World Architecture Magazine features student project on colonialism

The Funambulist Magazine, a bimestrial printed and digital magazine that examines the political relationships between the designed environment and surrounding bodies, have published the graduation project of two Birzeit University architecture students in the March 2017 issue under the theme “Architecture and Colonialism.”

Students Adele Jarrar and Haneen Odetalla, supervised by their professor Yazeed Anani, focused on analyzing architecture as a visual language in different spaces in Gaza. The project, entitled “Architectural Language, Power & Identity”, chose three cases of power to identify the visual and normative differences, including “submission” to colonialism, “opposition or opposing colonialism” and “alternativism” which seeks to achieve self-satisfaction and independence for decolonization.

The issue was dedicated to indigenous and anticolonial struggles from various regions of the world. Voices from Kanaky, Mayotte, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico were presented alongside those from Libya, Kenya, Palestine, and Java in relation to their colonial situations.