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Visions for a Place of Peace – Austrian Team Top Winner of MIT’s “Just Jerusalem Competition” Print E-mail
bridges vol. 19, October 2008 / Feature Article

By Caroline Adenberger

The German politician Helmut Schmidt once said, "Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen" (People with visions better consult a medical doctor). This advice is not quite true.  Their vision of a peaceful Middle East led two Austrian architects, Siegfried Atteneder and Lorenz Potocnik, straight to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT ). Through a project proposal called "HUMMUS: East Mediterranean City Belt 2050" submitted by them to MIT's international Just Jerusalem Competition , they were granted one of the four top awards of the competition - which took them a step closer to their vision.

   
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Map of the East Mediterranean City Belt, 2050 (click here to enlarge)
Atteneder and Potocnik's "HUMMUS - East Mediterranean City Belt 2050" project or "process" (how Atteneder and Potocnik actually prefer to call it) envisions a metropolitan alliance of cities in the East Mediterranean that form a corridor of urbanization along the coast from Turkey to Egypt (see map on the right, click to enlarge).

As a top winner of the Just Jerusalem Competition, Atteneder and Potocnik were awarded a semester-long "Visionary Research Fellowship" at MIT. There, the two Austrians now focus on advancing their ambitious idea to the next level. Until January 2009, they are participating in university seminars and workshops with MIT faculty, engaging in interdisciplinary discussion and working out a plan on how to proceed with the implementation of their project.

   
About the Jerusalem 2050 Program:    
Jerusalem 2050 is a joint initiative of MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Center for International Studies. It is a visionary and problem-solving program that seeks to understand what it would take to make Jerusalem (or Al Quds in Arabic) a place of difference and diversity in which contending ideas and diverse citizenries can co-exist in benign ways. By working with Palestinian and Israeli scholars, activists, business leaders, youth, etc., the program seeks to find sustainable solutions for the city.  

Diane Davis, director of MIT's Jerusalem 2050 Program , in which context the competition was held, explains that the competition sought "to address one of the greatest challenges of our times: the elusive peace between Israelis and Palestinians. To that end, we wanted the winning entries to envision hopeful, creative, and passionate ideas for potentially altering daily life in Jerusalem in small and large-scale ways." 

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