Next Jerusalem

Sharing the Divided City

In this new collection, Israelim Palestinian, and American architects and urbanists consider the physical future of Jerusalem and offer specific propposals for making the city functional, beautiful, and physically generous to its inhabitants' needs. The essays focus on issues of ecology, preservation, neighborhood development, and open space, rather than on politics per se. While the authors take a variety of approaches, all agree on the necessity of sharing the city amicably. Contributors include Lebbeus Woods, M. Christine Boyer, Samira Haj, Achva Stein, Moshe Safdie, Thom Mayne, Mack Scogin, and Jafar Tukan.

Unique position to bend modernity

Jerusalem is in a unique position to bend modernity and tradition to create a global model of cooperation, economic innovation, and sustainable environmental practice. As a paradign of the kind of social mosaic that will increasingly charactize the world's cities, Jerusalem migh well become a laboratory for spatial practices that mediate the autonomy of individuals and of groups and for the cooperation of cities and nations. As a purely physical matter, this presents very little difficulty.