Architecture and Urbanism in the Middle East

Jerusalem Architecture: Old Is Bitter, New Is Ugly

Annabel Jane Wharton

Dr. Annabel Jane Whar-

ton is the William B.

Hamilton Professor in the

Department of Art, Art

History, and Visual Stud-

ies at Duke University.

Her most recent book is

Selling Jerusalem: Relics,

Replicas, Themeparks

(University of Chicago

Press, 2006).

Jerusalem is a “golden bowl filled with scorpions.” Those scorpions are architectural as
well as human, modern, and ancient. Such is the fate of a city considered holy by Jews,
Christians, and Muslims and possessed episodically by the theocratic states of all three.
At the core of Jerusalem is the “Old City,” defined by the imposing 16th century walls
built by Sulayman the Magnificent (Fig.^ 1). From the 1860s, Jerusalem, like many cities
in the Middle East as well as in the West, developed suburbs. “East Jerusalem,” with its
largely Palestinian population, includes the northeast section of the expanded city as
well as the Mount of Olives. It is divided from the Palestinian communities of the West
Bank by the Israeli defense barrier and from West Jerusalem, with its largely Jewish
population, by the north-south Road 1 (Fig.^ 2).

OLD ARCHITECTURE

The Old City’s
most prominent
ancient buildings
are burdened by
old age and by the
various, and always
exclusive, religious
claims made upon them. Many sites excite vicious rivalries. Best known of these con-
tested places is al-Haram al-Sharif/the Temple Mount. Herod’s grand successor of Solo-
mon’s Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The great podium on which the
Temple stood (the “Wailing Wall” or Kotel is the southern part of this platform’s west-
ern retaining wall) was left in ruins by the Romans and the Christians. The sanctity of
the site was put back to work only
after the seventh century Islamic
conquest of the city with al-Aqsa
Mosque and the great Dome of the
Rock, which marks the tradition-
al location whence Muhammad
made his night journey to heaven
(Fig.^ 3). Now, Jewish and Christian
extremists — for very different
reasons — seek to clear the site of

Figure 1: General view from the Mount of Olives

Figure 2: View of Route 1 from the south (road as bar-
rier). Route 1 follows the “Seam,” the pre-1967 divide
between Jordan and Israel.