Bridge Egoz Royal

The Biosphere Reserve concept relies on a zonation scheme in which three areas exist: a core area, a buffer zone and a transitional area (see conceptual diagrams). The core area is dedicated to nature conservation and would be legally established for long-term protection of landscape. The buffer zone(s) surrounds core areas. Buffer zone activities may include experimental research such as exploring ways to manage crops sustainably and may accommodate education, training, tourism and recreation facilities. The transition area is where the human dimension of biosphere reserve is most prominent and where needs and aspirations of local communities and the various interests in agriculture need to be reconciled. The idea is to empower the local community that in turn contributes to society by protecting the landscape.

Derived from the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve concept we are proposing an inverted zonation scheme: the human settlements of Ein Hod, Nir Etzyon and Ein Hud are within the transition areas. Ein Hud’s traditional agriculture groves, managed in an environmentally sustainable manner, act as buffer zones, protecting the core nature reserves of Mt Carmel. The residents of Ein Hud take on the role of guardians of nature for the sake of all people. In this, we offer a positive response to manipulative ways in which Palestinians are driven off their land “in the sake of protecting nature”.

The landscape

The landscape reclaimed is multi-functional; it holds both actual economic benefits as well as symbolic meaning. The economic aspect is represented, besides agricultural production, in ethnic tourism: home-stays or the traditional madafah (guesthouse). It builds upon the renowned traditional qualities of Arab hospitality. In addition, we include in our proposal a museum/regional interpretation centre, a further point of interest to attract people. Guests are invited to experience the traditional lifestyle, engage in olive picking, press olives for oil as well as enjoy nature walks through the Mt Carmel woodland nature reserve.

Symbolically it is a reclaiming of a landscape destroyed; it is a living memorial garden to the Palestinian Nakbah, a loss and pain that is denied by the Israeli consensus. Reconciliation, first and foremost, requires acknowledgement, as stated by Azmi Bishara:

"There could not begin to be an equality until stones mark the graves of what were once villages nor an historic compromise until Palestinians obtain their tombstones; the victim must be recognised in order for him to forgive”.

Acknowledgement: The garden of the Nakbah and place as memory In the territory of the “inside” – frequently consigned to the weak, the marginalized... where Arabs inhabit the locales of Israeli-Palestinian bilingual, crosscultural contacts, there is no longer space for the fida’i (freedom fighter) and the shahid (martyr). But there is always space for the remembered past, for collective memory, and place as memory.

The olive planted terraces hold an aesthetic that contrasts agricultural formality; it is a landscape of bustan, the Middle Eastern garden type that combines the pleasure of plants within productive value.

An east-west axis is planted up with a rich variety of species: charob, pomegranate, figs, grape vines, almonds, oranges, indigenous oak trees, prickly pear vii, fragrant herbs and olives, reconstructing the vernacular Palestinian bustan. For the residents of Ein Hud it is both future and past - a promise for economic and cultural sustainability and place as memory. For visitors, whether from overseas or Israeli Jews, it is recreational enjoyment, and an opportunity to acknowledge the grievances of their hosts.

A walk through the river-bed (the wadi) tracks, the valley walls reinforced by the large scale of the planted terraces, generates a spatial experience that stresses the act of reclamation of the Palestinian vernacular landscape (see section).

The approach and arrival

To every situation, no matter how dominated it is, there’s always an alternative. One must train oneself to think the alternative and not the accepted status quo or to believe that the present is frozen. - Edward Said

We are proposing an alternative road and arrival to Ein Hud. The new road turns off the 7111 road between Ein Hod and Nir Etzyon. The entrance to the three settlements off 7111 road is now of equal hierarchy reclaiming the legitimate right of Ein Hud to exist amongst Jewish settlements.

The entry road follows the contours travelling through the terraced agricultural landscape. As one travels, glimpses of the wire and the Garden of the Nakbah, heavily planted bustan east-west axis are exposed. About two thirds of the way, travellers arrive at the entrance of the wire, the museum and interpretation centre. At this point the village of Ein Hud is revealed, beckoning the visitors in its gesture of hospitality. Pedestrian access is at two levels – through the suspended building that bridges to the main now pedestrianized village axis or, for hikers who are after physical challenge, a climb through a stairway that runs through the valley and up the hill. Vehicular access continues to follow the contours, arriving at the public precinct of Ein Hud from the east.

The wire

Reinforcing the structure of the existing village on which the Mosque is located, we introduce the gesture of the wire. The wire is an east-west projected axis and a suspended museum building that is stretched above the valley. Underneath the wire, intense bustan planting continues the axis towards the west, asserting a powerful visual link from Rd no 4; this compelling connection affirms recognition of Ein Hud.

The east-west wire axis acts as a metaphor for hope embodied in the cyclical nature of sun-rise coupled with the significance of the east aspect for Jews and Muslims. The wire is also a symbolic reference to the state of the Palestinian “present-absentees” ix representing the narrative of the falahim (farmers) denied return to their land that had been fenced off, forcing them to the vulnerable condition of “sleeping on a wire”.

Education

It [real change] can only happen very slowly and as a result of education. Education is a central instrument in all of this. Without a self-conscious, skeptical, democratically minded citizenry, there’s no hope for any political change for the better. Along the wire we set up the interpretation centre, a museum-like educational facility that tells the story of the geography, ecology and social-cultural history of the region. Here we offer a unique opportunity to create an international and domestic tourist attraction, one that will counter the continuing refutation of the multiple histories of the land of Palestine. It will give a voice to those who are denied their legitimate human-right to grieve. Acknowledgement of the victims will help mitigate injustices that stem from domination, and possibly pave the road to move from the current ethnocracy towards a democracy.

Architecture as memory

There is much irony imbedded in the way the vernacular Palestinian architecture, dressed up in the aesthetic of primitivism of the Dada philosophical movement, had been appropriated by the Jewish artists of Ein Hod. The aesthetic of the architecture of the existing Ein Hud, on the other hand, is that of a modernist technological vernacular influenced by Israeli architecture.

While we respect the pragmatism of modern technologies, for the existing and projected growth of Ein Hud village itself, we propose to create a terraced street infrastructure in the purpose of anchoring the village in the land. The civic centre public facilities’ architecture style is to be contextual – that is, driven by a response to the local climate, local materials and available technologies.

For the wire interpretation centre/museum, nevertheless, we propose a forward looking, innovative and bold style that draws attention. The form is of a twisted ribbon suspended. Inspired by the wire metaphor that suggests vulnerability, the architecture acts as further establishing the legitimacy of memory. While some Palestinians view the Jewish village of Ein Hod itself as a living museum to “a denied but not effaced Palestinian past,” our wire, like the reclaimed olive grove landscape, endeavours to unite the impossible separate spheres of past and future to be “conquered and reconciled”.