Architecture has long served the powerful and prosperous. But it is in a unique position to help reconstruct post-conflict societies by building stability and uniting divided cities

Junne, G.

English

Architecture has long served the powerful and prosperous. But it is in a unique position to help reconstruct post-conflict societies by building stability and uniting divided cities.<br/

International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion online publications

UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl)UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)Designing peace: bricks and mortar of reconciliationJunne, G.Publication date2010Document VersionFinal published versionPublished inThe BrokerLink to publicationCitation for published version (APA):Junne, G. (2010). Designing peace: bricks and mortar of reconciliation. The Broker, 20, 30-33. http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Articles/Designing-peaceGeneral rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s)and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an opencontent license (like Creative Commons).Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, pleaselet the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the materialinaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letterto: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Youwill be contacted as soon as possible.Download date:09 Mar 2023Designing peaceArchitecture has long served the powerful and prosperous. But it is in a unique position to help reconstruct post-conflict societies by building stability and uniting divided cities.By Gerd Junne, professor of international relations at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.A great deal of (re)construction takes place in the aftermath of war. Can this be done in such a way that it creates more peaceful relations among inhabitants in the future? Is an ‘architecture of peace’ possible? This was the central question at a conference of architects and social scientists at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in May 2010.The physical environment influences social relations. Chairs in a room arranged in a circle will generate a different discussion than if they were arranged in rows. More street light makes people feel more secure. People hardly get to know each other in large apartment blocks and remain anonymous. Public space is needed for people to intermingle, just as offices need coffee corners and copy machines for people to meet and interact. So the question is not whether architecture and city planning influence social behaviour, but how and to what extent. How much influence can architecture and city planning exert towards shaping a society torn apart by conflicts or just emerging from large-scale violence? Post-conflict situations are even more complex than situations following an earthquake or a tsunami. Natural disasters tend to unite people (though different groups tend to be affected differently). Societies that have just experienced large-scale violence, however, remain deeply divided, even after the shooting has stopped. Every step of reconstruction is evaluated, whether it favours one side or another. Security problems abound. Weapons are everywhere, and a culture of violence persists. The most mobile and educated will have left the country. Money is only in the hands of those who profited from the war situation (by smuggling, looting, running protection rackets and human trafficking). Warring factions contest the leadership. Civic institutions cease to function. Popular participation in decision making suffers from mutual hatred. summary•  The physical environment influences social behaviour. It stands to reason that architecture can help shape societies emerging from conflict.•  Historically, architecture has always served the victorious and the powerful. But it can be used to create a stable physical environment, which in turn would promote social stability.•  To achieve this goal, architects must stop regarding peace as only a favourable condition for architecture, and rather see peace as a condition that can be designed.•  Architects are in a position to reunite divided cities. By removing physical barriers they can also remove barriers in the minds of the inhabitants.Bricks and mortar of reconciliationIn addition, decision makers are under severe pressure to introduce immediate improvements. Failure to do this could cause the country to relapse into war. This happens within five years in about half of all violent civil conflicts. Any ‘post-war’ situation may easily turn into a ‘pre-war’ situation. The question is to what extent can architecture, in the broad sense of the term (including city planners), contribute to reducing the chance of violent intra-state conflict?To utopia and back againMost remnants of historical constructions are either relics of an ‘architecture of war’ (fortresses, city walls, watch towers), Herrschaftsarchitektur (power archtitecture), ruling-class architecture (palaces, castles, courts) or religious buildings. They were built to impress, subdue, enforce, intimidate and defend. Historically, architecture has always served the victorious and the powerful. The question of whether architecture can also serve another purpose has only been asked recently. Why can’t architecture contribute to emancipation? Why can’t it be used to uplift people, to empower them, to contribute to equality and facilitate peaceful interaction?This question was first seriously considered following World War I, when architects became ardent proponents of www.thebrokeronline.eu30REUTERS / K. Haldermodernism. They were convinced that a new, classless society could be built on the foundation of rationally designed constructions that provide space for living, studying and recreation for everyone. The interest was short-lived. It quickly gave way to a new wave of ‘imperialist’ architecture, which also took root under fascism and communism. But the interest revived after World War II, especially in cities with a social-democrat leaning, and intensified with the cultural revolution of the 1960s.  But when the general belief in a ‘manageable’ world faltered in the 1970s and 1980s, so did the confidence of architects that they could re-engineer the world. It gave way to aestheticism or functionalism – until some architects realized that their profession might well have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Though the idea of architects creating a new world by designing better buildings (and towns) was utopian, this did not mean that they had no influence at all. The devastation in many war-torn countries in the 1990s in particular stimulated a new way of thinking about how architects could contribute to conflict prevention or the healing of ‘wounded cities’.Role of architectsOne of the first institutions to take up this challenge and put the contribution of architects into a broader political, economic and social context was the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU) of the University of York, United Kingdom, founded by Sultan Barakat in 1993. One of his first students at PRDU, Esther Charlesworth, followed his lead and started Architects Without Frontiers in 1999. However, architects actually play only a marginal role in post-conflict development. Most of them only regard peace as a favourable condition for architecture, not as a condition which itself can be designed. Given their specific competences, they could be playing a more meaningful role in the following areas:1.  Architecture is about the organization of space. Architects can assist by designing spatial arrangements that are more conducive to stability and peace.2.  Architects focus on the future. They build for future use. Conflicting parties are often prisoners of their past. They blame each other for past atrocities. Architects can turn their attention from what has been to what should be.3.  Architects are trained to give human needs – such as shelter, protection, comfort, rest, interaction – more weight than ideologies and beliefs. 4.  Architects work in an interdisciplinary way, and it is their daily task to mediate between different stakeholders (owners, users, neighbours, authorities, customers, visitors) and find compromises in the face of different exigencies. 5.  Architects have a natural sense of sequence: the second floor cannot be built before the first. This ability can also help to formulate post-conflict development strategies.6.  Architects are used to complexity and trained to understand the interaction between a building’s different components, materials and types of use (systemic thinking). 7.  Architects want to build something solid and lasting – something that lasts for at least a while. They aim for stability, which is highly desirable in a post-conflict situation. >The Broker  issue 20/21  July 2010 31Preventing urbicideOne of the major concerns of architects, in addition to human suffering, is the conservation of cultural heritage that has been threatened or destroyed during war. Attempts at ethnic cleansing do not only aim to chase away other ethnic groups, but also to eliminate all artefacts symbolizing a group’s roots in a given territory. It is routine during conflict for one group to consciously target sites that are historically significant for another group. This basically comes down to eradicating another group’s cultural monuments. Destruction, however, often goes further. It is not only the monuments of the ‘other’ that are targeted. Cities as centres of urban life are hit too. Many conflicts around the world have a background of conflict between urban civilizations and their rural environment, one that has played itself out from Cambodia to Bosnia, and from Iran to Sierra Leone. In his essay Urbicide and Chances for the Reconstruction of Balkan Cities, Milan Prodanovic argues that cities symbolize ‘the coexistence of a variety of interrelated ethnic and cultural groups’. He points out that the former mayor of Belgrade used the term urbicide to describe attempts to virtually and symbolically ‘murder’ cities, resulting from ‘archetypal feelings of hostility on the part of rural society toward the rise of cities’.One of the victims of urbicide was Mostar. It also provided a famous example of the high priority given to the restoration of a historical site, namely the restoration of the old Ottoman bridge across the Neretva River. This bridge connected two sides of the town, inhabited by Muslims and Croats respectively. For foreigners, the bridge became a symbol for reuniting the fighting groups. But when it was finally rebuilt, hardly any of Mostar’s inhabitants used it.  Divided citiesUniting divided cities has been a great challenge for architects, from Belfast to Nicosia, regardless of whether these cities have been divided by walls or by barriers in the minds of their inhabitants. The longer the division continues, the more the different communities arrange their life around it. The border areas that could function as meeting grounds for people to interact with each other become a peripheral wasteland for both sides. Architects and city planners could do a great job in such situations to revive these border territories – as long as the political situation allows it. But they do not have to wait for this to happen. Attractive plans for these areas might generate the political will to realize such plans.These mental borderlines in the minds of people are difficult to bridge by architecture. They can try to assist in overcoming these mental barriers by constructing buildings with high symbolic value. But rebuilding after a civil war (or after a revolution, like the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994) often does not only aim to restore destroyed sites. It intends to build something new on the ruins of the old regime to symbolize the change that has taken place. A building in South Africa that symbolizes the fundamental break with the former era is the new constitutional court in Johannesburg, built on top of what used to be the country’s famous prison where many of those who fought the apartheid system had been incarcerated. As  a gesture, it is perfect. But unfortunately it does not  directly affect the relationship between different groups in South Africa.Another famous building that has been restored is the Reichstag, the seat of the German parliament in Berlin. It was once set on fire by the Nazi regime and heavily damaged during World War II. It was given a big glass dome on top of the rebuilt building, symbolizing the architect’s desire for transparency in politics. It is a fabulous construction, but critics point out that the ability to look inside a construction will probably not increase people’s ‘insight’ of it.There was heated discussion in New York City about what should replace the Twin Towers destroyed in the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Suggestions to build a constitutional court, a parliament or a replacement for the Twin Towers are intended to symbolize unity, justice, transparency and resilience. But it is not yet clear what their direct impact will be for people who use it (or do not use it) or live in the neighbourhood. The buildings clearly have a message, but it is not clear who this message is intended for, nor what they are going do to with it.The work on divided cities is not only extremely interesting for those cities that experienced a dramatic split or had high walls erected between different boroughs. ‘What happened here could happen anywhere else,’ according to a Beirut resident’s wartime memoir referred to in Jon Calame and Esther Charlesworth’s 2009 book Divided Cities: Belfast, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia. More and more cities have taken on a multicultural character. If no preventive measures are taken, initial tensions could escalate to such an extent that the list of divided cities becomes much longer. Actually, cities could be the arena for much violent conflict in the 21st century.Turbo-urbanizationNot all post-conflict cities are clearly divided along ethnic lines yet. But practically all have to cope with a dramatic rise in the population, which often doubles or even triples within a year. The reasons behind this population increase are insecurity in rural areas, dangerous agriculture (landmines), better access to basic public services and better (even if still slim) employment prospects. Measures taken by foreign countries also contribute to sudden and sharp population rises in cities. When the war in Kosovo ended, for example, Germany sent 96,000 refugees from Kosovo back to the country, 11,000 of which were forcibly deported. Many of them cannot or dare not go back to their original homes (which may be devastated, occupied by others, situated in an unsafe environment or have few employment opportunities). So they stay in the capital – or on the fringe of the capital. Post-conflict cities go through the same problems as expanding cities, only at the speed of a bullet train. The sudden acceleration of activity leads to a multitude of www.thebrokeronline.eu32spontaneous building activities. This creates heated conflict about land rights, which poses tremendous challenges for the planning of infrastructure and basic services. Public authorities are in no way able to channel these activities according to any demonstrable plan. Planning authorities are often decimated in such situations. Their offices, which may have employed 40 or 50 civil servants prior to a conflict, may only have a handful left following the conflict. Sultan Barakat pointed out in his presentation at the NAi conference that, ironically, local capacity is at its lowest when the willingness of the international community to provide means for reconstruction is at its highest, in the immediate aftermath of large-scale violence.Urban authorities also struggle to (re-)establish themselves. They not only compete with private parties and market forces, but also face rival agendas from provincial or national authorities, and from the military, police or militias, all of whom view cities from a different vantage point. This competition is not only a question of a legal division of tasks and responsibilities. It is also an economic issue, given that the authority that issues permits for construction is an important source of legal and illegal income. Perfect slums Even under ‘normal’ circumstances, construction cannot keep pace with a sudden population rise of such proportions. The city of Kabul, for example, in spite of its large-scale destruction, saw its population triple, with half of it now living in provisional settlements or slums. In Iraq, about 2.9 million people (or 17% of the population) lived in slums in 2000. In 2010, their number had increased to 10 million.City planners face immense challenges. Top-down planning only leads to additional conflict. The self-organizing capacity of slum dwellers is often underestimated. In many cases, it is probably better to provide inhabitants with the means to upgrade their quarters themselves. This would enable them to create neighbourhoods with a higher quality of life, without it leading to rent increases that would force many inhabitants to leave and create new provisional settlements elsewhere. Many interventions have been planned to better integrate slum or favela communities into their surrounding neighbourhoods. But the real challenge is to find jobs and income for the slum dwellers, which would provide them with the means to improve their houses and stay there when prices rise. Valley of thieves Not all cities in conflict zones suffer from conflict. Some cities thrive. A good example is Goma at the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. In Goma, the rising trade and smuggling of minerals during the wars turned the city into a vibrant regional centre. It became a boom town, but its newly acquired status also gave rise to new land conflicts. In other cities, it may not be the whole city that profits from the war situation. It may just be one area inhabited by war profiteers. The privatized coast along the Danube in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second largest city (which saw its population double after the war), is called the ‘valley of thieves’ by the local population. If there is little improvement in other parts of cities, such tangible inequalities may just lay the ground for another round of conflict in the future. □	 Al-Harithy,	H.	(ed)	(2010)	Lessons in Post-War Reconstruction. Case Studies from Lebanon in the Aftermath of the 2006 War. Routledge.□	 Bevan,	R.	(2006)	The Destruction of Memory. Architecture at War.	Reaktion	Books.□	 Charlesworth,	E.	(2006)	Architects Without Frontiers. War, Reconstruction and Design Responsibility.	Architectural	Press.□	 Hills,	A.	(2009)	Policing Post-Conflict Cities.	Zed	Books.□	 Vöckler,	K.	(2008)	Prishtina is Everywhere. Turbo Urbanism: The Aftermath of a Crisis.	Archis.	HH / Nick HannesIn 1993, the famous bridge of Mostar in Bosnia was destroyed during fierce fighting between Croats and Muslims. After the war the town was divided, but the bridge was restored and reopened in 2004. The Broker  issue 20/21  July 2010 33

Designing peace: bricks and mortar of reconciliation

UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl)UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)Designing peace: bricks and mortar of reconciliationJunne, G.Publication date2010Document VersionFinal published versionPublished inThe BrokerLink to publicationCitation for published version (APA):Junne, G. (2010). Designing peace: bricks and mortar of reconciliation. The Broker, 20, 30-33. http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Articles/Designing-peaceGeneral rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s)and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an opencontent license (like Creative Commons).Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, pleaselet the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the materialinaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letterto: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Youwill be contacted as soon as possible.Download date:10 Nov 2022Designing peaceArchitecture has long served the powerful and prosperous. But it is in a unique position to help reconstruct post-conflict societies by building stability and uniting divided cities.By Gerd Junne, professor of international relations at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.A great deal of (re)construction takes place in the aftermath of war. Can this be done in such a way that it creates more peaceful relations among inhabitants in the future? Is an ‘architecture of peace’ possible? This was the central question at a conference of architects and social scientists at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in May 2010.The physical environment influences social relations. Chairs in a room arranged in a circle will generate a different discussion than if they were arranged in rows. More street light makes people feel more secure. People hardly get to know each other in large apartment blocks and remain anonymous. Public space is needed for people to intermingle, just as offices need coffee corners and copy machines for people to meet and interact. So the question is not whether architecture and city planning influence social behaviour, but how and to what extent. How much influence can architecture and city planning exert towards shaping a society torn apart by conflicts or just emerging from large-scale violence? Post-conflict situations are even more complex than situations following an earthquake or a tsunami. Natural disasters tend to unite people (though different groups tend to be affected differently). Societies that have just experienced large-scale violence, however, remain deeply divided, even after the shooting has stopped. Every step of reconstruction is evaluated, whether it favours one side or another. Security problems abound. Weapons are everywhere, and a culture of violence persists. The most mobile and educated will have left the country. Money is only in the hands of those who profited from the war situation (by smuggling, looting, running protection rackets and human trafficking). Warring factions contest the leadership. Civic institutions cease to function. Popular participation in decision making suffers from mutual hatred. summary•  The physical environment influences social behaviour. It stands to reason that architecture can help shape societies emerging from conflict.•  Historically, architecture has always served the victorious and the powerful. But it can be used to create a stable physical environment, which in turn would promote social stability.•  To achieve this goal, architects must stop regarding peace as only a favourable condition for architecture, and rather see peace as a condition that can be designed.•  Architects are in a position to reunite divided cities. By removing physical barriers they can also remove barriers in the minds of the inhabitants.Bricks and mortar of reconciliationIn addition, decision makers are under severe pressure to introduce immediate improvements. Failure to do this could cause the country to relapse into war. This happens within five years in about half of all violent civil conflicts. Any ‘post-war’ situation may easily turn into a ‘pre-war’ situation. The question is to what extent can architecture, in the broad sense of the term (including city planners), contribute to reducing the chance of violent intra-state conflict?To utopia and back againMost remnants of historical constructions are either relics of an ‘architecture of war’ (fortresses, city walls, watch towers), Herrschaftsarchitektur (power archtitecture), ruling-class architecture (palaces, castles, courts) or religious buildings. They were built to impress, subdue, enforce, intimidate and defend. Historically, architecture has always served the victorious and the powerful. The question of whether architecture can also serve another purpose has only been asked recently. Why can’t architecture contribute to emancipation? Why can’t it be used to uplift people, to empower them, to contribute to equality and facilitate peaceful interaction?This question was first seriously considered following World War I, when architects became ardent proponents of www.thebrokeronline.eu30REUTERS / K. Haldermodernism. They were convinced that a new, classless society could be built on the foundation of rationally designed constructions that provide space for living, studying and recreation for everyone. The interest was short-lived. It quickly gave way to a new wave of ‘imperialist’ architecture, which also took root under fascism and communism. But the interest revived after World War II, especially in cities with a social-democrat leaning, and intensified with the cultural revolution of the 1960s.  But when the general belief in a ‘manageable’ world faltered in the 1970s and 1980s, so did the confidence of architects that they could re-engineer the world. It gave way to aestheticism or functionalism – until some architects realized that their profession might well have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Though the idea of architects creating a new world by designing better buildings (and towns) was utopian, this did not mean that they had no influence at all. The devastation in many war-torn countries in the 1990s in particular stimulated a new way of thinking about how architects could contribute to conflict prevention or the healing of ‘wounded cities’.Role of architectsOne of the first institutions to take up this challenge and put the contribution of architects into a broader political, economic and social context was the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU) of the University of York, United Kingdom, founded by Sultan Barakat in 1993. One of his first students at PRDU, Esther Charlesworth, followed his lead and started Architects Without Frontiers in 1999. However, architects actually play only a marginal role in post-conflict development. Most of them only regard peace as a favourable condition for architecture, not as a condition which itself can be designed. Given their specific competences, they could be playing a more meaningful role in the following areas:1.  Architecture is about the organization of space. Architects can assist by designing spatial arrangements that are more conducive to stability and peace.2.  Architects focus on the future. They build for future use. Conflicting parties are often prisoners of their past. They blame each other for past atrocities. Architects can turn their attention from what has been to what should be.3.  Architects are trained to give human needs – such as shelter, protection, comfort, rest, interaction – more weight than ideologies and beliefs. 4.  Architects work in an interdisciplinary way, and it is their daily task to mediate between different stakeholders (owners, users, neighbours, authorities, customers, visitors) and find compromises in the face of different exigencies. 5.  Architects have a natural sense of sequence: the second floor cannot be built before the first. This ability can also help to formulate post-conflict development strategies.6.  Architects are used to complexity and trained to understand the interaction between a building’s different components, materials and types of use (systemic thinking). 7.  Architects want to build something solid and lasting – something that lasts for at least a while. They aim for stability, which is highly desirable in a post-conflict situation. >The Broker  issue 20/21  July 2010 31Preventing urbicideOne of the major concerns of architects, in addition to human suffering, is the conservation of cultural heritage that has been threatened or destroyed during war. Attempts at ethnic cleansing do not only aim to chase away other ethnic groups, but also to eliminate all artefacts symbolizing a group’s roots in a given territory. It is routine during conflict for one group to consciously target sites that are historically significant for another group. This basically comes down to eradicating another group’s cultural monuments. Destruction, however, often goes further. It is not only the monuments of the ‘other’ that are targeted. Cities as centres of urban life are hit too. Many conflicts around the world have a background of conflict between urban civilizations and their rural environment, one that has played itself out from Cambodia to Bosnia, and from Iran to Sierra Leone. In his essay Urbicide and Chances for the Reconstruction of Balkan Cities, Milan Prodanovic argues that cities symbolize ‘the coexistence of a variety of interrelated ethnic and cultural groups’. He points out that the former mayor of Belgrade used the term urbicide to describe attempts to virtually and symbolically ‘murder’ cities, resulting from ‘archetypal feelings of hostility on the part of rural society toward the rise of cities’.One of the victims of urbicide was Mostar. It also provided a famous example of the high priority given to the restoration of a historical site, namely the restoration of the old Ottoman bridge across the Neretva River. This bridge connected two sides of the town, inhabited by Muslims and Croats respectively. For foreigners, the bridge became a symbol for reuniting the fighting groups. But when it was finally rebuilt, hardly any of Mostar’s inhabitants used it.  Divided citiesUniting divided cities has been a great challenge for architects, from Belfast to Nicosia, regardless of whether these cities have been divided by walls or by barriers in the minds of their inhabitants. The longer the division continues, the more the different communities arrange their life around it. The border areas that could function as meeting grounds for people to interact with each other become a peripheral wasteland for both sides. Architects and city planners could do a great job in such situations to revive these border territories – as long as the political situation allows it. But they do not have to wait for this to happen. Attractive plans for these areas might generate the political will to realize such plans.These mental borderlines in the minds of people are difficult to bridge by architecture. They can try to assist in overcoming these mental barriers by constructing buildings with high symbolic value. But rebuilding after a civil war (or after a revolution, like the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994) often does not only aim to restore destroyed sites. It intends to build something new on the ruins of the old regime to symbolize the change that has taken place. A building in South Africa that symbolizes the fundamental break with the former era is the new constitutional court in Johannesburg, built on top of what used to be the country’s famous prison where many of those who fought the apartheid system had been incarcerated. As  a gesture, it is perfect. But unfortunately it does not  directly affect the relationship between different groups in South Africa.Another famous building that has been restored is the Reichstag, the seat of the German parliament in Berlin. It was once set on fire by the Nazi regime and heavily damaged during World War II. It was given a big glass dome on top of the rebuilt building, symbolizing the architect’s desire for transparency in politics. It is a fabulous construction, but critics point out that the ability to look inside a construction will probably not increase people’s ‘insight’ of it.There was heated discussion in New York City about what should replace the Twin Towers destroyed in the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Suggestions to build a constitutional court, a parliament or a replacement for the Twin Towers are intended to symbolize unity, justice, transparency and resilience. But it is not yet clear what their direct impact will be for people who use it (or do not use it) or live in the neighbourhood. The buildings clearly have a message, but it is not clear who this message is intended for, nor what they are going do to with it.The work on divided cities is not only extremely interesting for those cities that experienced a dramatic split or had high walls erected between different boroughs. ‘What happened here could happen anywhere else,’ according to a Beirut resident’s wartime memoir referred to in Jon Calame and Esther Charlesworth’s 2009 book Divided Cities: Belfast, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia. More and more cities have taken on a multicultural character. If no preventive measures are taken, initial tensions could escalate to such an extent that the list of divided cities becomes much longer. Actually, cities could be the arena for much violent conflict in the 21st century.Turbo-urbanizationNot all post-conflict cities are clearly divided along ethnic lines yet. But practically all have to cope with a dramatic rise in the population, which often doubles or even triples within a year. The reasons behind this population increase are insecurity in rural areas, dangerous agriculture (landmines), better access to basic public services and better (even if still slim) employment prospects. Measures taken by foreign countries also contribute to sudden and sharp population rises in cities. When the war in Kosovo ended, for example, Germany sent 96,000 refugees from Kosovo back to the country, 11,000 of which were forcibly deported. Many of them cannot or dare not go back to their original homes (which may be devastated, occupied by others, situated in an unsafe environment or have few employment opportunities). So they stay in the capital – or on the fringe of the capital. Post-conflict cities go through the same problems as expanding cities, only at the speed of a bullet train. The sudden acceleration of activity leads to a multitude of www.thebrokeronline.eu32spontaneous building activities. This creates heated conflict about land rights, which poses tremendous challenges for the planning of infrastructure and basic services. Public authorities are in no way able to channel these activities according to any demonstrable plan. Planning authorities are often decimated in such situations. Their offices, which may have employed 40 or 50 civil servants prior to a conflict, may only have a handful left following the conflict. Sultan Barakat pointed out in his presentation at the NAi conference that, ironically, local capacity is at its lowest when the willingness of the international community to provide means for reconstruction is at its highest, in the immediate aftermath of large-scale violence.Urban authorities also struggle to (re-)establish themselves. They not only compete with private parties and market forces, but also face rival agendas from provincial or national authorities, and from the military, police or militias, all of whom view cities from a different vantage point. This competition is not only a question of a legal division of tasks and responsibilities. It is also an economic issue, given that the authority that issues permits for construction is an important source of legal and illegal income. Perfect slums Even under ‘normal’ circumstances, construction cannot keep pace with a sudden population rise of such proportions. The city of Kabul, for example, in spite of its large-scale destruction, saw its population triple, with half of it now living in provisional settlements or slums. In Iraq, about 2.9 million people (or 17% of the population) lived in slums in 2000. In 2010, their number had increased to 10 million.City planners face immense challenges. Top-down planning only leads to additional conflict. The self-organizing capacity of slum dwellers is often underestimated. In many cases, it is probably better to provide inhabitants with the means to upgrade their quarters themselves. This would enable them to create neighbourhoods with a higher quality of life, without it leading to rent increases that would force many inhabitants to leave and create new provisional settlements elsewhere. Many interventions have been planned to better integrate slum or favela communities into their surrounding neighbourhoods. But the real challenge is to find jobs and income for the slum dwellers, which would provide them with the means to improve their houses and stay there when prices rise. Valley of thieves Not all cities in conflict zones suffer from conflict. Some cities thrive. A good example is Goma at the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. In Goma, the rising trade and smuggling of minerals during the wars turned the city into a vibrant regional centre. It became a boom town, but its newly acquired status also gave rise to new land conflicts. In other cities, it may not be the whole city that profits from the war situation. It may just be one area inhabited by war profiteers. The privatized coast along the Danube in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second largest city (which saw its population double after the war), is called the ‘valley of thieves’ by the local population. If there is little improvement in other parts of cities, such tangible inequalities may just lay the ground for another round of conflict in the future. □	 Al-Harithy,	H.	(ed)	(2010)	Lessons in Post-War Reconstruction. Case Studies from Lebanon in the Aftermath of the 2006 War. Routledge.□	 Bevan,	R.	(2006)	The Destruction of Memory. Architecture at War.	Reaktion	Books.□	 Charlesworth,	E.	(2006)	Architects Without Frontiers. War, Reconstruction and Design Responsibility.	Architectural	Press.□	 Hills,	A.	(2009)	Policing Post-Conflict Cities.	Zed	Books.□	 Vöckler,	K.	(2008)	Prishtina is Everywhere. Turbo Urbanism: The Aftermath of a Crisis.	Archis.	HH / Nick HannesIn 1993, the famous bridge of Mostar in Bosnia was destroyed during fierce fighting between Croats and Muslims. After the war the town was divided, but the bridge was restored and reopened in 2004. The Broker  issue 20/21  July 2010 33

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Designing peace: bricks and mortar of reconciliation
Junne, G.
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The Broker
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Junne, G. (2010). Designing peace: bricks and mortar of reconciliation. The Broker, 20, 30-33.
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Download date: 08 Feb 2021
Designing peace
Architecture has long served the powerful and prosperous. But it is in 
a unique position to help reconstruct post-conflict societies by building 
stability and uniting divided cities.
By Gerd Junne, professor of international relations at the University of 
Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
A great deal of (re)construction takes place in the aftermath of war. Can this be done in such a way that it 
creates more peaceful relations among inhabitants in the 
future? Is an ‘architecture of peace’ possible? This was the 
central question at a conference of architects and social 
scientists at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in 
May 2010.
The physical environment influences social relations. 
Chairs in a room arranged in a circle will generate a different 
discussion than if they were arranged in rows. More street 
light makes people feel more secure. People hardly get to 
know each other in large apartment blocks and remain 
anonymous. Public space is needed for people to intermingle, 
just as offices need coffee corners and copy machines for 
people to meet and interact. So the question is not whether 
architecture and city planning influence social behaviour, but 
how and to what extent. How much influence can 
architecture and city planning exert towards shaping a 
society torn apart by conflicts or just emerging from large-
scale violence? 
Post-conflict situations are even more complex than 
situations following an earthquake or a tsunami. Natural 
disasters tend to unite people (though different groups tend 
to be affected differently). Societies that have just 
experienced large-scale violence, however, remain deeply 
divided, even after the shooting has stopped. Every step of 
reconstruction is evaluated, whether it favours one side or 
another. Security problems abound. Weapons are 
everywhere, and a culture of violence persists. 
The most mobile and educated will have left the country. 
Money is only in the hands of those who profited from the 
war situation (by smuggling, looting, running protection 
rackets and human trafficking). Warring factions contest the 
leadership. Civic institutions cease to function. Popular 
participation in decision making suffers from mutual hatred. 
summary
•  The physical environment influences social behaviour. It stands to 
reason that architecture can help shape societies emerging from 
conflict.
•  Historically, architecture has always served the victorious and the 
powerful. But it can be used to create a stable physical environment, 
which in turn would promote social stability.
•  To achieve this goal, architects must stop regarding peace as only 
a favourable condition for architecture, and rather see peace as a 
condition that can be designed.
•  Architects are in a position to reunite divided cities. By removing 
physical barriers they can also remove barriers in the minds of the 
inhabitants.
Bricks and mortar of reconciliation
In addition, decision makers are under severe pressure to 
introduce immediate improvements. Failure to do this could 
cause the country to relapse into war. This happens within 
five years in about half of all violent civil conflicts. Any 
‘post-war’ situation may easily turn into a ‘pre-war’ situation. 
The question is to what extent can architecture, in the broad 
sense of the term (including city planners), contribute to 
reducing the chance of violent intra-state conflict?
To utopia and back again
Most remnants of historical constructions are either relics of 
an ‘architecture of war’ (fortresses, city walls, watch towers), 
Herrschaftsarchitektur (power archtitecture), ruling-class 
architecture (palaces, castles, courts) or religious buildings. 
They were built to impress, subdue, enforce, intimidate and 
defend. Historically, architecture has always served the 
victorious and the powerful. The question of whether 
architecture can also serve another purpose has only been 
asked recently. Why can’t architecture contribute to 
emancipation? Why can’t it be used to uplift people, to 
empower them, to contribute to equality and facilitate 
peaceful interaction?
This question was first seriously considered following 
World War I, when architects became ardent proponents of 
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modernism. They were convinced that a new, classless 
society could be built on the foundation of rationally 
designed constructions that provide space for living, studying 
and recreation for everyone. The interest was short-lived. It 
quickly gave way to a new wave of ‘imperialist’ architecture, 
which also took root under fascism and communism. But the 
interest revived after World War II, especially in cities with a 
social-democrat leaning, and intensified with the cultural 
revolution of the 1960s.  
But when the general belief in a ‘manageable’ world 
faltered in the 1970s and 1980s, so did the confidence of 
architects that they could re-engineer the world. It gave way 
to aestheticism or functionalism – until some architects 
realized that their profession might well have thrown the 
baby out with the bathwater. Though the idea of architects 
creating a new world by designing better buildings (and 
towns) was utopian, this did not mean that they had no 
influence at all. The devastation in many war-torn countries 
in the 1990s in particular stimulated a new way of thinking 
about how architects could contribute to conflict prevention 
or the healing of ‘wounded cities’.
Role of architects
One of the first institutions to take up this challenge and put 
the contribution of architects into a broader political, 
economic and social context was the Post-war 
Reconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU) of the 
University of York, United Kingdom, founded by Sultan 
Barakat in 1993. One of his first students at PRDU, Esther 
Charlesworth, followed his lead and started Architects 
Without Frontiers in 1999. However, architects actually play 
only a marginal role in post-conflict development. Most of 
them only regard peace as a favourable condition for 
architecture, not as a condition which itself can be designed. 
Given their specific competences, they could be playing a 
more meaningful role in the following areas:
1.  Architecture is about the organization of space. Architects 
can assist by designing spatial arrangements that are more 
conducive to stability and peace.
2.  Architects focus on the future. They build for future use. 
Conflicting parties are often prisoners of their past. They 
blame each other for past atrocities. Architects can turn 
their attention from what has been to what should be.
3.  Architects are trained to give human needs – such as 
shelter, protection, comfort, rest, interaction – more weight 
than ideologies and beliefs. 
4.  Architects work in an interdisciplinary way, and it is their 
daily task to mediate between different stakeholders 
(owners, users, neighbours, authorities, customers, 
visitors) and find compromises in the face of different 
exigencies. 
5.  Architects have a natural sense of sequence: the second 
floor cannot be built before the first. This ability can also 
help to formulate post-conflict development strategies.
6.  Architects are used to complexity and trained to 
understand the interaction between a building’s different 
components, materials and types of use (systemic 
thinking). 
7.  Architects want to build something solid and lasting 
– something that lasts for at least a while. They aim for 
stability, which is highly desirable in a post-conflict 
situation. >
The Broker  issue 20/21  July 2010 31
Preventing urbicide
One of the major concerns of architects, in addition to 
human suffering, is the conservation of cultural heritage that 
has been threatened or destroyed during war. Attempts at 
ethnic cleansing do not only aim to chase away other ethnic 
groups, but also to eliminate all artefacts symbolizing a 
group’s roots in a given territory. It is routine during conflict 
for one group to consciously target sites that are historically 
significant for another group. This basically comes down to 
eradicating another group’s cultural monuments. 
Destruction, however, often goes further. It is not only the 
monuments of the ‘other’ that are targeted. Cities as centres 
of urban life are hit too. Many conflicts around the world 
have a background of conflict between urban civilizations 
and their rural environment, one that has played itself out 
from Cambodia to Bosnia, and from Iran to Sierra Leone. In 
his essay Urbicide and Chances for the Reconstruction of Balkan 
Cities, Milan Prodanovic argues that cities symbolize ‘the 
coexistence of a variety of interrelated ethnic and cultural 
groups’. He points out that the former mayor of Belgrade 
used the term urbicide to describe attempts to virtually and 
symbolically ‘murder’ cities, resulting from ‘archetypal 
feelings of hostility on the part of rural society toward the rise 
of cities’.
One of the victims of urbicide was Mostar. It also provided 
a famous example of the high priority given to the restoration 
of a historical site, namely the restoration of the old Ottoman 
bridge across the Neretva River. This bridge connected two 
sides of the town, inhabited by Muslims and Croats 
respectively. For foreigners, the bridge became a symbol for 
reuniting the fighting groups. But when it was finally rebuilt, 
hardly any of Mostar’s inhabitants used it.  
Divided cities
Uniting divided cities has been a great challenge for architects, 
from Belfast to Nicosia, regardless of whether these cities have 
been divided by walls or by barriers in the minds of their 
inhabitants. The longer the division continues, the more the 
different communities arrange their life around it. The border 
areas that could function as meeting grounds for people to 
interact with each other become a peripheral wasteland for 
both sides. Architects and city planners could do a great job in 
such situations to revive these border territories – as long as 
the political situation allows it. But they do not have to wait for 
this to happen. Attractive plans for these areas might generate 
the political will to realize such plans.
These mental borderlines in the minds of people are 
difficult to bridge by architecture. They can try to assist in 
overcoming these mental barriers by constructing buildings 
with high symbolic value. But rebuilding after a civil war (or 
after a revolution, like the end of the apartheid regime in 
South Africa in 1994) often does not only aim to restore 
destroyed sites. It intends to build something new on the 
ruins of the old regime to symbolize the change that has 
taken place. 
A building in South Africa that symbolizes the 
fundamental break with the former era is the new 
constitutional court in Johannesburg, built on top of what 
used to be the country’s famous prison where many of those 
who fought the apartheid system had been incarcerated. As  
a gesture, it is perfect. But unfortunately it does not  
directly affect the relationship between different groups in 
South Africa.
Another famous building that has been restored is the 
Reichstag, the seat of the German parliament in Berlin. It 
was once set on fire by the Nazi regime and heavily damaged 
during World War II. It was given a big glass dome on top of 
the rebuilt building, symbolizing the architect’s desire for 
transparency in politics. It is a fabulous construction, but 
critics point out that the ability to look inside a construction 
will probably not increase people’s ‘insight’ of it.
There was heated discussion in New York City about what 
should replace the Twin Towers destroyed in the 9/11 
attacks in 2001. Suggestions to build a constitutional court, a 
parliament or a replacement for the Twin Towers are 
intended to symbolize unity, justice, transparency and 
resilience. But it is not yet clear what their direct impact will 
be for people who use it (or do not use it) or live in the 
neighbourhood. The buildings clearly have a message, but it 
is not clear who this message is intended for, nor what they 
are going do to with it.
The work on divided cities is not only extremely interesting 
for those cities that experienced a dramatic split or had high 
walls erected between different boroughs. ‘What happened 
here could happen anywhere else,’ according to a Beirut 
resident’s wartime memoir referred to in Jon Calame and 
Esther Charlesworth’s 2009 book Divided Cities: Belfast, 
Beirut, Jerusalem, Mostar, and Nicosia. More and more cities 
have taken on a multicultural character. If no preventive 
measures are taken, initial tensions could escalate to such an 
extent that the list of divided cities becomes much longer. 
Actually, cities could be the arena for much violent conflict 
in the 21st century.
Turbo-urbanization
Not all post-conflict cities are clearly divided along ethnic 
lines yet. But practically all have to cope with a dramatic rise 
in the population, which often doubles or even triples within 
a year. The reasons behind this population increase are 
insecurity in rural areas, dangerous agriculture (landmines), 
better access to basic public services and better (even if still 
slim) employment prospects. 
Measures taken by foreign countries also contribute to 
sudden and sharp population rises in cities. When the war in 
Kosovo ended, for example, Germany sent 96,000 refugees 
from Kosovo back to the country, 11,000 of which were 
forcibly deported. Many of them cannot or dare not go back 
to their original homes (which may be devastated, occupied 
by others, situated in an unsafe environment or have few 
employment opportunities). So they stay in the capital – or 
on the fringe of the capital. 
Post-conflict cities go through the same problems as 
expanding cities, only at the speed of a bullet train. The 
sudden acceleration of activity leads to a multitude of 
www.thebrokeronline.eu32
spontaneous building activities. This creates heated conflict 
about land rights, which poses tremendous challenges for the 
planning of infrastructure and basic services. Public 
authorities are in no way able to channel these activities 
according to any demonstrable plan. 
Planning authorities are often decimated in such situations. 
Their offices, which may have employed 40 or 50 civil 
servants prior to a conflict, may only have a handful left 
following the conflict. Sultan Barakat pointed out in his 
presentation at the NAi conference that, ironically, local 
capacity is at its lowest when the willingness of the 
international community to provide means for reconstruction 
is at its highest, in the immediate aftermath of large-scale 
violence.
Urban authorities also struggle to (re-)establish themselves. 
They not only compete with private parties and market 
forces, but also face rival agendas from provincial or national 
authorities, and from the military, police or militias, all of 
whom view cities from a different vantage point. This 
competition is not only a question of a legal division of tasks 
and responsibilities. It is also an economic issue, given that 
the authority that issues permits for construction is an 
important source of legal and illegal income. 
Perfect slums 
Even under ‘normal’ circumstances, construction cannot 
keep pace with a sudden population rise of such proportions. 
The city of Kabul, for example, in spite of its large-scale 
destruction, saw its population triple, with half of it now 
living in provisional settlements or slums. In Iraq, about 2.9 
million people (or 17% of the population) lived in slums in 
2000. In 2010, their number had increased to 10 million.
City planners face immense challenges. Top-down 
planning only leads to additional conflict. The self-organizing 
capacity of slum dwellers is often underestimated. In many 
cases, it is probably better to provide inhabitants with the 
means to upgrade their quarters themselves. This would 
enable them to create neighbourhoods with a higher quality 
of life, without it leading to rent increases that would force 
many inhabitants to leave and create new provisional 
settlements elsewhere. 
Many interventions have been planned to better integrate 
slum or favela communities into their surrounding 
neighbourhoods. But the real challenge is to find jobs and 
income for the slum dwellers, which would provide them 
with the means to improve their houses and stay there when 
prices rise. 
Valley of thieves 
Not all cities in conflict zones suffer from conflict. Some 
cities thrive. A good example is Goma at the border between 
the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. In 
Goma, the rising trade and smuggling of minerals during the 
wars turned the city into a vibrant regional centre. It became 
a boom town, but its newly acquired status also gave rise to 
new land conflicts. 
In other cities, it may not be the whole city that profits 
from the war situation. It may just be one area inhabited by 
war profiteers. The privatized coast along the Danube in 
Novi Sad, Serbia’s second largest city (which saw its 
population double after the war), is called the ‘valley of 
thieves’ by the local population. If there is little improvement 
in other parts of cities, such tangible inequalities may just lay 
the ground for another round of conflict in the future. 
□	 Al-Harithy,	H.	(ed)	(2010)	Lessons in Post-War Reconstruction. Case 
Studies from Lebanon in the Aftermath of the 2006 War. Routledge.
□	 Bevan,	R.	(2006)	The Destruction of Memory. Architecture at War.	
Reaktion	Books.
□	 Charlesworth,	E.	(2006)	Architects Without Frontiers. War, 
Reconstruction and Design Responsibility.	Architectural	Press.
□	 Hills,	A.	(2009)	Policing Post-Conflict Cities.	Zed	Books.
□	 Vöckler,	K.	(2008)	Prishtina is Everywhere. Turbo Urbanism: The 
Aftermath of a Crisis.	Archis.	
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In 1993, the famous bridge of 
Mostar in Bosnia was destroyed 
during fierce fighting between 
Croats and Muslims. After the war 
the town was divided, but the 
bridge was restored and reopened 
in 2004. 
The Broker  issue 20/21  July 2010 33


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Designing peace: bricks and mortar of reconciliation

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