Saja Barghouti: The Palestinian architect who recycled the Israeli Qalandia Checkpoint
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In occupied Palestinian where the Israeli occupation has suppressed the right to sense, a Palestinian architect redesigns the Qalandia Checkpoint as a final year project, turning it into a space for fun, play, trade, and life.
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Saja Barghouti, the mastermind behind the project at Al-Quds University.
Saja Barghouti, a 22-year-old architect at Al-Quds University, designed a model which lives in the collective imagination of millions as a final year project. The concept of the project was the 'recycling the Qalandia Crossing after the liberation of Palestine.'
The collection of designs, aggregated into what she called the "Qalandia Gallery", constituted her graduation project where she "recycled" the apartheid wall to form a model that provides space to play, do sports, shop, and even farm.
Barghouti contended that "the project's concept is inspired by the Palestinian reality, which is immersed in oppression, injustice, and separation, due to the separation barrier."
Barghouti is a social reformer, and according to her, the barrier and the wall must be reformed, considering that its functions changed from a means of apartheid, segregation, and dismemberment, to a habitable, sufferable place.
Post-liberation: A restoration of the senses
She explains that the colonial character of the existence of these means must end and rather be transformed into a piece of architecture that restores the senses after the Palestinians were deprived of using them.
Barghouti said the main reason for establishing the Israeli occupation barriers in Palestine is to limit Palestinian mobility, suppress their senses, and disintegrate the Palestinian social, geographical, and national fabric. The Qalandia Checkpoint is currently performing these roles.
The designs were re-engineered to transform the separation barrier into an art museum: This conveys the message that no matter how oppressive an entity could be, the endpoint is an art museum, according to Barghouti.
The design is made to provide a place for drawing, art, and playing: An art gallery that reflects the revolutionary image of the Palestinian people. Most importantly, it is a place of freedom of movement.
Saja's father, Palestinian professor Imad Barghouti, a Professor of Space Physics at Al-Quds University, captioned in a Facebook post that the graduation project aims to address the colonial architecture abandoned after liberation and reorient it to contain social and cultural functions.
Activists on social media shared Barghouti's work, as an expression of hope that the Palestinian land will be liberated from the Israeli occupation.
The Qalandia Crossing is an Israeli military checkpoint located near the town of Qalandia, south of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. It is considered one of the most overcrowded and humiliating Israeli checkpoints and a source of suffering for many Palestinian people. The officers at the checkpoint obstruct their movements, make them wait for long hours, and subject them to humiliating inspections.
