Girls skateboarding in Kabul? An image that has little to do with our idea of Afghanistan. And yet these images do exist – on display until October 17 in the highly recommended exhibition “The Good Cause: Architecture of Peace – Divided Cities” at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. It portrays the work of the Dutch platform Archis, a network of architects, urban planners and scientists.
The somewhat unwieldy title of the exhibition results from its two-part structure. In the first part, it explores the concept of “negative peace”, a peace that is fragile and lasts just as long as the UN troops are stationed on the ground.
In large diagrams, the exhibition organizers show current conflicts and, in response, the common means of peacekeeping by the military, various governments or aid organizations. Based on these analyses, it becomes clear that it is above all the time factor that leads to a “negative peace”. The reconstruction and even more so the reconciliation of the conflict parties is a complex process that often takes decades – a period of time that politics cannot always do justice to.
This is where Archis comes in and looks for approaches for a “positive peace” based on reconciliation, mutual trust and continuity. Their influence is documented using case studies in the form of texts and films.
It is a rocky road, but one that is worth taking, as one of the examples in the exhibition shows: a skateboard school in the middle of Kabul, called Skateistan, where boys and girls can skateboard together in order to experience a bit of normality. Another project is the restoration of the Bagh-e Babur, a former palace garden in Kabul. It began during the war. Today, the Bagh-e Babur is a public meeting place in the middle of a war-torn city. In another project, planners are working with local officials to develop a manual as a guide for the controlled reconstruction of the war-ravaged city of Priština in Kosovo. Or they are building a visitor center for a wildlife reserve in Afghanistan with the help of the locals.
All of these projects are developed together with the local population and involve different ethnic groups. They create jobs, new ways of communication and give people the opportunity to identify with what they have achieved.
The exhibition is part of the long-term research project “Architecture of Peace”, which is constantly adding new themes. One of these themes is called “Divided Cities”, in which divided cities in Europe are portrayed. It forms the second part of the exhibition and will be portrayed in another of our contributions.
Photos from left to right: Skatetistan, Aga Khan Trust for Culture, AFIR Architects/Anne Feenstra