December 7th, 2010 → 9:07 am by Spécialez

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Decolonization and Architecture

In research groups, collaboratives and emerging practices, geo-political questions have once again become the territory for architectural and urban thinking. Forums such as the Perpetual Peace Project have assembled inter-disciplinary teams to discuss conditions for conflict resolution. The Conflict in Cites program at Cambridge University looks at the role that architecture and urbanism plays in divided territories – Jerusalem, Belfast, Brussels, Berlin and others – where ethno-national tensions are linked to spatial partitioning. The seminal work of the Decolonizing Architecture Institute (DAi) uses architecture, art and urbanism to provoke new readings of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. DAi is an incubator for speculation that operates through ironic readings and explicit strategies for re-appropriation, reasserting the role that spatial praxis can play in interrogating the geo-political.

The current call for submissions continues this spatializing of geo-political inquiry by inviting reflections on decolonization as both a historical phenomenon and as an ongoing, active, contemporary condition.  The decolonization that marked the second half of the 20th century, and the independence that followed, raised questions of what to do with the “remains” of colonial architecture. In some cases, this architecture was destroyed, a symbol of power and its usurpation or of violent combat. More often, buildings were reused by new governments for entirely new purposes. Local populations, both in cities and in the countryside, occupied colonial vestiges. Is there, within this re-colonisation, a new form of alienation of traditional modes of life that become determined by imported forms of inhabitation?

On an urban scale, the underlying structure of the colonial city dictated plans for growth or served as a model for new agglomerations often starkly different from typologies that may have preceded colonization. How have these models influenced the social and urban futures of their populations? Is it possible to empty colonial architecture of the symbolism it carries or is there a form of alienation implicit in all structures and dwellings that have been left behind? How can contemporary architects navigate the influences of a colonial past, its imported spatial traditions and pre-existing spatial conditions? In North Africa, the colonial French empire created the neo-Mauresque architectural style inspired by vernacular space and ornamentation. The region also served as a testing ground for neo-Corbusian and Bauhaus ideas, becoming the terrain of another kind of intervention. How can we understand these mixed conditions within the context of the colonial experience? Finally, can decolonization be considered at a different scale, perhaps as the reuse of abandoned, large-scale sites, turned over to communities long cut-off or kept out from the spaces within? Airports, military bases and factories come to mind. Could this re-appropriation of space also be considered a kind of decolonization?

Submissions
Submissions, in English or French, may be sent as abstracts of approximately 500 words or full texts following The Chicago Manual of Style format. Proposals for reviews of recent exhibitions or books are also welcome. Contributors should include their name, email and affiliation. Authors are responsible for securing image reproduction rights and any associated fees. Please send submissions, with “Journal Submission” in the subject heading, to specialez@esa-paris.fr by January 30, 2011 to be considered for a first round of online publication.

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Le Journal Spéciale’Z, a publication of the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris, is an inter-disciplinary journal on architecture, art and urbanism that is published in eight monthly internet issues brought together in two yearly print volumes. For more information about contributing or to find out about upcoming themes, please write to specialez@esa-paris.fr.

http://specialez.fr/journal/2010/12/07/call-for-submissions-2/