I never thought of architecture as a sense of national identity, but when I thought about it, it kind of made sense. Every country has their own style which represents their long history in the land. However, for the Israeli Jews, they had become new immigrants to their ancient homeland. As new immigrants to the land, architecture is used "...as a way to Israelize Jerusalem." Architecture is used as a physical representation of their place and belonging to the land. I wonder what Israeli would look like now if they were not displaced from their homeland. Would it be the same? Or vastly different? Maybe there is no need to look at ancient architecture, but move on from the past and build their own and new source of identity.
Pyalara questions
1. What sort of changes have you seen when using your voice?
2. Has there been backlash from the Israeli government?
3. What are the main issues that are being written on currently?
I wonder what Israeli architecture would look like now if the sabra movement had happened 30 years earlier--that is, if people were looking for an "authentic" and distinctive Israeli architecture that reflected a thoroughly "Israeli" identity on the landscape.
ReplyDeleteMaybe much of the "Israelization" of the landscape is a reaction to external architectural trends. I mean the idea is to make the land look like Israel--which would be different from any Western or even indigenous design. So if the dominant design ideas were different, then the resulting departure from them would look different, too.
I think it is important to remember that back in the day(in palestine) majority of the people were arab jews who had converted to christianity or islam or even remained jew's ... so getting to the part where you said " i wonder what israeli would look like if they were not displaced from their home land " it was not Israeli architecture but more of arab/ Mediterranean architecture and it was not until Israel became a state that Israel or israeli's felt the need to forcibly indicate their state of presence ... and to a point that's ok but it becomes/became a problem when it involved erasing other existing cultures... basically ethnically cleansing .
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