Belfast's Peacelines: a personal note

My interest in urban studies and design—and in particular “divided cities”—goes back to my exposure to the city of Berlin. I had been fascinated with the city since I was a child. The Wall was only slightly older than myself, having been
built six months before I was born. I grew up watching Berlin's cold-war history unfold in media images.

As a student of graphic design in the early 80s, I admired the wall graffiti in West Berlin and the Soviet-styled propaganda of the DDR. In 1987, I finally managed to visit this unusual place and was not disappointed. In fact, my curiosity about this
“divided” city and the Wall only increased. I found the experience of it intense and thoroughly mind-boggling. However, beyond the usual travel destination obsession (“been there, done that”), I had yet to formulate any deeper concepts
about the situation.

This didn't occur until after I had completed my M.A. in Design Studies and returned to Berlin for a year as a DAAD researcher in the history of design education. It was now 1990 and living and studying there at this time was an unprecedented historical experience. I watched the city unite and walked the former Wall stretch and death-strips freely. Then it became apparent to me that vestiges of time are indelibly marked in the urban social and designed space of this “borderland”—in both history and memory.

It wasn't until later that I became aware of the circumstances of Belfast and Nicosia. Two friends who had studied there informed me that these cities had walls too. I visited them both in 1996 and began to make connections between these places—relationships which were further informed by doctoral studies in historical studies and sociology.

And the rest is history...

and memory.