The Heritage of the British Mandate
The project proposes a critical approach to buildings that embody dissonant heritage, through a historical and architectural examination of the Tegart forts – police stations built in Mandatory Palestine during the British Mandate. These forts, built to consolidate colonial control, have over time become tangible symbols of power, alienation, and disconnection from the local urban fabric, and to this day, they continue to carry charged meanings in the relationship between state and citizens.
Today, the Tegart forts stand at a critical moment: a year after the National Planning Administration issued guidelines for their preservation, amid a broad wave of conservation initiatives, it is necessary to pause and ask how we should approach this kind of architecture. Should we demolish, preserve aesthetically, or seek alternative modes of action? Drawing on theories of dissonant heritage, critical memory, and critical conservation, the project argues that the appropriate path is neither erasure nor freezing, but rather a new critical–architectural interpretation.
As a case study, the Tegart forts exemplify the dissonant dimension of Mandate heritage – military police fortresses that suppressed the local population and embodied the coercive power of British rule. From this analysis emerges an intervention strategy based on three main operations: removing the ground beneath the fort – severing the grip on the land that symbolized domination and opening a new public space below; emptying the interior – transforming the fort into a hollow shell suspended on columns; and refilling it with civic and communal functions – a transformation from a program of surveillance and policing into one of public service. These three operations are not limited to a single site but are intended to be applied across all Tegart forts, thereby reinforcing their reading as a national network.
Through this process, the dissonant heritage of the forts is neither erased nor frozen, but is made present in a new way – one that allows it to remain part of the urban environment while generating a critical reinterpretation of their place in the city and in the broader story we tell ourselves today
