Kalandia Checkpoint

The First New Gate To Jerusalem in 466 Years

SCI-Arc graduate Harris Silver has shared his experience passing through the Kalandia Checkpoint during his quest for “an uncanny truth” that would lead him to develop an architecture project in the city of Jerusalem.

The Kalandia Checkpoint is an opening in what Israel calls “The Security Fence” and what Palestinians call “The Apartheid Wall”. Regardless of what you call the separation infrastructure, the checkpoint acts a modern gate to the city of Jerusalem.

After experiencing Kalendia first hand, I came away realizing that until I personally walked through the checkpoint, I was ignorant of the mechanism and tactics employed to humiliate and dehumanize everyone who passes through it. Which means I was not fully capable of participating in the Israeli-Palestinian discourse.

Continue reading for the full Op-Ed.

I travelled to Israel in June 2010 with 11 classmates as part of my graduate studies in architecture at SCI-Arc. Our architecture studio was set up like a thesis, we were asked by our gifted teacher Eric Kahn to develop our own projects and he encouraged us to find one with “an uncanny truth”. The only requirement was that it be in Jerusalem.

Because we were working in an ancient city, on sacred land, entrenched in history and biblical reference, I felt a need to comprehend the city beyond the traditional tools that architects use, and developed my own methodology to understand Jerusalem’s urban condition.

the physical description is straightforward. There are two basic buildings. The first building functions as a waiting area before you allowed into Israel. The second building is the procession into Israel. The waiting area is approximately 72′ x 48′. There is a roof for shade cover and the walls are open like a cage allowing air to circulate. 

Waiting is a big part of the experience. The first time I was at the checkpoint, I was with 5 classmates and we were forced to wait approximately 45 minutes before we were allowed back into Israel after an evening in Ramallah. 

If you are approved for entry to Israel you walk down a long corridor. One can assume that on both sides of you there are people watching you through one way glass. When you get to the end you turn right and walk another 50′ and exit a door into Israel. From there you can get back on a bus, or taxi that will take you to wherever you want to go in Jerusalem.

These buildings are temporary structures which means they are almost as easy to take down as they are to put up. What this also means is that their temporary nature can be used in an attempt to control memory of place. This is a very dangerous and short sighted policy that the Israeli government is engaging in. Because even though it’s inevitable that this humiliation machine will transform over time, become more humanized and start to function more like a border crossing, the memory of the people who experienced it is not going to go away and that memory will become indexed as a collective memory within the Palestinian culture, which will then 

be connected to Jewish rule of Jerusalem. No consideration in their operation is given to the understanding of the historical consequences of their operation. Literally the short term view does not have a long term perspective.

I had found an “uncanny truth” now I had to go make a project.

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