Dwelling on the Green Line: Privatize and Rule in Israel/Palestine

Concealed within the walls of settlements along the Green-Line, the border between Israel and the occupied West-Bank, is a complex history of territoriality, privatisation and multifaceted class dynamics. Since the late 1970s, the state aimed to expand the heavily populated coastal area eastwards into the occupied Palestinian territories, granting favoured groups of individuals, developers and entrepreneurs the ability to influence the formation of built space as a means to continuously develop and settle national frontiers. As these settlements developed, they became a physical manifestation of the relationship between the political interest to control space and the ability to form it. Telling a socio-political and economic story from an architectural and urban history perspective, Gabriel Schwake demonstrates how this production of space can be seen not only as a cultural phenomenon, but also as one that is deeply entangled with geopolitical agendas.

Analyses the architectural and urban transformation of settlements on the Green-Line within the context of political, economic and societal changes in Israel/Palestine
Provides an exceptional case study of how national ends have been achieved by private means, shedding new light on the relationship between the nation-state and its economy
Employs a multi-disciplinary perspective that deepens understandings of architecture, urban studies and political science