After a long break, our updates start again!
10.12.09
Presentation of One Land at the Gemak, The Hague.
30.09.08
FAST is exhibiting its work in the Architecture Biennale in Venice. The work is presented until November 2008 in the Italian pavilion.
30.09.08
Check out images from One Land and Platform Paradise project in Ein Hawd
20.08.08
We have inflated the Golden Heart in Ein Hawd!
15.08.08
Map Office, Valerie & Laurent, were in Ein Hawd from 10 to 17 August and made beautiful gardens around the village!
08.08.08
An article in Haaretz newspaper by Esther Zandberd: The nature of despair and hope on One Land and Platform Paradise
24.06.08
11 September - November 2008 The project will be exhibited at the Italian Pavilion in the Venice Architecture Biennale. For further information check out the Biennale website: www.labiennale.org
24.06.08
One Land project will be launched in Ein Hawd, Israel in the following dates: 28 August - 7 September 2008
For further information, PR, invitations, program, participants and more, check out our One Land website: www.one-land.org
24.06.08
Platform Paradise, an art project for Ein Hawd, will be launched on ,1st September . The official unveiling of the on-site artworks will be on 7th September in Ein Hawd, Israel. Further information at: www.platform-paradise.org
01.06.08
FAST article in ZemZem magazine 1/2008 p.59-p.64
05.03.08
05.03.08
05.03.08
05.03.08
Architecture and planning are often used to commit crimes against humanity. In the past you helped us with ideas to counter this situation. now we call on you again.
We need your financial support to change the reality of Ein Hud.In 2008, FAST will realize a series of concrete interventions to show that architecture matters and that alternative planning can produce a different, human, solutions.
05.03.08
Check out our new article on hotel Abkhazia (Tbilisi, Georgia) in Abitare magazine, issue n.480.
30.01.08
Our project Nomads in the Netherlands is now ONLINE at
15.01.08
Green Zone Red Zone, The Hague
A new FAST project for the Gemak cultural institution.
In the last decades, we have seen that a series of catastrophic events have increased the economics, ethnics, social, cultural separations in our world. The 9/11 attack on America by Al Qaeda, followed with a perplexed occupation in the Middle East and the War Against Terror (Islam), the tsunami waves that washed away the coastline of the Indian Ocean, leading to a painful obliteration of millions, lives and livelihood, increased the gaps between rich and poor (since private resorts took the place of the local villages), and the flood in New Orleans, which exposed the adversity of global worming and brought to light the ways capitalist power uses disasters to create economical and structural reforms, are the most prominent examples.
Could this separation between red and green, as a result of a catastrophe, occur in the Netherlands, and, if it happened, what would be the consequences?
First public event: 15.01.2008
04.01.08
The recent destruction of Atir and Um El Hiran (end 2007)
More on Atir and Um El Hiran:
Article by Alwine van Heemstra
Interview Saleem Abu el Qian (2005)
12.11.07
First public presentation of the New Map of Tbilisi by One Architecture, FAST and Urban Reactor will take place at De Balie, Amsterdam. The presentation is part of NCDO event: From Moscow to Ankara (Van Moskou tot Ankara: Nederlandse wereldburgers aan de slag).
Date: 16 Nov 2007
PLACE: De Balie, Amsterdam
TIME: 20.30 – 22.30
Ticket: free
Reservation: De Balie 020-5535100 www.debalie.nl/agenda
12.11.07
Unrecognized Arab villages, or the fate of third rate citizens in Israel
Monday 26 November 19.30 – Amsterdam
Abc Treehouse – Voetboogstraat 11
See Dar al Hanoun on Google map
Program
19.30 – Facility opens. Coffee, tea.
20.00 – Malkit Shoshan presents: The Politics of Planning
20.20 - Film NOT ON THE MAP
20.35 – Interview with Mustafa Abu Hillal by Max Arian
21.15 – Yoad Winter relates: Struggling for recognition
21.30 - Q & A with the audience
Language: English
Entrance Free
Organized by Sivmo and Een Ander Joods Geluid
05.11.07
PLANNING and ACTIVISM 8 Nov 2007
FAST presentation at the architecture faculty of Innsbruk University, Austria.
29.10.07
Check out two projects by Andrew Herscher: Post Archive and the Counter Convetion.
18.09.07
A first glimpse into our new project NOMADS in THE NETHERLANDS, a project in collaboration with Bas van Vlaenderen, will be available from the 22.09.07 - 17.11.07 at the ARCAM (Architecture Center Amsterdam).
The preview of NOMADS IN THE NETHERLANDS will be part of BAS’s instillation.
18.09.07
The NEW MAP of TBILISI, a new project in collaboration with One Architecture (Amsterdam) and Urban Reactor (Tbilisi).
With the New Map, links and relations between the various plans are put into perspective, potential conflicts brought to light and spatial impacts revealed. The New Map aims at making the plans for the future of Tbilisi transparent.
18.09.07
FAST prototype: WORLD UP
A new DEMOCRATIC platform of interaction, visualizes the beauty and the problems of our world. WORLD UP shows for the first time the officially “non-existing” landscape and the formally “non-recognized” living environments, the nomads and the oppressed.
World Up is another (virtual) step in FAST efforts to achieve (and illustrate) a seamless world. The project was made in collaboration with Partizan Publik (Amsterdam). First view on next issue of Volume magazine.
09.08.07
31.07.07
Elecricity in Ein Hud (though just in two households out of more then fifty!)
After 60 years of statehood, electricity begins flowing to Ein Hud for first time By Fadi Eyadat, Haaretz Correspondent
03.06.07
FAST presentation in the - Festarch - Primo festival di architettura in Sardegna
FAST presented the World Up Project:
A new mapping system made in collaboration with Partizan Publik
25.06.07
PR: Today the representatives of Israel land administration has destroyed the unrecognized village of Atir
Click here to see our complete PR & the location of the village in Google maps
24.06.07
FAST in Memosphere. Rethinking Monuments. -the cattalouge of the Romanian Pavilion for the 52nd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale - an article by Malkit Shoshan on 'Heritage protection for a seamless nation: Lifta's cultural cleansing'.
24.06.07
Check out photos from our recent field trips: Belfast, Derry, Agdam , Shusha, Barda
06.06.07
FAST presentation at the ACCP, Barcelona
01.06.07
FAST in NU: 'Make-over extremo' - NU, the magazine of the architectural department of the University of Coimbra, published in its 'Poder' issue (#30)- an article of Malkit Shoshan and Christian Ernsten on forms of destruction and reconstruction in post-Soviet Karabakh.
03.06.07
As we discovered a counter website to our website, we would like to declare:
The Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory, would like to support actions against violence, human rights violations and the oppression of minorities around the world as well as, of course, actions against anti-Semitism
01.06.07
The story of Ein Hud's restaurant
The village of Ein Hud is planned and developed by one person. Mohammed Abu al Hayja worked for more than 20 years at the Israeli National Development and Planning Committee as an engineer. At the same time, he built and developed the village of Ein Hud, where his family settled during the Naqba, and which was until recently entirely illegal.
Mohammed Abu Abu al Hayja’s work for Ein Hud essentially took place in three different steps. The first phase entailed getting recognition from the government and engaging the planning procedures of the state. The second phase consisted of giving a public face to the village in the form of a restaurant, which also brings work. The third phase, community planning with the help of an NGO, consists of developing the village further for tourism, while using it also as a platform for education about the plight of the Palestinians in Israel. During all this time, from 1948 till now, Abu al Hayja family have had to invent ways of surviving in an inhospitable environment, leading to a series of inventions for an architectural resistance.
28.05.07
On 30 May 2007 FAST’s interview at the NAi.
The interview is another step in our attempts to unfold and challenge the Israeli planning system.
Architecture as a tool for cultural survival: the story of Ein Hud told by its mayor and planner, Muhammad Abu el Hayja
Interviewer: Chris Keulemans, is writer, journalist and a former director of De Balie, a cultural and political center, Amsterdam
Place: F.A.S.T. hall of the ‘Better World Another Power’ exhibition at the Netherlands Architecture institute, 3rd floor, Museumpark 25, Rotterdam
5-6pm: interview with Muhammad Abu el Hayja
After 6pm: discussion, tour through exhibition, contributions, drinks
26.05.07
Open! Strategies for A Better World
21.05.07
Invitation to our exhibition openning @ the Netherlands Architecture Institute
24 May 2007 18:40 an openning party @ the NAi, Rotterdam
21.05.07
FAST Contribution to Volume
+Lifta after Zionist planning +Challenging UNESCO policies +TCN's in Iraq and Afghanistan +IDP's and reconstruction team in Afghanistan +an overview of our new +projects in the South Caucasus
and more. . .
20.04.07
29.03.07
Impressions of the workshop results
23.03.07
Georgia Today on the Tbilisi workshop, an article by Ruso Strelkova.
12-19.03.07
FAST Workshop in the State Academy of Fine Arts, Tbilisi (Georgia). The workshop is part of Territory of Desire project, made in collaboration with Partizan Publik and with Julia Roth (One Architecture) . The theme of the workshop was 'The Resourcefulness and Transformation of Soviet Typologies'. We have explored the transformation of Soviet blocks, industrial areas and displacement issues in Tbilisi.
- Soviet Blocks
- Industrial area (Kirov factory)
- Displacement (Hotel Abkhazia)
Photos: Dirk Jan Visser
07.02.07
FAST presentation in the Rietveld academy together with Partizan Publik and Dirk Jan Visser.
29.01.07
FAST exhibited the Lifta project in the EU parliament building in Brussels (from the 29th January 2007 till the 3February 1st.)
FAST Call on the EU Parliament to use their influence in making a change by reintroducing the human scale to abstract plans that violate human rights on base of ideological agendas.
The fate of Israel and the fate of Palestine are bound together. The destruction of the country’s genuine cultural heritage is a threat to future sustainability, not just of Palestine and Israel but also of the region and of the world.
At FAST, we truly believe that a just solution for Lifta will form a vital step in reconciliation process between the nations, between Israel and Palestine.
images will be available soon...
11.12.06
FAST condemns the destruction of Tawil abu Jarwal, a Bedouin village in the Negev.
FAST researches shows that the destruction of the village is part of a larger land grab plan. Since 1948, the state of Israel developed poli- cies to occupy the Negev. In the recent years, the Israeli government approved many plans and masterplans to build on top of these villages.
The destruction of Tawil abu Jarwal is another step in the execution of these plans, and yet proves another series of basic human rights violation of the Bedouin population in the Negev.
Download PR (pdf file)
17.10.06
Territory of Desire is the new project of FAST. Together with Partizan Publik and Dirk Jan Visser, we have started to explore the area of the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia).
02.09.06
Saving Lifta our New Blog by Anil Korotane
02.09.06
PETITION TO THE ORGANIZERS OF THE VENICE BIENNALE
SEPTEMBER 2006
There are no memorials in Israel to the Naqba, the Palestinian tragedy of displacement and dispossession, where the intention of transfer and exclusion led to the destruction and elimination of 580 Palestinian villages towns and cities. Even today, this dispossession and humiliation goes on in Gaza and the West Bank, with the destruction of their heritage in the historic cities of Jerusalem, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem and Jericho. This is particularly ironic when the subject of the Biennale is the celebration of cities.
30.06.06
Archined news: The Politics of Restoration an article on Lifta conference by Micha de Haas
English version: http://www.archined.com/archined/5493.1.html
06.06.06
Conference - Reconstruction of Memory - report
21.04.06
FAST public meeting:
14th of May -starting 2PM- De Balie, Amsterdam
An inquiry into the ways preservation projects are being appropriated in order to promote ideological and political agendas.
Preservation projects can be as emblematic as the destruction that induces them.
Construction can be used both to reinforce a violent separation of the built environment and destroy the fabric of a former life.
The FAST conference will form an inquiry into the ways preservation projects are being appropriated by official institutions in order to promote ideological and political agendas.
Some torn threads of antiquity include the destruction of Muslim history, religious monuments and buildings in Bosnia; the destruction of black history and heritage in South Africa under the apartheid regime; and the destruction and distortion of Palestinian past after the creation of the State of Israel.
A poignant example of this eradication of local memory is the village of Lifta* which lies just outside Jerusalem. The community has been abandoned since the Israeli army drove out the last of its Palestinian inhabitants in 1948. Today Lifta is more or less a ghost town while, the former villagers live mainly in East Jerusalem and Ramallah. Now, however, a preservation project aims to turn Lifta into an expensive and exclusive Jewish residential area - erasing its history in the process.
When can destructions or apropriations of buildings be considered a crime against humanity?
During the conference the case of Lifta will be presented, analyzed and put into the perspective of other international planning and architecture projects.
Participating:
Eitan Bronstein, Zvi Efrat, Khaldun Bshara, Ciraj Rassool, Shmuel Groag, Andrew Herscher, Ya'akub Udah, Malkit Shoshan and Lucas Verweij moderating.
