What's war/peace - construction/destruction got to do with architecture?

Salama, Ashraf M (2008) What's war/peace - construction/destruction got to do with architecture? Arch-Peace Online Editorials.

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Abstract

Watch any news channel or listen to any news station you will find floods of issues and concerns that refer to human-made destruction caused by conflict and war. Architects and Urbanists seem to join the public in just watching or listening…! Can they have a say? I doubt it. Can they intervene? I am not sure! Can they play a positive role? I hope they do! This editorial is deeply rooted in the mission of Architects for Peace that simply involves the promotion of peace from architectural, cross-cultural, sociopolitical and socio-economic perspectives. While it might be seen as an article more than an editorial, it attempts to consolidate a number of issues typically oversimplified by the global professional community. In very recent discussions, however, the issues of War, Peace, Destruction, Post War Recovery and their correlation to architecture and urbanism are starting to gain momentum toward shaping a new body of theories or cases on destruction and their underlying applications in terms of recovery efforts. While this is not new, it indicates that architects and planners have important roles to play in this context. Here, I reflect on such a relationship within the scope of some selected writings.