International Congress of Aesthetics 2007 “Aesthetics Bridging Cultures” A Study of Power & Modern Architectural Aesthetics: The Case of the French Hill District; East Jerusalem

The east, the orient and all qualities assigned to it lies silent and unspoken, in the compulsive world of images, mass societies and mixture of cultures where wholeness becomes absent for the sake of individuality, recalling Foucault: “the west has not been capable of inventing any new measures, and it has doubtless not discovered any original vices ” 1. It is thus true if we talk about each of the west and the east individually. Nevertheless what happens when they meet, coexist together and parallel? Does the image shift from reflecting reality into masking it? It might be useful here to take up Nietzsche‟s notion of culture; “How can other culture help me to view my own differently?”2, once an image becomes abstracted from its original context and treated in another manner, it changes the meaning; in which meaning and in which manner nothing could be appropriate to interpret this better than politics when everything takes on a political meaning. Architecture can not somehow escape politics but rather politics dwells in it. Therefore, the study is concerned with power and aesthetic relation and the means that hold them together through the practice of modernity, rather than seeking political meanings embodied within monumental. However, through the discussion of housing and its role in the production of the everyday- as political arena- that intense the conflict in the city of Jerusalem. On an empirical level, the French Hill district becomes one of the entry points selected to examine the residential environment – the base of everyday – where each (Arab and Israeli) on his side acts as an input to the construction of a national identity through the manner in which their spaces both serve as sites of geographical struggle. From this perspective, addressing the combined role of aesthetic practice of modernity will; first draw on discussions of identity and an adherence image of critical values connected with localized culture that is a link to place. Secondly, it demonstrates the influence of the Israeli ideology and their influence with the means of the modern aesthetic practice and planning that refashions the image of Jerusalem according to national statehood goal