cartographies: decolonised manhattan joseph heathcott
COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE Settler colonial architecture comes in many forms, from the British farm houses of East Africa to the Spanish churches of the 'New World'. In all cases, such architecture takes hold within the process of land enclosure and expropriation on a global scale. Over the past 400 years, this process has been drilled in the notion of property – land and 'improvements' that can be owned in sovereign fee simple. When the Dutch 'purchased' Manahatta from the Lenape for 60 guilders, they imagined it as a property transaction. However, for the semi- migratory Lenape, land was part of a radically different episteme, a fundament no more 'ownable' than air or water. For them, the purchase was a gift from the Dutch in exchange for the use of the land for hunting, fishing and gathering. Today, the notion of property, owned and transacted through markets, underpins settler colonial architecture within the capitalist world system. DECOLONIAL ARCHITECTURE The shift to a decolonized architecure cannot be realized through form. Architecture is not buildings, but rather a system of relations that pivot around the habitation of land. Thus, architecture after colonialism will necessarily be situated within a reconceptualization of land itself. While new designs might emerge from this shift, decolonized architecture is unthinkable in the context of property markets and the spatial fix of capital. In the case of Manahatta, we propose the re-expropriation of the land to be held in trust by a council of indigenous people. The buildings (once called 'improvements', now called 'allowances') will remain with their owners, subject to comprehensive rent controls. Owners will pay ground rent to the trust for the right to use the land. Proceeds from ground rent will be dedicated to free housing, education and health care for native peoples. The trust retains right of first refusal over the sale of any building, which will be dedicated either to a 'right of return' for Lenape people or to subtraction to restore the land to nature.
PROGRAM FOR A DECOLONIZED ARCHITECTURE
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on site review 42: atlas :: being in place
:: urban matters
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