Rattling the Gates - Full Post

I thought I’d take a moment to post the full version of the VOLUME article from the spring, complete with full images. It appeared originally in VOLUME #15 and was edited by Lilet Breddels.

Rattling the gates; A guide through Secure Zones in Kabul

"Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada advises against all travel to Afghanistan. Canadians in this country should leave."

www.voyage.gc.ca, official Canadian Foreign Affairs website.

Despite receiving the usual concern from family and friends, ‘Isn’t that a bad idea? Don’t people get killed there all the time? Isn’t the situation unstable?’ and so on, I joined the RSVP trip to Kabul. To be perfectly honest, while the initial culture shock and visible poverty take a little getting used to, I was not uncomfortable, least of all afraid during my week there, except for a few hours one afternoon.

On the second to last day we met Anne Feenstra, a Dutch architect with a busy practice in Kabul. Anne had immersed himself in the ways of the city and the country at large. Among his many interests and concerns in Kabul was the prevalence of ‘security’ and the way it had destroyed Kabul’s public realm piece by piece. It turns out that Mr. Feenstra takes it personally when organizations set up their walls with blatant disregard for those around them, a practice taken very much for granted - so much so that most of the embassies and missions have completely ignored a decree straight from President Karzai to remove them.

Over lunch Anne showed us the impressive collection of security badges he had accumulated during his time in Kabul. I found one particularly interesting; out of frustration Anne and his office (AFIR) had created their own security badges to combat useless and meaningless checkpoints. The tag was an AFIR badge identifying himself as an employee of AFIR and stating that he had clearance to enter any secured area and had access to all information. ‘You wouldn’t believe how often this works,’ he told us.

Our plan was to pick a few areas in the city secured by various check-points and essentially off limits to the public and see how far we could get as a group of eight or nine with his security badges. Along the way we witnessed the extent of the city which had been cordoned off as property adjacent to embassies or government offices and see first hand the often arbitrary and sometimes useless screening process at these checkpoints. My father had always told me that if you act like you belong somewhere you usually won’t be bothered. I had a feeling we were about to put this to the test in the most extreme way.

Our first stop was an area of the city known as Wazir Akbar Khan, an area home to quite a few embassies. Not surprisingly the US embassy is the largest and most heavily secured not just in that area but in all of Kabul. Our initial point of entry was a gated check point along a road which led to the Canadian, Pakistani, Finnish, South Korean, British and Japanese embassies. We were stopped at the gate by Afghan guards who demanded our papers. To make our way into a secure zone we had to clear three gates through which we were funneled by huge concrete pylons blocking the rest of the road. Three or four armed men in military uniform congregated by the first gate. This was a common sight in Kabul. We had been continuously filming from the van, carefully excepting secure areas and gated checkpoints. This became a little difficult to do now on a tour of secure areas and gated checkpoints.

Once through the first set of gates, we were stopped at two more checkpoints in succession before finally entering a zone of eerie calm. A wide, empty street with a group of armored embassy SUVs were parked at one end; there was little sign of people. We drove the van up to the gates of the Canadian embassy, got out and started wandering around. Although we had easily passed through, walking around this empty street was quite unsettling. Even as the only westerner I felt more comfortable walking through a busy street market than there. Standing in a canyon of reinforced concrete walls while having every move presumably watched really made me aware of my strategic disadvantage. During the entire excursion I felt pressure to leave, immediately.

Ironically, of all the places we visited I was unable to get into the one to which I was legitimately entitled; the Canadian embassy was closed for the weekend. I’d have to come back tomorrow, I was told by the guard. I returned to the group who were now talking to two young Afghan boys on bicycles adorned with Canadian flags. How they managed to be there I have no idea but they were the only other human beings in this deserted street and seemed as though they often were. They tried selling us maps and books and told us how much they liked Canadians (most likely because they sensed a sale). They were curious about our presence as we didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular. Given that we were in a secured area and wandering around with our cameras out it was kind of funny that the most attention we received was from these two 10-year-old boys.

After making a right and being denied at the Japanese embassy, we ran into a middle-aged Canadian (with a Canadian flag tattooed on his arm). He was kind enough to stop and talk to us although when I asked if he could let me inside the embassy he told me he was the only one there. I thought this a strange admission to make given the paranoia about security. After my suggestion to storm the Canadian embassy was quickly turned down by the rest of group, we moved down the road to another checkpoint. We noticed a sign advertising a restaurant on the block which no doubt was there before the area was cordoned off by makeshift concrete walls and nervous guards. I wondered if the restaurant was still open and what other businesses and families had been forced to close or relocate. This was something that would come up again in our tour that day.

The next gate was the first check point for the South Korean and Finnish embassies. This time on foot, we were forced to wait a little longer before they accepted Anne’s UN credentials. We were led through a single gate flanked by concrete walls into a much narrower street. Other than the occasional government employee in business dress walking past us to the gate, it was deserted. This street also felt different. Because the street was narrower you could tell that many of the walls facing the street were not original to the compounds as at the Canadian or Japanese embassies but had been added after the South Koreans moved in. Also evident were crow’s nests where guards could see into the street from above the walls. At the end of this block was another gate, staffed with Afghan guards. It was here that we reached our limit. Anne tried very hard to talk his way in to the point that the guards became visibly annoyed. Talking our way past armed guards at a security checkpoint was undoubtedly the most unnerving part of my trip. As Anne persisted, asking to speak to supervisors, the guards at the gate became increasingly suspicious of us. It’s not as though they became hostile, but the simple change from credible passer-bys to potential threat was palpable. Knowing when to back off, we decided this was far enough and headed back the way we came. Anne explained that the South Korean embassy backs onto the American embassy which is why it was more difficult to gain entry.

Leaving through another street, we passed a heavily fortified gate which looked like a bunker due to the 12-foot high concrete walls built around it. We were told that this was an entrance to the American embassy, we didn’t slow to look.

Second on our trip was a block which was home to the Asia Foundation, an economic trade group. Anne pointed out the standard compound walls and the marks on the sidewalk where larger concrete fortifications had been built. We spoke to a security guard at an adjacent site and he explained that prior to the Asia Foundation occupying that site it was home to DynCorp, an American security company. During that time a car bomb had been detonated next to it and done severe damage to the neighboring area. DynCorp then left and the Asia Foundation arrived. As mentioned, all NGOs and embassies had been instructed to dismantle their fortifications by presidential order. The Asia Foundation obliged and what we saw was the pared down version. We were told that since they had done this the residents of the neighborhood felt much safer as by creating the outward appearance that they were trying hard to improve security, the compound still remained a target. This was a typical example of a kind of ‘security machismo’ which was rife in Kabul. I would guess that more than half the people we saw driving in big, armored SUVs were doing more harm than good by calling unnecessary attention to themselves. I felt perfectly safe for the duration of our stay in our small, unassuming Toyota van. I’ll take stealth over strength any day.

Last on our stop was the Asian Development bank. Given the current situation, the bank had closed the street in front of it along the entire block. At each end of the block were gates surrounded by huge concrete pylons. We made our way through the check-point to the middle of the block in front of what outwardly was the most heavily fortified compound we saw all day. In addition to the original walls, massive concrete slabs stacked three high well above the height of the original walls had been added. We entered the compound through the small gate and checked in. We spoke to a representative who refused to answer questions even about how he personally felt about working in such a place. We left, ending our field trip for the day. Without embarrassment I can say I was glad to get back to the un-walled city, where I felt much safer.

Kabul RSVP - Log:Day 4

Friday October 26th 2007

Empty Pool – Empty Neighborhood – Empty Security

Day number four started with the sound of leaves being loudly raked outside my window. It was cold again and I wasn’t having much luck focusing my radiant space heater (which I was constantly afraid would burn down my room while I slept) towards my bed. Our day today would begin in yet another bizarre place in Kabul.

At 9 am we met at the top of yet another hill in the city. This one was about half as high as the TV Mountain we ascended the day before. We drove through a quiet neighborhood at the base of this hill. It was different than the more elaborate residential areas or the compounds off of the main streets which we had seen. The houses were still mostly behind walls but there were no guards stationed out front. They also appeared smaller in size overall. I think that these homes were used either by actual Afghan families or other NGO organizations for permanent residences. After getting lost and finally finding an unmarked dirt road at the base of the hill we switch-backed up the side of the hill passing the empty and stripped hull of a soviet tank until we reached the large flat plateau at the top. Here, was a very remarkable sight. Like a piece of sculpture was this solid concrete swimming pool, Olympic in size set in this large dusty plateau.

Aside from a few acrid puddles of god knows what at the bottom the pool was completely dry. It was such an anomaly. Built as a public pool by the soviets, this large public work apparently never functioned as a pool. In later years during Taliban rule it was used as a place of public executions. In contrast, the Puerto Rican artist

Louis Berrios Negron pulled of an amazing architectural performance in the pool in 2006 where he transformed it by filling it metaphorically with water with the help of several arts students at Kabul University.

Our experience at the pool was also not without art students from Kabul University. On our first day in Kabul we met with some fine arts students, some of whom worked with Louis Berrios Negron on his installation. We revisited the site and took in the views of the North side of Kabul. It served as a great opportunity to talk with the students. Ironically when we asked a few of them of their impressions of the Negron piece they seemed strangely indifferent to it. They seemed happy to have been a part of it but also disappointed with their role in the project. The feeling was that they had hoped to have had more of a creative role in planning the piece where instead they felt much more like assistants or labor to help with the installation. We asked them if they had planned any installations or events within the city. They told us of a modern art showing which they had installed outdoors that met with mixed reactions at best. It seems as though many of the general public did not understand the abstract nature of the work and chided them for it leaving a lasting impression with them. When we asked them if they had any future plans to display their work in public the reaction was less than enthusiastic. One of the students I spoke with expressed the feeling that they were in between movements, that they were unsure of what form to manifest their voice, that with the elimination of the Taliban the opportunity was there but that the social fabric of Kabul and Afghanistan was still residually rigid and therefore difficult to situate themselves in. I hope for their sake that they do find their mode of expression; I hope also that in some way our visit and conversations also helped them to realize that others beyond the city were interested in their work.

Visible from the hill was a neighborhood called Sherpur. Ajmal Maiwandi, an architect working with the Agha Khan Trust in Kabul was our guide and pointed it out to us. He made us note from our view a small corner of land, maybe two or three small blocks of mud brick houses huddled together at the base of the hill, sandwiched between a cemetery and obviously newer far more expensive houses. Ajmal told us the well known story of Marshal Fahim Khan who as the minister of defense appropriated the neighborhood of Sherpur and then redistributed it to his political allies and other cronies. It is a very visible and blatant reminder of the corruption which plagues Kabul. All but this small parcel of land is what remains of the original inhabitants. While they stubbornly cling to what they have left, looking around at the intensity which the surrounding area has been developed there seems like little chance that it will survive much longer. Ajmal suggested that fittingly it was the protection of the cemetery which was keeping them alive, an unsettling piece of irony to be sure.

We hiked down the hill through the cemetery and descended into this remaining original neighborhood in Sherpur. We found ourselves funneled into a narrow walkway that took us down the hill farther, towards the line where the new construction began. Along this path, narrow corridors led to doorways of the homes which lined it. There were few windows and although the buildings were only a single story in height, it created the sense of walking though a mud brick canyon. Of the few people we saw we were met with looks of curiosity and skepticism. Ajmal on the other hand greeted each person with a handshake and spoke with them about what we were doing, he was much better received than we were. Down the center of the path was a narrow channel about 4 inches wide which acted as a gutter, mostly for what appeared to be sewage, at least that’s what our noses told us. At the bottom of the slope and then end of the path this channel intersected a bigger open channel where all the runoff apparently collected. The color of the water was a very surreal blue green. Extremely careful not to fall in, we hopped over and were now in the new Sherpur.

The first thing you notice about the new construction in Sherpur is the distinct and repetitive style of all the houses built. I heard it described as a couple different things; Pakistani Style, Wedding Cake Houses and my favorite was Photo Houses. Imagine if you will two to three story houses maybe 2000 to 3000 square feet with flat roofs and distinct horizontal banding at each level. On top of this, every single surface of the building is adorned in the most gaudy ornament and coloring. Often this is done with ceramic and metallic tiles of all color. The term photo house was explained to me in this way; when you buy a digital camera they each claim that they pick up to 5 million colors visible to the human eye or something to that effect. If you take a photograph of one of these houses, it will actually use all 5 million colors of the spectrum.

These gigantic houses all of course exist behind the now stereotypical solid concrete walls and razor wire. One person in our group couldn’t help but notice that these huge houses looked more like prisons than places people would choose to live. As we walked through the neighborhood we quickly came to the realization that we were being watched closely. Keeping in mind that we weren’t exactly being discrete (it was a group of about 10 people with cameras and video cameras) there was a heavy security presence. Each walled house had a security hut outside and guards similar to what we saw in the heavier trafficked parts of town where the embassies and guesthouses were. Ajmal told us that this was essentially the ritzy area of Kabul. Anyone who was well to do lived here. It made for a mix of foreign government and non-government agencies, wealthy Afghani contractors, Afghani politicians and warlords. We were told that it was because of the warlords that the roads were not finished properly.

Often in places the roads were barely passable, this in a block with finished palaces with armed guards. It was explained to us that by making the area less accessible it was safer for those who lived there. If one wanted to quickly drive up and get away or detonate a car bomb, it would be very difficult to do so on a barely level road with holes big enough to swallow a Toyota. My mind went to the “speed humps” often employed in North America, both in cities and in the suburbs as a means to curb speeding. It’s a practice which for which local fire departments oppose since it means that they can’t respond as quickly to emergencies; an important lesson to be learned, if you slow down those about to harm you, you also slow down those about to save you.

One particular house which gave me particular chills as we moved past it was the palace of General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a very famous figure in Afghan politics and war. A general who fought for the soviets, then against them, then against the Taliban, he was a very powerful figure in fighting for the Afghan people. He also is well know as a war criminal who committed atrocities against civilians during his extremely harsh rule. It should be no surprise that he was an ally of Marshal Fahim Khan. When we moved close to the palace as we walked along the street we were immediately shouted at by the guards. In a neighborhood where every house had a concrete wall, razor wire and guards this one stood out. It had a higher fence, more wire and honest to god gun turrets at street level armed with guards in full military gear (flak jackets, helmets, etc). Needless to say we didn’t push the issue or take any great pictures in fear of our safety, we quickly moved past and snapped pictures and video from a safe distance down the street.

After our experience of being shouted at by security from behind their walls we had the chance to get behind those walls. Posing as foreign NGO workers interested in renting one of the houses we were able to convince security of one of the vacant buildings to let us in to see one of them. In we went filing through the steel man-door in the gate of the thick concrete wall, we wandered through the three floors of this massive house. It was completely empty and felt very large. A large circular staircase dominated each floor as you went up. There was dust everywhere, as in the kind of a building that was just recently a construction site. The whole thing was tinted a salmon pink color by the windows in the building. This one hadn’t had them obstructed by corrugated steel like we had seen on others in the area. As we stood on the upper level terrace, looking out onto the front yard and the street we waited for a group of foreign tourists to pass by so we could shout at them to move along but sadly no one came.

As if we hadn’t had enough exposure to security forces for the day out next tour would surely satiate our appetite for irritating men with guns. We met again with Anne Feenstra for lunch and to head out for a “field trip”. Among his many interests and concerns in Kabul, the prevalence of “security” and the way which it had been taking away piece by piece Kabul’s public realm was one. It turns out that Mr. Feenstra takes it personally when organizations set up their walls with blatant disregard for those around them, a practice that is very much taken for granted (so much so that most of the embassies and missions completely ignore a decree straight from President Karzai to remove these blockages and walls).

Over lunch Anne showed us a collection of security badges he had accumulated during his time in Kabul which was an impressive set. One I found particularly interesting; out of frustration while dealing with local authorities Anne and his office (AFIR) had created their own security badges to streamline useless and meaningless checkpoints. The tag was an AFIR badge identifying himself as an employee of his architecture firm AFIR and stated that he was clear to enter any security level and had access to all information. “You wouldn’t believe how often this works” he told us.

Our plan was basically to pick a few areas in the city which were secured by various check-points and essentially off limits to the public and see how far we could get as a group of 8 or 9 with his security badges. Along the way we would witness the extent of the city which had been cordoned off as adjacent property to embassies or government offices and in general see first hand the often arbitrary and sometimes useless screening process at these checkpoints. My father had always told me that if you act like you belong somewhere you usually won’t be bothered. I had a feeling we were about to put this to the test in the most extreme way.

Our first stop was an area of the city known as Wazir Akbar Khan, an area home to quite a few embassies. Not surprisingly the US embassy is the largest and most heavily secured not just in that area but in all of Kabul. Our initial point of entry was at a gated check point along a road which led to the Canadian, Pakistani, Finnish South Korean, British and the Japanese embassies. We were stopped at the gate by Afghan guards who demanded our papers. To make our way into a secure zone we had to clear three actual gates which you are funneled through initially by huge concrete pylons blocking off the rest of the road. 3 or 4 armed men in military uniform congregated by the first gate. This was common sight in our day to day Kabul. Before this we had been continuously filming from the van with careful exception around secure areas and gated checkpoints. This was fine but a little difficult to do now on a tour of secure areas and gated checkpoints.

Once through the first set of gates we were stopped at two more checkpoints in succession before finally entering into a zone of eerie calm. Essentially a wide empty street with a group of armored embassy SUVs parked at one end there were little signs of any people. We drove the van up to where the gates for the Canadian embassy were got out and started tooling around. Although we had been easily passed through the feeling I had while walking around this empty street was completely unsettling. I think I felt more comfortable walking as the only westerner through a busy street market than there. Standing in a canyon of reinforced concrete walls while having every move presumably watched really made you aware of the strategic disadvantage you were at. The entire duration of our excursion I felt an unspoken pressure to leave, immediately.

Ironically, of all the places we visited, I was unable to get into the one I was legitimately entitled to. The Canadian embassy was closed for the weekend when I tried pass through the gates. I’d have to come back tomorrow I was told by the guard. I returned to the group who were now talking to two young afghan boys on bicycles adorned with Canadian flags. How they managed to be there I have no idea but they were the only other human beings in this deserted street and seemed as though they often were. They tried selling us maps and books and told us how much they liked Canadians (most likely because they sensed a sale). They seemed curious about our presence there as we didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular like most people I assume they met. It was kind of funny that given we were in a secured area and wandering around with our cameras out, the most attention we received was from these two 10 year old boys.

After making a right and being denied at the Japanese embassy we ran into a middle aged Canadian man (this we were sure of as he literally had a Canadian flag tattooed on his arm). He was pleasant enough to stop and talk to us although when I asked him if he could let me inside the embassy he told me since it was Friday that he was basically the only one inside. I thought this a strange admission to make given the paranoia about security. After my suggestion to storm the Canadian embassy was quickly turned down by the rest of group we moved on down the road and found another checkpoint. During this stretch we noticed a sign advertising a restaurant on the block which no doubt was there before the area was cordoned off by makeshift concrete walls and nervous guards. I wondered if the restaurant was still alive and what other businesses and families were forced to relocate after their newest neighbor was a foreign embassy. This was something that would come up again in our tour that day.

The next gate we arrived at was the first check point for the South Korean and Finnish embassies. This time on foot, we were forced to wait a little longer before they accepted Anne’s UN credentials. We were led through a single gate flanked by concrete walls and into a much narrower street. There was the occasional government employee in business dress walking past us to the gate but otherwise no public of any kind. This street also felt different. Because the street was narrower you could tell that many of the walls facing the street were not original to the compounds like at the Canadian or Japanese embassies rather they were added after the South Koreans moved in. Also evident were crow’s nests where guards could see into the street from above the walls. At the end of this block was another gate, staffed with afghan guards. It was here where we reached our limit. Anne tried very hard to talk his way in to the point where the guards were getting visibly annoyed. This was undoubtedly the most unnerving part of my trip, provoking armed guards into letting us past a security checkpoint. As Anne persisted, asking to speak to supervisors, the guards at the gate became increasingly suspicious of us. It’s not as though they became hostile towards us but the simple change from credible passer-bys to potential threat was palpable. Knowing when to draw the line we decided that this was far enough and headed back out the way we came. Anne explained to us that the South Korean embassy backs onto the American embassy which is why it was more difficult to gain entry.

Leaving through another street we did pass a heavily fortified gate which looked like a bunker due to the 12 foot high concrete walls built around it. We were told that this was an entrance to the American embassy, we didn’t slow to look.

Second on our trip was a block which was home to the Asia Foundation, an economic trade group. Anne pointed out the standard compound walls and the marks on the sidewalk where there had been larger concrete fortifications made. We spoke to a security guard at an adjacent site and he explained to us that prior to the Asia Foundation occupying that site it was home to DynCorp, an American security company. During that time a car bomb had been detonated next to it and done severe damage to the neighboring area. Afterwards DynCorp left and the Asia Foundation arrived. As mentioned, at the universal order of President Karzai, all NGOs and Embassies were supposed to take down their fortification. The Asia Foundation obliged and what we saw was the paired down version. We were told since they had done this the residents of the neighborhood felt much safer since by creating the outward appearance that they are trying very hard to secure themselves, the compound still remained a target. It was a typical example of a kind of “security machismo” which was rife in Kabul. I would guess that more than half of the people we saw driving in big armored SUVs were doing more harm by calling unnecessary attention to themselves. I felt perfectly safe for the duration of our stay in our small unassuming Toyota van. I’ll take stealth any day over strength.

Last on our stop was the Asian Development bank. In this situation the bank had closed the street in front of it for the entire block. At each end of the block were gates surrounded by huge concrete pylons. We made our way through the check-point to the middle of the block in front of what outwardly was the most heavily fortified looking compound we saw all day. In addition to the original walls they had added massive concrete slabs stacked three high in front of the walls well above the original height of the walls.

We entered into the compound though the small gate and checked in. We managed to speak to a representative who wouldn’t even answer questions about how he personally felt about working in such a place. Tight lipped and tightly walled, we left ending our walled field trip for the day. Without embarrassment I can say I was glad to get back to the un-walled city, where I felt much safer.

Kabul RSVP - Log:Day 2

Wednesday October 24rd 2007

Kabul University – A Turquoise Mountain

After a solid nights sleep, the morning started abruptly. Waking up to the sight of my own breath, it had become so cold overnight that there was frost on the plants outside my window. Thankfully my prayers were answered and there was hot water for a shower. A quick breakfast of naan bread and honey and we were on our way.

Leaving the guesthouse in the morning we were met by our guards who opened the gates to let us out to the street and our waiting van. Writing this brings to mind that there is very little difference between keeping people out and keeping them in. Should the guards at any time have decided they probably could have just held us captive, not that I’m implying they would, it just would have been that easy. Over the course of the week there were several other instances of homes and other buildings that were described simply like prisons because of their heavy handed security measures.

Over the trip we would also have several other interactions with various armed security guards ranging from our guesthouse to checkpoints outside embassies. These interactions all passed without incident although not without some tension. I wondered how the guards felt towards us as we passed through to secure areas where they were only privileged to stand in front of or into establishments that catered only to foreigners because of cost or in some cases because of blatant segregation. The whole thing left a very uneasy feeling with me. Later in the day we would meet with Mowdood Popal, a successful American Afghan who returned to Kabul with his whole family and now runs a successful construction company. During our conversation he would offer great insight into the hierarchy in the security industry. Needless to say that Afghan guards are the lowest paid and often hired as “static security” which means they sit there all day long. More on that later.

The van ride to our appointment at the Kabul University took us through a more diverse cross-section of the city. We drove past embassies with their high walls and razor wire, past single story concrete buildings used as shops, past three or four story buildings with glass facades, and past markets which look to have sprung up from the open muddy lots they occupied.

The Kabul University campus was vast. You get a sense of this on the drive up to it. We approached it from the wrong side and drove around most of it to get to the main entrance. It’s fairly obvious once you are at its perimeter. The normal chaos on one side of the van gives way to a very rare uniformity of the same wall for blocks and blocks on end. In another city this might not seem strange but for the most part property lines are easily defined by the façade put to the street. The result is a patchwork of vertical surfaces as you drive down a block. At the University the wall becomes normal and more importantly different from the others. Where as almost all the walls you see have a blatant concrete utilitarianism to them, the wall around the University possesses a subtle ornate-ness, nothing fancy, maybe something you would see at the edge of a suburban subdivision in North America, which in Kabul is different enough to be pretty unique. The wall had a rusticated stone base and then rose up out of red brick the rest of the way with plain iron work at the top. In a city of walls which shout at you to go away, this one seemed more to be saying “this is a place of importance, and worth protecting”.

When we finally made it around to the gates (which of course had guards) our van was stopped and our registration recorded. In a country which still follows strict religious codes towards men and women it was a happy surprise to see just as many women as men walking through the campus. Once inside the gates there was a long main avenue down the center of the campus off of which there were various departments and buildings. Separating the buildings from the road were treed green spaces, largely unkempt and un-manicured. You could make out the distinction between which field was male or female as there was rarely any mixing. In the areas with men you could see groups congregating, smoking, embracing, conversing or reading. On the female side you could see groups of women reading or talking. There was very much an air of dignity in a city where this was often absent. The whole thing gave me a very strong feeling of what the ancient Agora must have been like in classical Greece. The collegiate atmosphere combined with the semi-rugged park setting gave the impression that one could walk up to any group and overhear an intense philosophical debate.

After our stroll through time we arrived at the school of architecture and engineering and met our contact Sayed Maqbool (head of the faculty of architecture). The building had a heavy and solid Soviet feel to it. We walked through its wide concrete halls, again taking us back in time, this time to the cold war, and then snapped back to the present by the sight of a digital projector and laptop setup in one of the rooms. The school also boasted a computer lab with an assortment of programs which unfortunately we couldn’t get into. The classrooms were stark but large and well lit. The ones we visited had drafting tables lined in neat rows.

The architecture program is a five year program; after which the graduates are entitled to refer to themselves as architects. This is of course a small problem as architects in Kabul suffer from a small self-esteem problem. The professors we spoke to lamented the fact that in Kabul it was more prestigious to be an engineer than an architect. “There is no architecture in Kabul….only construction projects”. Most of the students were recruited by engineering or construction firms as draftsmen a year if not more before they even graduate. The massive construction boom in Kabul is fueled by money and necessity and leaves little room for aesthetics. There were signs of hope for the next generation of Afghan architects. We sat in on presentations in Fahim Hakim’s fifth year studio where students were presenting sketches for a monument to the architecture and engineering department. Amidst sketches of building sized pencils, compasses and t-squares there emerged a few artistic and somewhat abstract designs of merit. One of the difficulties explained to us, aside from the students wanting to be engineers, was that many of the students had been educated under the Taliban regime. The first year of their education was just spent trying to un-brainwash them from the simple and narrow perspective they had been fed. We were told that simple issues of life safety were completely omitted during this time which reminds me of another interesting conversation we had. When asked how he approached the topic of safety when teaching his students one professor responded by outlining design elements like fire exits and stairwells. After adjusting the question to mean “security” he continued to discuss earthquake design requirements. Finally we broke down and spelled it out “how do you teach them to deal with attacks like suicide bombings?” “Oh, we don’t really do that”, a very telling statement. Over the course of the week it became more obvious that most of the “security” evident in either architectural or human form was dictated by international influence.

From the Department of Architecture and Engineering we made a short walk and backtracked to the Department of Fine Art. The building was set off the main road down a dusty lane with old trees and piles of old office equipment and furniture fading in the sunshine. Walking towards the Fine Arts department one could be excused for thinking of these heaps of nondescript chairs and desks as sculpture. We made our way to a second floor studio to meet a contact and the rest of her class which was in session. In a large concrete and well lit room we found about a dozen students in front of easels, working on their oil paintings for a year end show. We asked them about there work and the display of their projects. The school has a gallery where they will display the work. “What about on site installations?” we asked them. As it turned out the students had done an outdoor public showing of some abstract work in the past year with a less than enthusiastic response from the general public. “I don’t think they were ready for it, many of them laughed or asked what it was”, said one of the students we spoke to. Despite this the resolve of the students to try it again was impressive. It seemed to me in speaking with the students there that they were aware of their position between the old regime which had been pushed out and the new opportunity that presented itself with the open scenario to work in whatever way they wanted. That being said, it also seemed like this newfound freedom also was very fresh and had them unsure with what to do with it. We left with their promise to come on the Friday to an open meeting to discuss ideas for the city of Kabul.

As we left the University, we picked up our friend and resident urban planner Peitro Calogero on our way to meet Mowdood Popal. Mowdood as mentioned was raised in the United States before moving with his entire family back to Kabul where he now runs a lucrative construction company and his brothers also run a security company and some other businesses in the city. The Popal family was the perfect example of the Afghan Diaspora returning to the city after a long absence. Mowdood met up with us for lunch, again at a restaurant behind closed walls. We all sat down to lunch and we quizzed Mowdood for almost an hour on the way things work in the city.

We began our conversation with the topic of security as we always do. It was interesting to learn about the hierarchy of guards available. According to Mowdood security companies charge up to $2000 day a per person for a security guard, this number being on the high end which could land you a well qualified and skilled American of British ex-military type. If that’s too rich for you blood than you can drop to the next bracket and go for a South African, Canadian, or French ex-military type which would run you a little less or go for the bargain Gherkas which are only $500-$1000 a month or keep it local with Afghans for a mere $200-$500 month. We continued talking about security companies and the bad apples which had apparently gotten into a little trouble over the past few years in Afghanistan. Key players in security industry in Afghanistan were companies like Dynacor (Halliburton’s security arm), Blackwater (known for shooting civilians in Baghdad) to local mega companies like Saladdin and to a lesser extent Mowdood’s brother’s outfit Wattan Risk Management. We talked about the corruption and instances of security companies robbing locals and banks, an occurrence Mowdood told us that was limited to the smaller security companies you don’t hear about. For that matter, he told us that the Afghan government was forcing all the local security companies to close as a measure of tightening their grip. It might be a futile effort. We spoke about the security companies driving the politics of fear; that the companies know they are the only real sources for genuine protection in a country where the government is powerless and corrupt and the police are useless. This position he said allows for them to dictate the security situation for all the ex-pat community who rely on them while in Afghanistan. The result he said was that they drive the fear into their customers through daily or hourly reports of threats (some through SMS messages) to keep the fear in their customers and continue business. It’s an ugly cycle and not unique to this area. Before our food arrived I asked him about how local Afghans respond to security threats in their own homes. Obviously you’re unlikely to see a 12ft high concrete wall with guards around a modest Afghani home in Kabul and Mowdood set the record straight when he said that most of them would be more concerned with the decoration of their home than fortifying it. There are however a new class of local Afghans made rich by the rebuilding effort or in some small cases the opium trade who live in brand new mini palaces which adopt all the ex-pat methods of security right down to the razor wire dressing on the top of the walls.

After lunch the entire group made the drive over to an amazing operation run by a foundation called Turquoise Mountain. Turquoise Mountain is a non-profit organization which focuses on traditional Afghan arts and building techniques, a craft which had suffered greatly during the conflict in Afghanistan. We would have two tours through projects that TM was working on, this one through their Centre for Traditional Afghan Arts and Architecture. Essentially a huge outdoor laboratory, the centre is where they take traditional building methods using local materials and teach unskilled Afghans so that they can work and teach others. What is most amazing about the setup there is that they are also making subtle changes to these traditional techniques which incorporate modern knowledge. Case in point a wall section using a rain-screen made from dry fit stones, rice sacs filled with sheep’s wool, and mud brick. They have also been messing with admixtures to make exterior plaster last longer through the seasons. Small things like this make big differences. They take these hybrid ideas and then build full scale mock ups on site in their Centre. When we visited they had several mock-ups which they were leaving up through the entire winter to test their performance. What impressed me the most about this scenario is the underlying idea behind it. By utilizing local materials which are simple, accessible and cheap they allow themselves to build now, and when using traditional techniques which are often simple they are easily passed from person to person. This combination of building now with the ability to teach others is an excellent combination for achieving tangible results in situations which are complicated, compromised and generally found in conflict or disaster situations. The added advantage of modern modification allows the correction of shortcomings and might even allow for certain techniques to transcend their original uses. I think this is an idea that should be explored further. What materials are local and inexpensive in other situations like post hurricane Katrina or post tsunami Asia? These questions could help create better and more responsive solutions.

After a long day and a lot to digest we went for dinner to an ex-pat restaurant called L’Atmosphere. As you can probably guess it was a French inspired restaurant. The restaurant was actually half of the setup, L’Atmposphere is also a well known bar to ex-pats in a city not known for its night life. We were there the night before. Typical to the international catering establishments this bar was located behind a non-descript wall with one guard outside. A discreet note posted on the outside states that if you don’t have a foreign passport you can’t come inside, something that essentially boils down to segregation. Upon entering the exterior door you come into a small closed room somewhat tastefully decorated with a kind of Moroccan/French theme. In this small room is a man with a metal detector who pats you down and a small cabinet that reminded me of the old card catalogues in libraries. Each drawer had a key and on one night, a friend of a friend in our group unintentionally demonstrated what these were for when he removed his firearm from his hip and locked it on there on the way in. It came as a bit of a shock to us especially because he had been with us most of the evening and we didn’t even know he was carrying! Anyway, just like the Wild West, once your gun is checked at the door you walk along a narrow outdoor path through to a courtyard type garden complete with pool (or fire pit) depending on the season. Facing the courtyard was an all glass façade which was the bar and the restaurant next to it. Stepping into the bar it was full of people. The sounds of English, French, and Australian accents could be heard above the din. I ordered a Heineken for $5 USD and joined our group.

As it turned out I recognized someone from my flight into Kabul that I had spoken to at the airport in Dubai. A fellow Canadian he was a “security consultant” and had offered me some advice while we were waiting to check in. The fact that on our first night out in Kabul we ran into each other at the same place speaks to the size of the ex-pat community in Kabul. We met up and he introduced me to some of his “teammates” who also were ex-military types, one from Scotland, one from Australia I think, all very very drunk. At the airport this person had been very helpful to me, he had given me some suggestions on where to get a secure taxi and some other insights into Kabul for someone who was going for the first time. Speaking with him at the bar, with his colleagues was a much different experience. Almost immediately after starting the conversation they proceeded to tell me about how they could walk around the city with total impunity, a story I heard a few more times after speaking to other ‘security consultants” or mercs (mercenaries) as I heard one of them refer to themselves. This ignorant bravado combined with a disregard for Afghans that became increasingly more obvious in further conversation, painted a very unflattering picture. These guys were cowboys. They prided themselves on their cavalier attitudes and enjoyed the power they had over others with these security jobs. I met a few people who were like this, all in the security field and all made me uncomfortable. It was an excellent example of the distance between the local community and international community and how the methods of security which are being deployed are obviously generated by one with little regard for the other. It was the last time we went to the bar.

Improvised Architectural Devices

As mentioned in a previous post, Archis magazine is hosting global RSVP events with calls for submission on subjects from Heritage to Paranoia. With the upcoming event in Kabul this summer focusing on Security the lure was irresistible. As an extension of my research this is a great opportunity to connect ideas to a tangible architectural product. As a combination of both written research and built research, each will contribute to the other by making links between them and thereby strengthening the work. Below is a synopsis of my proposal. Stay tuned for updates as the deadline is the end of April and decisions will be made shortly after.

Improvised Explosive Devices vs Improvised Architectural Devices

IED’s can be prepared almost anywhere and used anywhere.
They are quickly made and used
They use ready made and found material
They are low-tech
They are flexible in scale, application, and type
They are inexpensive
They create and define space in places without boundary or definition beforehand (through zones of destruction and trauma)
They affect emotion (through fear and destruction)
They create a lasting effect long after their original use (through trauma left behind)

What if we were to create Improvised Architectural Devices? (IADs)

IADs could be prepared almost anywhere and used everywhere
They could be quickly made and used
They could use ready made and found material
They could be low-tech
They could be flexible in scale, application and type
They could be inexpensive
They could create and define space in places without boundary or definition beforehand (through zones of construction and comfort)
They could affect emotion (through safety and shelter)
They could create a lasting effect long after their original use (through their utility)

Essential in this proposal is the understanding that IEDs while detestable objects, have redeeming architectural qualities which can be re-implemented in positive fashion. Their reasons for utility and effectiveness are what we wish to harness for our purposes. These qualities I have identified above. Beginning with the IED’s ability to be constructed and deployed anywhere, IADs must possess this property. Their construction should be as such that they can be built on site or off-site and easily transported to their final site.

This is facilitated by mimicking IED’s use of found and ready made material. The use of simple and economic materials allows for this and also allows for low or no economic cost. This is critical in making IADs accessible to any group regardless of their financial situation and resources. As a consequence of using found materials, the lack of complexity or need for specialized tools is also necessary.

In order for IADs to be architectural, they must acknowledge space in some way. They don’t necessarily need to create enclosed space but they must make reference to the definition of a space, separation of a space or absence of space. In engaging space they must also adapt to multiple scales. IEDs come in many sizes and are tailored to their specific tasks, IADs should be no different. They should also seek to create comfort in their resolutions. It is one thing to create a solution to a problem, but the interest of the IAD is also that it understands the human requirements and interactions of its users.

IADs must be substantial enough to make a lasting contribution or at least address the problem for the duration of its existence if it is a temporary condition. They do not necessarily need to be temporary constructions. IADs must address a problem even if at the smallest scale, they cannot be installations or art pieces. They should however seek where possible to achieve a contemplated and conscious aesthetic, they are architectural after all.

Potential Uses:
One can envision IADs deployed in the following examples including but not limited to:

-Creating shelter for children within the home from shrapnel or gunfire through weaving found and discarded clothing with found metal to create a homemade ballistic shield
-Creating insulation to line the home or apartment from found material
-Creating a locking enclosure to secure valuables
-Creating a privacy screen between living units providing visual, and audio separation

Since the implementation of IADs is predicated on the response to specific contextual parameters, each solution will be different and therefore it is difficult to speculate on the exact nature of each.


Extension of Concept:
The need for real and timely architectural solutions in crisis situations is not unique to developing nations but is a global condition. It is my hope that through the implementation of an IAD in Kabul the development of the concept through this trip will foster an interest in expanding this idea and implementing it in all conditions whether conflict stricken locations in a developing nation or in public housing in urban America. Every condition is unique but the underlying essence of the IAD is its adaptability it takes from the IED. Because of this it lends itself to be applied on a greater scale and in a diverse way.

Domesticating Fear

They say a man’s home is his castle, although it might better be argued that with the technological infiltration of domestic activities aimed specifically at women in the fifties and sixties, that a woman’s home is her castle. Gender roles aside, Beatriz Colomina in her essay titled “The Underground Home” examines a concrete moment at the New York World’s Fair in 1964, where as a response to fear and as we will examine later the “outside”, the internalized and militarized home was at its most extreme.

Colomina takes us in for a closer look at “The Underground Home” a self explanatory product available for commercial sale all the way up through the 1980’s and on proud display as a model of the future at the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing New York. In her examination she brings to light two important things which I would like to discuss further. The first is the infiltration of technology and war into the home and the ability to convert militarized invention into domesticated necessity. The second is a theme found commonly in reference to security and that is interiority versus exteriority.

In the 1960’s during the cold war, with the looming fear of near instant nuclear annihilation resulting in the popularity of digging your own bunker in the backyard, the Underground Home made its debut. It was a house that was defined by the nuclear age. Designed to both protect from the nuclear threat but also to use the latest in nuclear powered technology it was an interesting paradox. It represented the integration of war into the home and was a laboratory for technology. For example, due to the inability to have windows in the home inhabitants were able to “dial-a-view” and select from an array of pleasing scenes and it had its own internalized HVAC system completely eliminating the effects of exterior weather as if it were on par with nuclear fallout. Colomina explains that over time the battlefield for which the house was designed for changed to match the social context. In the 60’s it was nuclear fallout, in the 70’s it was energy efficiency against the oil crisis and in the 80’s it was ecological concerns. In doing this it engaged the house in combat. The home was an apparatus in the war. This was demonstrated in the powerful images by Martha Mosler in 1967 and again in 2004 for her piece titles “Bringing the War Home”. She accurately notes that “the increasing dematerialization of the house and the displacement of its traditional functions by new technologies of information is exactly matched by an increasing rematerialization at its borders and the emergence of ever more enclosing security systems” p126.

The heavy importance of the home in day to day life is one of the major factors in why technology was so heavily concentrated there. It’s where we spent all our time, it’s where we raised our families and it’s where we returned to at the end of every day. I wonder now though with the increasing tendency to spend less time at home and the resulting reduction in significance and meaning as “home” if this is necessarily true anymore. More and more it seems our homes are just a place where we keep our “stuff”. Now I realize that this might not be universally true or even the case the majority of the time but it is changing and it begs the question, is the home where we should be concentrating our efforts to secure and fortify? Is there a new location or a new scale where we retreat to for safety and shelter? Is it now the personal space that travels with us?

You would assume that when your house exists entirely underground, you might as well forget about having a yard or any exterior space at all. Well this wasn’t the case for the Underground Home. Colomina points out a rather interesting and important feature of the house, it had an outdoor patio. This Inside/Outside space confuses the indoor and outdoor but at the same time solidifies the importance of the interior. If when you’re “outside” your underground house but underground and therefore still inside, it highlights an extreme example of the interiorization of the home. It’s this turn inwards, the tendency to shut out the exterior or to tame it through captivity within the interior or as Colomina describes it “domesticating fear by controlling the image of the exterior and replacing it with an idealized image.” Pg124 So there are two ways which we protect ourselves in our homes, through excluding the exterior or taming it and by replacing it with our own image.

Neither of these options sound particularly healthy. They both seem to be symptoms of an attitude which encourages the lack of information and flexibility. It’s the home as a bunker, an immovable, un-responding object. Perhaps there are two ways this can go. If there is indeed an increasing tendency for technology now to focus more attention to the personal scale, then we might do best to forget about the home, or treat it for what it has become, a vault, and continue to develop our own personal security. If we still want to give architecture another stab at it, we must develop our security away from the home at the scale of the city or building. The other possibility is that we stay at home and use this history of technological concentration and get hip real quick. Protection in this day and age no longer necessarily means the thickest skin it’s about the most information. The home can be a place of comfort and information. We see this to some extent already, bringing the world into the home through internet communication and digital satellite cable with 700 channels. If the Underground Home functioned by surrounding the exterior with the interior then I say the new home must do the exact opposite. It’s now about bringing the interior to the exterior. The world is your backyard now and you know everything that happens in it.

The Most Beautiful Security Camera

I’ve always been fascinated by the use of camouflage (see Hardy Blechman’s DPM Encyclopaedia sidebar). One question which comes to mind when combining thoughts on security and camouflage (and lets face it, they go hand in hand), architecturally speaking, is it more important to be beautiful or invisible? I ask because I wonder if there’s a responsibility in the hands of the architect to the general public for an honesty of space. That is to say, if one is honest about the intrusion into our private space, can we overcome this through pleasing aesthetic design?

Architectural Push-Overs?

This question is related to the previous post and in response to Mike Davis’ Ecology of Fear. In it he describes the extent to which (in Los Angeles specifically) security consultants such as the police department have taken an increasing role in the design of our urban environment. This type of activity is also best seen in the suffocating revisions to the Freedom Tower in New York as mandated by the NYPD. My question is to what end? Is it not the architect’s role to have an understanding of all elements which contribute to the design and creation of the built world around us?