THE PEASANT ARCHITECTURE IN PALESTINE

Description

This book builds on Suad Amiry 1987 thesis addressing the spatial organization of the different environmental levels in late 19th century rural Palestine. A descending spatial order of analysis from the settlement level to that of the furniture level is adopted. The built space of Deir Ghassaneh, a Palestinian village located in the central highlands–the West Bank today–is the focus of the book. In order to understand the close correspondence between this built space and the social organisation of the peasant community that produced it, the book reconstructs life in Deir Ghassaneh at the turn of 20th century, at a time when space and society together constituted a single socio‑spatial whole, and when the village was a relatively autarkic, subsistence‑based agrarian community in which traditional modes, including architecture, still prevailed. Then, the book examines the nature of change that took place in the built space of Deir Ghassaneh in light of the dramatic social transformations of the seven decades (1916‑1986).