The Glasgow School of Art

Eyal Weizman
The Architecture of Occupation (Presentation of 'Hollow Land') listen to audio recording

Hollow Land is a groundbreaking exploration of the political space created by Israel's colonial occupation. In this journey from the deep subterranean spaces of the West Bank and Gaza to their militarized airspace, Weizman unravels Israel's mechanisms of control and its transformation of the Occupied Territories into a theoretically constructed artifice, in which natural and built features function as the weapons and ammunition with which the conflict is waged. Weizman traces the development of these ideas, from the influence of archaeology on urban planning, Ariel Sharon's re-conceptualisation of military defence during the 1973 war, through the planning and architecture of the settlements, to contemporary Israeli discourse and practice of urban warfare. In exploring Israel's methods to transform the landscape itself into a tool of total domination and control, 'Hollow Land' lays bare the political system at the heart of this complex and terrifying project of late-modern colonial occupation.

Eyal Weizman is an Architect based in London. Previously Professor of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Weizman is currently Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, University of London. As an architect in Israel he has been working on architectural projects related to art and theatre. Weizman works with a variety of NGOs and human-rights groups in Israel/Palestine. He co-curated the exhibition 'A Civilian Occupation, The Politics of Israeli Architecture', and co-edited the publication of the same title. These projects were based on his human-rights research, and were banned by the Israeli Association of Architects. They were later shown in the exhibition 'Terriories' in New York, Berlin, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Malmö, Tel Aviv and Ramallah. Weizman has taught, lectured and organised conferences in many institutions worldwide.

His books include 'Hollow Land' (Verso Books, 2007), 'A Civilian Occupation' (Verso Books, 2003), the series 'Territories' 1,2 and 3, and 'Yellow Rhythms.'  He has also contributed a number of essays to edited books. He is a regular contributor to many journals and magazines and is an editor at large for Cabinet Magazine (New York). Weizman was the recipient of the James Stirling Memorial Lecture Prize for 2006-2007.