In the Oct. 23, 2008, Chronicle, I wrote about my first experience visiting Ramallah in the West Bank, where my friend Layla showed me her city.
I wanted to hear a Palestinian’s viewpoint before designing the thesis project for my master’s degree in architecture, a theoretical Israeli-Palestinian academic conference center and civic space in Jerusalem.
Seven months later, I am gearing up to present the final results in which I apply lessons learned to imagining a place that encourages Jerusalemites of multiple backgrounds to interact.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just one of the many problems people experience daily in Jerusalem. Among them, overcrowding reduces the standard of living and a severe water shortage escalates the inequitable distribution of already limited natural resources. Only as a collective entity will Jerusalemites be able to target their issues.
In too many instances, these urban problems persist because of difficult environments. One example of these problematic environments, Road 1, runs north-south through Jerusalem and sits adjacent to the 1947-1967 armistice line.
Despite 41 years of city unification, this 120-foot-wide asphalt strip that was carved into the landscape in the early 1990s bisects what could potentially be a vibrant, diverse neighborhood with integrated infrastructure.
Just north of the Old City, on each side of Road 1, is an isolated pocket of undeveloped land. Close your eyes and imagine how its redesign could spark the solution to intractable ethno-religious conflict, overcrowding, and water shortages.
In one scenario, a stone tablet-like bridge rises up from the east, crosses over the road, and slides into the west hill. Carved out of the tablet, an open-air market attracts people onto the site where they promenade from one side to the other.
At one end of the market lies the conference center that is also chiseled out of the mass. A water feature anchors the east entrance and collects precious rainwater.
On top of the tablet, a grove of olive and pomegranate trees provides shaded relief from the cramped housing nearby as well as free fruit for the picking.
This urban intervention promotes a dialogue centered on equally and shared civic pride. Improving people’s day-to-day lives on each side of and over Road 1 promises a stronger foundation upon which to build meaningful coexistence.
Jodie Mendelson is a graduate student in architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
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