As planners and designers it is crucial to consider architecture’s role in addressing oppression and conflict and to consider how spaces for reconciliation can be created. Physical space provides opportunities to focus on the commonalities between groups and to work toward coexistence. By designing spaces that allow for continued change, the environment can play a positive role in the peace-building process rather than halting any improvement to, and rebuilding of, the landscape or prematurely determining the outcome of any process.
The twentieth may have been the most violent age in the history of mankind; However, our cultural tools for conflict resolution have changed. Twentieth century architecture unfolded like everything else in the last century. There were terrible mistakes and megalomaniac ideas. We cannot ignore them, but we need to place them within an accurate picture of the world if we truly want to make the world a more peaceful place.
Urban professionals and citizens are the builders of cities, heritage and history. Together we create, enhance, and protect the built and the natural environment, ours and that of other nations.
