Veiled in the City: The politics of form in the urban space

The city is an allegory for social order, culture and civilization. The city in the postmodern condition extols both order and the subversion of that order through a myriad of latent and overt symbols and activities. The city's space is constructed both through material and visual practices, and equally through (media and mediated) discourses where these become sites for examination of ideological power and social relationships. This article examines the veil as an object of cultural signification through the politics of form and contextualizes its interface in the post-9/11 urban space where media and official discourses construct it as disruptive visually and socially to the urban spaces of order and administration.