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

www.amsterdamwest.org

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:

 

One Land Two Systems magazine

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

DOWNLOAD Ein Hud Tourist map. The map consists of our vision for Ein Hud's future development and a form for contribuition.

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

After nearly 60 years of statehood, and three decades of battling for recognition of the village of Ein Hud, local council head Mohammed Abu al-Hija's home was connected Monday to the national electric grid.

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, 3^rd floor, Museumpark 25, Rotterdam

 

5-6pm: interview with Muhammad Abu el Hayja

 

After 6pm: discussion, tour through exhibition, contributions, drinks

 

 

 

26.05.07

More on the Biennale program

debates:

Open! Strategies for A Better World

May 28, 20:00

Activism! Strategies for A Better World

with Jeanne van Heeswijk, Dennis Kaspori, Damon Rich (CUP), Malkit Shoshan (FAST) and their guests.

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 Contibuition 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

FAST exhibition - A Better World - Another Power -  at the Netherlands Architecture Institute from May 24 - October 21 2007.

The exhibition is in collaboration with the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, which this year takes the theme of Power - Producing the Contemporary City.

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.

Sign the petition: http://www.apjp.org/venice-biennale

31.07.06

Read the text of Khaldun Bshara - a Palestinian architect, on 'Reconstruction of Memory' project. 

View FAST presentation and transcript

27.07.06

Read the new interview with Yakub Odeh - a refugee from Lifta .

30.06.06

Check out and comment on our new blog

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.

>>Download a high resolution invitation<<