It has always, since the dawning of its time, been bound to dynamic mutations brought by circumstance, tension, and violence.
Like no other, Israel illustrates the invalidity of planning in the traditional sense. As it shows, time and time again, how judgment succumbs to that which is primarily political in nature, rather more tactical than pragmatic, strategic than practical.
It is shaped and comprised out of blunt maneuvers, all carefully planned, with the thought of survival in mind, for better or worse.
The dramatic changes in the physical construct formed by wars and peace treaties are well drawn in recorded history. Those of the more subtle nature; those that stretch through years and years; those that are molded by the invisible threads of politics; those are far from documented, hardly exposed, and scarcely discussed. These are the movements we aspire to reveal, map and explore.
It is of supreme importance, in our minds, to expose those abnormal phenomena and to deconstruct their manifestation. These unusual conditions and outcomes form an important case study, analyzed in such a way in which the volumetric echoes of its representations shall resonate into a renewed perspective of our duties as architects and planners.
The publication Territoria aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the territorial aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Editors: Malkit Shoshan and Vitala Tauz
Contributors: Alexander Kedar, Edo Amin, Eyal Weizman, Khaled Khalil, Matthijs Bouw, Rassem Khamaissi, Rinat Berkovich and Yehoshua Gutman
The essays illustrated with maps, diagrams and photographs gathered and drawn by Malkit Shoshan and Vitala Tauz
Published by The Association of Forty. Haifa, 2002.
Territoria was first presented and exhibited at the 2002 Venice Architecture Biennale in the exhibition Border Disorder of the Israeli Pavilion.