Course Title: Architecture and the Politics of Occupation

In this course, we will examine the ways in which architects use experimental and radical practices to explore the politics of territorial occupations and enclosures. In an era of globalization, how have architects analyzed manifestations of and transformations to political borders, state formations, and colonial occupations? How do practices in architecture contribute to critical understandings of nation-states, sovereignty, democracy, citizenship, immigration, racism, imperialism, warfare, and human rights? How is architecture used as a weapon in the “occupation,” or the possession, seizure, and filling up of space? When does architecture become a target of the politics of national, colonial, military, student or worker occupations? What techniques do architects and experimental researchers use to represent their observations of space and power relations? This class will analyze a range of visual and theoretical documents including written texts, maps, photographs, exhibition catalogues, films, multimedia installations, and performance pieces that architects use to interrogate the politics of occupation and enclosure. Throughout the course, students will learn how the politics of territorial acquisition, occupation, and the enclosure of space are being analyzed and questioned within the field of architecture. Grade based on class presentation and final paper.

Course readings are selected according to how architecture, avant-garde and political practices have informed each other from the Situationist International’s influence on student and worker occupations in France in the late 1960s to the “decolonizing architecture” movement in the West Bank and Gaza in the first half of the 21st century.

Readings and case studies (abridged):

Module I: Architecture and Politics: From Controlling Space to Spatial Practices

Week 1: Historical Precedents: Avant-Garde Practices, Architecture, Student Occupations in ‘68

Knabb, Ken, ed. Situationist International Anthology, 1981. (Selections)

Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle, 1994 (1967).

Team 10: 1953-1981: In Search of A Utopia of the Present, 2005. (Selections about the student occupation of the Venice Biennale in 1968)

Week 2: Contemporary Practices: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics from 1989 to present

Cruz, Teddy, and Anne Boddington, eds. “Introduction” Architecture of the Borderlands,1999.

Weizman, Eyal, and Rafi Segal. “Preface” and “Introduction” in A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture, 2003.

Miessan, Markus, and Shumon Basar. “Introduction: Did We Mean Participate of Did We Mean Something Else?” in Did Someone Say Participate?, 2006

Module II: The Architecture of Occupation

Week 3: Defensive Architecture in Military Occupation

Virilio, Paul. Bunker Archeology.1994 (1966).

Snyder, Sean. “Temporary Occupation” and An Architektur, “Extra-Territorial Spaces and Camps in the “War on Terror” in Territories: Islands, Camps and Other States of Utopia, 2003.

Week 4: Defensive Architecture in Civilian/National-Sovereign Occupation

Rotbard, Sharon. “Wall and Tower (Homa Unigdal): The Mold of Israeli Architecture” in A Civilian Occupation, 2003

Brown, Wendy. “Sovereignty and Enclosure” in Waning Sovereignty, Walled Democracy, 2010.

Week 5: Borders and (Neo)Colonial Occupation

Weizman, Eyal. “Checkpoints: The Split Sovereign and the One-Way Mirror”& “The Wall: Barrier Archipelagos and the Impossible Politics of Separation” in Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation, 2007

Mbembe, Achille. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15, no. 1 (Winter 2003): 11-40.

Week 6: NeoLiberal Occupation

Easterling, Keller. “El Ejido” & “DPRK” in Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and its Political Masquerades, 2005.

Linke, Armin. “Odessa/The World,” www.multiplicity.it, 2003.

Cruz, Teddy. Cross-Border Suburbia (Cross-Border Urbanisms of Emergency) in Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes, 2008.

Week 7: Settlements: Optical and Visual Control

Weizman, Eyal. “Fortifications: The Architecture of Ariel Sharon,” “Settlements: Battle for the Hilltops, ” & “Settlements: Optical Urbanism” in Hollow Land, 2007

Week 8: Camps and other States of Emergency

Agamben, Giorgio. “What is a Camp?” In Means Without Ends, 2000.

Demos, TJ. “Europe of Camps” Manifesta 7: the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, 2008.

Bulter, Judith. “Indefinite Detention” in Precarious Life, 2004.

Hailey, Charlie. Camps: A Guide to 21^st-Century Space, 2009.

Hanafi, Sari. “Palestinian Refugee Camps in the Palestinian Territory: Territory of Exception and Locus of Resistance” in The Power of Inclusive Exclusion, 2009.

Module III: Architecture as Weapon or Target

Week 8: Architecture as Weapon

Weizman, Eyal. “Urban Warfare: Walking Through Walls,” “Targeted Assassinations: The Airborne Occupation”in Hollow Land, 2007; “Military Operations as Urban Planning.” In Cities without Citizens, 2004; “Thanato-tactics” in The Power of Inclusive Exclusion, 2009.

Week 9: Architecture as Target

Graham, Stephen. “Lessons in Urbicide.” New Left Review19 (2003): 63-77 and “Remember Fallujah: Demonising Place, Constructing Atrocity” in Did Someone Say Participate?, 2006

Week 10: Borders as Weapons: Controlling Vision, Movements, Identities

Balibar, Etienne. “What is Border?” & “The Borders of Europe” in Politics and the Other Scene. London: Verso,

Weizman, Eyal. “Politics of Verticality”

Boeri, Stefano. “Border Syndrome: Notes for a Research Program,” “Solid Sea,” “Ghost Ship.” 2001

Herscher, Andrew. “Urban formations of difference: borders and cities in post-1989 Europe,” European Review, 2005.

Week 11: Borders, Plans and Maps as Weapons: Controlling Vision, Movements, Identities

Boeri, Stefano and Multiplicity. “The Road Map.” www.multiplicity.it

Efrat, Zvi. “The Plan” in A Civilian Occupation, 2003.

Week 12: Environment as Weapon

Virilio, Paul. Stop/Eject. in Native Land: Stop Eject, 177-204. Paris: Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2008.

Weizman, Eyal. “Episode 4: Politics of Shit” in “The Politics of Verticality” in Territories: Islands, Camps and Other States of Utopia, 2003.

Module IV: Decolonizing Architecture: Spatial Practices

Week 13: Decolonizing Architecture

Weizman, Eyal. “Decolonizing Architecture”. Abitare, 2010

Decolonizing Art and Architecture Residency, “Return to Jaffa,” “Right to Mobility,” “The Lawless Line,” “Common Assembly,” “Returns,” “Military Bases,” “Colonies” http://www.decolonizing.ps/site/

Boeri, Stefano. “Eclectic Atlases” in USE: Uncertain States of Europe, 2003

Week 14: Migrant and other Diasporas

Diller, Elizabeth, Ricardo Scofidio, Laura Kurgan, Ben Rubin, and Mark Hansen. “Video Control Room and Dynamic Maps.” In Native Land: Stop Eject, 289-299. Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2008.

Multiplicity. USE: Uncertain States of Europe, 2003. (Selections)

Cruz, Teddy. Cross-Border Suburbs; “Radicalizing the Local: 60 Linear Miles of Transborder Conflict.” diacritics 2010; “The Tijuana Workshop: The Border Chronicles of a Vertical Studio at SCI-Arc.” In Architecture of the Borderlands, 1999.