Architectural design competition website for the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s new Cultural Centre & Palestine Office, to be built in Ramallah.

Historic Palestine is located in the western side of the Asian continent, south-east of the Mediterranean Sea. It constitutes the southern part of the Levant in the Eastern Mediterranean which also includes Lebanon, Syria and Jordan; with which Palestine shares political boundaries in the northern and eastern parts, as well as its borders with Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Red Sea to the south.The region has a long and tumultuous history with its location as a link between the continents of Asia and Africa, and as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics.

The boundaries of the region have changed throughout history, and were first defined in modern times by the Franco-British boundary agreement (1920) and the Transjordan Memorandum (1922) during the British Mandate for Palestine. Today, the region comprises the Israeli occupying state, established in 1948 on the lands on historic Palestine (Israel has never defined its international borders) and the occupied Palestinian territory which includes two separated geographical areas, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The State of Palestine which, since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, has referred to territories within the June 4th 1976 borders, i.e. 22% of the wider historical region of Palestine, is recognised today by approximately two-thirds of the world’s countries, though not by the United Nations, Israel and major western nations such as the United States.

With a contemporary population of nearly 30,000, Ramallah serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority which currently operates in the West Bank.

The new building will be located on a 5,864m2 plot of land owned by the AMQF in the Tireh area of Ramallah to the north-west of the existing AMQF building.

Competition timeline:

Fri 7 September 2012: Architects’ questions submission deadline

Fri 5 October 2012: Project submission deadline

Mon 8 October 2012 [week commencing]: Receipt of entries and public display in Ramallah, Palestine

Thu 18 October 2012: Jury deliberation and report submission in Ramallah, Palestine