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052-0852-26L 2 Credits BSC , MSC D-ARCH

Histories in Conflict: Questioning Architecture, Territory and Identity in Israel-Palestine

Lecturers: Prof. Dr. Philip Ursprung, Alona Nitzan Shiftan

Examiners: Prof. Dr. Philip Ursprung, Dr. Frederike Lausch, Alona Nitzan Shiftan

VVZ CR n/a

Last Updated: 2026-06-03 00:14:01

Abstract

Objective

Students will learn first about the compatibility between political and aesthetic forms, and about the cultural and professional strategies through which architecture intervene in contested sites. Second, they will gain critical tools to understand the power embedded in the production of history. And third, they will have the opportunity to examine the crisis in Palestine from their own disciplinary perspective.

Content

This class examines how architecture acts through its disciplinary toolbox and bodies of knowledge in spatial predicaments such as war and dispossession; population exchange and nation-building; territorial expansionalism and nationalized pasts. It focuses on Israeli and Palestinian cities, buildings, and landscapes that constantly undergo spatial re-figuration under instance disparity of political power. Instead of resorting to the myriad terminologies that shape our perception of this conflict, we will question their power to produce and silence the histories of concrete people and places.

Resources

Learning Materials (Links)

Main link
Information

General Information

Language: English
Levels: BSC , MSC
Frequency: Yearly recurring

Examination

Type: ungraded semester performance

Course Components

Type	Title	Time & Place	Hours
seminar	Histories in Conflict: Questioning Architecture, Territory and Identity in Israel-Palestine No course on 19.3.2025 (seminar week) and in the last two weeks of the semester (final critiques).	Thu 11:45-13:30 (HIL E 5)	2 h weekly