lotus Temple, Palace of Peace and Reconciliation) One of these options - that would feel ‘aptly placed’ to suffice the questions raised in this research and depending on the site context would be chosen for the final design project.

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WAR REMNANTS

Redesign of NAZI War Bunker Tirpitz Bunker Blavand, Denmark BIG

MONUMENTAL ARCHITECTURE

Palace of Peace and Reconciliation Astana, Kazakhstan Foster and Partners

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BORDERSCAPING

Trespassing Barriers India - Pakistan Border of Peace Design Competition 2019 Gabriel Ribeiro, Maurício Addor

MONUMENTAL ARCHITECTURE

United Nations Office Vienna, Austria Johann Staber

8. Conclusion Can a progressive agency of socially responsible architecture finally prove Margaret Crawford wrong when she claimed that “both the restricted practices and discourse of the profession have reduced the scope of architecture to two equally unpromising polarities: compromised practice or esoteric philosophies of inaction”. Is it possible that converting the esoteric to an exoteric ideology that can be pragmatically practiced, guide the architectural community to participate in the process of peace-building?

Do we need “a design oath, something similar to the Hippocratic Oath” (Bettens, 2019) Through the questions raised in this research and upon further study, I would like to understand the true extents of the capacity of an architect in a world at conflict and how architecture can positively affect it. Because it is only through questions that answers can be found; and only through answers can solutions be.

There is a high probability that the answer to the question of whether architecture can be a peacemaking tool would fall into the negative.

The research might meet a dead end wherein due introspection might reveal that the path being trodden is futile. But as is profoundly said, it is not the destination but the journey that matters.

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Acknowledgements I would sincerely like to thank the professors Gaia Caramellino, Pierre Alain Croset and Paolo Scrivano for holding this seminar that has inculcated in me a virtue of critical reading and thinking in the academic field. The timely interventions and words of advice from the assistants Valeria Casali, Nicole de Togni and Alberto Geuna have widened my knowledge of this discipline. The various references in both readings and website links by my colleagues who I shared this class with have only served to enrich the experience of this seminar.

With regards to my thesis, I would like to mention my groupmate in the seminar, Gaini Sagidullayeva without whose support in my moment of doubt about this sensitive and vast topic, I would not have continued. The references provided by Gaia Caramellino especially the ‘Architecture in Uniform’ by Jean Louis Cohen has been an exceptional source for the writing of this paper along with the readings mentioned by Valeria Casali.

Special gratitude is in order towards Arjen Oosterman (Professor and Editor-in-Chief VOLUME magazine) and Gerd Junne (Professor Emeritus, Chair in International Relations at the University of Amsterdam) for their valuable time and providing research work that helped me to complete this paper.

I am grateful and thank you all very much.

References -BIBLIO Of Man and Conflict Weber, M. (1905) The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism Piquard, B. & Swenarton, M. (2011) Learning from Architecture and Conflict, The Journal of Architecture, 16(1), (p.1-13) Gabbatiss, J. (2017) Is Violence Embedded in our DNA?, Sapiens: Anthropology Magazine Adams, D. (1989) The Seville Statement on Violence: A Progress Report, Journal of Peace Research, 26(2), (p.113-121) Suter, K., (2005) 50 Things You Want to Know About World Issues . . . But Were Too Afraid to Ask The Global Impact and Cultural Transfer in Architecture due to Conflict Daniel Immerwahr, 2019, How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States Spodek, H. (2013) City Planning in India under British Rule, Economic and Political Weekly, 48(4), (p. 53-61) Stanek, L. (2020) Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa and the Middle East in the Cold War

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Hobsbawm, E. J., & Ranger, T. O. (1983). The Invention of Tradition The Foundational Myths of Architecture and its Modern Branches McEwen, K.I. (2003) Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture Taylor, R. M. (2004) Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture, Book Reviews (p.284289) Çinar, Z. (2014) Contingent Presences in Architecture: Vitruvian Theory as a Beginning, International Journal of Architectural and Environmental Engineering, 10(4) Junne, G. (2010) Designing peace: bricks and mortar of reconciliation, The Broker, 10, (p.30-33) Docevski, B. (2015) Timgad The Lost City: A 2000 Year old Roman City With Surprisingly Modern Grid Design, Vintage News O’Brien, H. (2018), How Classical Architecture Became a Weapon for the Far Right, New Statesman The liaison between Architecture and Conflict/War Cohen, J.L. (2011) Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War Crowley, D. & Pavitt J. (2008) Cold War Modern: Design 1945 - 1970 Samia, H. (2019) War Zones Bevan, R. (2006) The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War Crysler, C.G. (2007) The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War, Journal of Architectural Education (p.63-65) Herscher, A. (2008) Warchitectural Theory, Journal of Architectural Education, 61(3), (p.35-43) Lebovic. S. (2013) From War Junk to Educational Exchange: The World War II Origins of the Fulbright Program and the Foundations of American Cultural Globalism, 1945–1950 Woods, L. (1993) War and Architecture, Pamphlet Architecture, 15 Coward, M. (2009) Urbicide: The Politics of Urban Destruction Murtagh, B. (2017). Urban alternatives and collaborative economics in Belfast’s contested space. The Social Ecology of Border Landscapes (p.181–194) Pryce, G. (2018). Peace Walls and other Social Frontiers can Breed Crime and Conflict in Cities. The Conversation Allweil, Y. (2017) Homeland: Zionism as Housing Regime, 1860–2011.

Farmer, P. (1996) On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below. Daedalus.

125(1) (p.261-283) Kripa, E. & Mueller, S. (2020) Fronts: Military Urbanisms and the Developing World Stephen. G. (2010) City Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism 25

An Architecture towards Peace Volume (2010) Architecture of Peace, 26 Volume (2014) Architecture of Peace: Reloaded, 40 Schoonderbeek, M., & Shoshan, M. (Eds.) (2016), Spaces of Conflict, Footprint, 10(2) Truby, S. (2007) Exit-Architecture: Design between War and Peace Charlesworth, E. (2006) Architecture without Frontiers: War, Reconstruction and Design Responsibility Ristic, M. (2018) Architecture, Urban Space and War: The Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Sarajevo Reychler, L. & Langer, A. (2006) Researching Peace Building Architecture Logan, W., & Reeves, K. (2009). Places of Pain and Shame: Dealing with ‘Difficult’ Alvar Aalto Foundation (2019) Design and Peace Basrai, A. & Basrai, Z. (2017-) The Bus Ride Publications Architecture sans Frontieres () Change by Design Publications Areas of Intervention + Possible Design Interventions (to be further expanded) Sinclair, C. (2006) Design Like You Give A Damn: Architectural Responses To Humanitarian Crises Sinclair, C. (2012) Design Like You Give a Damn [2]: Building Change from the Ground Up Montgomery, C. (2013) Happy City: Transforming our Lives through Urban Design Goltsman, S.M. & Lacofano, D.S. (2007) The Inclusive City: Design Solutions for Buildings, Neighborhoods and Urban Spaces

-WEBO “The Architecture of Democracy” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymmd_QnRt8c&ab_channel=HarvardGSD “Architecture, War and the Erasure of Identity” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmBZLy9_vRE&t=1144s&ab_channel=TheNewSchool “The International Aino & Alvar Aalto Design Colloquium 2019 - DESIGN & PEACE” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNDqF9PoyYs&ab_channel=AlvarAaltoFoundation “How Syria’s Architecture laid the Foundation for Brutal War” https://www.ted.com/talks/ marwa_al_sabouni_how_syria_s_architecture_laid_the_foundation_for_brutal_war “Wouter Vanstiphout - Blame the Architect” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2uNbGGVGKE&ab_channel=AASchoolofArchitecture “The Good Cause” https://vimeo.com/25192279 26

Since the first ‘GIrl with the Balloon’, Banksy has created several versions. Perhaps the best known are the ‘Flying Balloon Girl’ from 2005, painted on a West Bank wall in Palestine, and ‘Girl with Balloon’ -Syrian Version from 2014, where the girl is wearing a headscarf. Maybe the child metaphorically represents the never-ending hope for peace....

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