Future Memories and the Thief of Time: Traumatic Urbanism in Gaza between the Imaginary and the Real

Gazans have been living in and among ruins since at least the early twentieth century. More recently, following the Palestinian democratic scene of the 2006 Legislative Council elections, and the victory of Hamas over Fatah, a series of destructive wars have taken place accumulating three layers of rubble that are difficult to tell apart. During these years, Gazans have also been suffering from severe trauma, without sufficient time between the subsequent wars for healing. Today, Gaza is a stratified urban space of both material and immaterial ruins. By the latter, I herein refer to the psychological condition that results from conflict, and which is often coupled with lack of resilience, and a drifting socio-ecological system.

The material and immaterial ruins of Gaza as overlapping layers form a laboratory for exploring concepts that lie at the intersection between architecture, conflict and emotions. Whereas many efforts are either put into developing sustainable reconstruction methods or enquiring into post-war psychological conditions; less attention is paid to the intricate interlocking relationship between the two.

This analytical research aims at disclosing this intricate relationship by using time as an unfolding element. Time, is thus no longer addressed as a dimension of space where different events take place, but rather a navigation tool by which the intimate link between architecture, conflict and emotions is revealed. Moreover, it becomes a medium through which reconstructing buildings and reconstructing emotions are rethought as a single process. The paper also poses a question of how to design in contested territories such as Gaza, where a history of destruction also reflects future conflict possibility. In different words, how do we design for spaces of pre-emption and more particularly in which emotions of trauma, grief and loss are highly embedded. How can architecture become a time machine that travels between traumatic memories and projected blurry futures!

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