Preserving ‘the Enemy’s’ architecture: preservation and gentrification in a formerly Palestinian Jerusalem neighbourhood

Abstract

This article relates to the preservation of Palestinian buildings in Jerusalem and raises the question why state-sanctioned institutions act to preserve Palestinian architecture built pre-1948, bearing in mind the context of a difficult past and an on-going conflict? The article addresses the manner in which Jerusalem’s authorised heritage discourse focuses only on preserving Palestinian buildings’ tangible aspects (architectural styles), and not on intangible aspects such as the narrative of their builders. The main argument is that while preservation is presented as a civilised practice, it is driven by the commodification of the buildings and sites and their valued ‘authenticity’. The common practice is to ‘preserve’ these buildings by developing them to create more housing units. This practice inevitably leads to gentrification. Moreover, even when intangible aspects of heritage are pushed aside, preserving these buildings comes with the ‘risk’ of them being used as memory sites for subaltern groups. The article focuses on one formerly Palestinian West Jerusalem neighbourhood, Baka, where gentrification was triggered by historic Palestinian homes and where the neighbourhood’s development continues to be linked with historic preservation.

Keywords:

• Gentrification
• historic preservation
• conflict
• Palestinian architecture
• Jerusalem
• Israel

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Prof Jackie Feldman and Prof Haim Yacobi for their guidance during the research. I am grateful for doctoral and postdoctoral funding from Ben Gurion University, the Israel Institute and the Leverhulme Trust, without which this article could not have been written. I am also deeply grateful to Dr Moriel Ram, Dr Chiara de Cesari, Dr Rozita Dimova, four anonymous reviewers and the editor, Prof Laurajane Smith, for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. Data source JIIS 2016: https://jerusaleminstitute.org.il/.upload/yearbook/2016/shnaton_C0116.pdf

2. Interestingly, right-wing activists are occasionally interested too, in support of their argument that no difference exists between areas conquered in 1948 and 1967.For instance, an extreme right website, Hayamin.org, made a point of stating where some left-wing Jerusalem activists live, including one whose family home is a formerly Palestinian house in Baka. The website calls these activists ‘hypocrite conquerors’ stating that they too participate in the takeover of Palestinian lands, only those conquered in 1948, not 1967.

3. The language of ‘authenticity’ is particularly represented in real estate ads, e.g. ‘authentic Arab style house for sale’. See for example: https://corrinnedavarproperties.com/property/8526.shtml https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqqmnu_618-for-sale-large-duplex-home-in-authentic-arab-house-in-th_lifestyle

4. See plan here: https://uploaded8.jerusalem.muni.il/mp3site/tuchnun/baka.pdf

5. A name referring to several neighbourhoods built by Jews outside the Old City walls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

6. Two neighbourhoods built in the 1970s on annexed Palestinian lands, in the north and south of Jerusalem.

7. See: https://www.dlp-arch.com/en/projects/park-eight/

8. Similar language and arguments were used in another opposition the Council submitted in June 2016 to a project planned in south Baka (the Ulpan Etzion project), where there are several listed buildings which the plan offers to preserve and develop in return for a new high-rise next to them.