The latest instalment of our series of AR Reading Lists: seven carefully chosen pieces from our archive, free for registered users
The Israeli occupation of Palestine is writ into the region’s landscape, infrastructure and built environment. From the politics of gardening and irrigation, to artisanal skills under threat, from territorial walls and checkpoints to the challenges of building a home – let alone a museum – in Palestine, this AR Reading List examines the ongoing tragedy of the occupation through a spatial lens.
Register for free to read today and receive the AR Reading List straight to your inbox
Jerusalem stone: the history and identity of Palestinian stereotomy, AR April 2022, Nadi Abusaada
‘Palestinian expertise in stone quarrying, cutting, masonry and dressing remains the cornerstone of the country’s construction sector’
Engagement, education and hope: the Palestinian Museum by Heneghan Peng, AR June 2016, Shane O’Toole
‘Materials came from 28 different countries; no supplier had an agent in Palestine’
Violence of planting in Israel-Palestine, AR October 2021, Liat Berdugo
‘Trees are assumed to be natural, innocent ecological entities with no say in politics’
Anti-collage cities in Israel-Palestine, AR July/August 2021, Irit Katz
‘The spatial violence of the area creates a contested reality where urban layers and forms are invaded, blocked, stifled and erased in what might best be described as an anti-collage’
Palestine’s garden walls: the deliberate destruction of Palestine’s terraced gardens, AR February 2021, Nadi Abusaada
‘The terraced gardens, once the cherished creation that coloured those hills, today appear as patches of Palestinian local memory scattered across an imposing canvas of imported concrete’
Architecture is a weapon in the West Bank, AR May 2015, Eleanor Jolliffe
‘The mundane act of home-making has itself become a military tactic and nationalistic statement, dragging the everyday into a violent struggle’
The Globalising Wall: globalisation, conflict and division, AR June 2018, Danae Stratou and Yanis Varoufakis
‘A Palestinian from Qalqilia will discover strange bonds with a resident of Juarez, bonds that she may not feel in Cairo’
Lead image: In clear violation of international law, a huge wall was constructed straight through the Palestinian town of Abu Dis in the West Bank by Israel. Credit: Zero
