On Political Conflict and Architecture: Evaluation of the Architectural Context of Jerusalem’s Conflict

ABSTRACT: As a result of the economical boom in the 90’s, the architecture of the recent age is increasingly charged with the task of creating sites of attraction through extravagant aesthetical qualities. Such architecture extends its role into creating a discourse to peace in conflict zones, one example is Jerusalem. This thesis evaluates such intentions in respect to a general aim that discusses architecture in relation to politics in the context of conflict zones. The discussion is built in reference to two recent architectural/structural works in Jerusalem: the Bridge of Strings and the proposal to a Museum of Tolerance. Both works’ aesthetical qualities simultaneously address the conflict in Jerusalem in a diverse manner by ignoring the reality of the city’s mythical unification between the Arabs and Israeli groups, who are in conflict over claims of ownership. To establish an evaluation to both the Museum and the Bridge relation with the conflict, the role of context comes into play. Therefore, the context is categorized into both Foreground and Background buildings, where a discussion revolves around their relation to the political conflict and the empirical reality, the context so to speak. The Museum and the Bridge represent foreground buildings and Background Buildings are represented with a set of twenty buildings traced around the environs of the Old City of Jerusalem with an aesthetical appearance linked to the conflict, outlined and recorded for the purpose of this research study. The literature review on context and conflict presents three different categories of conflicted context; A Determined, A Vague and An Ongoing Conflicted Contexts. Whilst Jerusalem represents Ongoing conflicted context, the first and the second conflicted contexts are further elaborated and examined by a building each that symbolizes the conflict it represents, The Jewish Museum in Berlin and both Lefkoşa and Nicosia Museum of National Struggle. These two symbolic buildings are both specific memorial museums in which they establish a link between architecture and politically past events by considering the conflicted contexts. Therefore, investigating into these symbolic buildings will serve as an extended literature review in form of analysing architectural buildings on the issue of foreground and their relation to political conflict. Based on observation and critical evaluation of the cases, the study argues that works of international reference need not only to consider the physical coherence of the city but the conflicted reality. An original discussion is presented in terms of the larger literature of architecture in relation to power within contextual issues, which suggests that context is rather a juxtaposition of different layers mainly political in conflict zones. Ultimately this argument will offer a critical account to Jerusalem’s contemporary architecture discourse to peace in periods of conflict. Keywords: Conflict, Context, Starchitecture, Jerusalem, Architecture and Politics. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………