Description
Urban Modernity in the Contemporary Gulf offers a timely and engaging discussion on architectural production in the modernization era in the Arabian Peninsula. Focusing on the 20th century as a starting point, the book explores the display of transnational architectural practices resulting in different notions of locality, cosmopolitanism, and modernity. Contextually, with an eye on the present, the book reflects on the initiatives that recently re-engaged with the once ville moderne which, meanwhile, lost its pivotal function and meaning.
A city within a bigger city, the urban fabric produced during the modernization era has the potential to narrate the social growth, East–West dynamics, and citizens’ memories of the recent past. Reading obsolescence as an opportunity, the book looks into this topic from a cross-country perspective. It maps, reads and analyses the notion of modern heritage in relation to the contemporary city and looks beyond physical transformations to embrace cultural practices and strategies of urban re-appropriation. It interrogates the value of modern architecture in the non-West, examining how academic research is expanding the debate on Gulf urbanism, and describes how practices of reuse could foster rethinking neglected areas, also addressing land consumption in the GCC.
Presenting a diverse and geographically inclusive authorship, which combines established and up-and-coming researchers in the field, this is an important reference for academics and upper-level students interested in heritage studies, post-colonial urbanism, and architecture in the non-West.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Table of Contents
Kishwar Rizvi
PREFACE: Forms of Engagement: Architectural Modernism and Heritage in the Arab Gulf States
Roberto Fabbri, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi
INTRODUCTION: Re-engaging the Modern
PART I: RETRACING MODERNITIES
Mohamed Elshahed
UDO KULTERMANN’S HISTORY OF ARAB CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE
Todd Reisz
GARDENS AND GENERATORS: Demarcating Dubai’s Modernization
Roberto Fabbri
FRAGMENTARIUM: Episodes of Modernity in the Contemporary Kuwait City
Jason Carlow
INDUSTRIAL PROMISES: Speculative Thinking for Sharjah’s Industrial Districts
PART II: TRAJECTORIES OF GLOBAL PRACTICES
Michael Kubo
BUILDING IDENTITY: Transnational Exchange and the Authorship of Modern Gulf Heritage
Kevin Mitchell
CHANGING FACADES IN GULF CITIES: Identity, Icons, and Lamentations of Loss
Jumanah Abbas
THE CORNICHE: The Representation of Doha’s Waterfront and its Institutional Buildings
Faisal Almogren
OPERATIONAL PLANNING: An Alternative View of Doxiadis’ Project in Riyadh
Edward Nilsson
HISTORY, MEMORY, AND NARRATIVES OF THE PAST AND FUTURE: The New Souks in Kuwait
PART III: HERITAGE AND THE MODERN
Asseel Al-Ragam
INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPHERES OF CULTURE: Modern Heritage Practices in Kuwait
Suha Hasan
A[N] ABSENT SPACE: 1355
Trinidad Rico
MODERNISM IN QATAR: Survival through Reuse
Marco Sosa, Lina Ahmad
URBAN PORTRAITS: Preserving the Memory of Modern Architectural Heritage in the United Arab Emirates
Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi
CONCLUSIONS: Modernism’s Back and Forth
INDEX
