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- Volume 2, Issue 1, 2013
International Journal of Islamic Architecture - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2013
Volume 2, Issue 1, 2013
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‘Small’ Architectures, Walking and Camping in Middle Eastern Cities
By Ipek TüreliEconomic recession, conditions of restricted spending and austerity politics have led architects to seek ways of expanding architecture and to a mainstreaming of ‘small’ architectures, small-scale designs and short-term interventions, many of which focus on contesting and remaking public space. Mass mobilizations of the past years, especially the protests of the so-called Arab spring, pose new opportunities for the field. This essay first frames the six case-based articles, included in this special issue, within the literature on the politics of public space and protest. It groups the case studies around two main categories of analysis: the transformative effect of mass protests on formal public spaces (walking) and the agency of protest occupations (camping). Second, the essay identifies a lack in literature of the role (or lack thereof) played by designers in contemporary mass mobilizations in the Islamic world. It further seeks to respond to that question by providing an overview of various approaches to social engagement in architectural research and practice, under the broad categories of ‘humanitarian design’ and ‘activism by design’ with an attention to the historical specificity of the Islamic world, the examples from which tend to be of the first, humanitarian, type.
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Surprising Alliances for Dwelling and Citizenship: Palestinian-Israeli Participation in the Mass Housing Protests of Summer 2011
By Yael AllweilArab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, or Palestinian Israelis, are marginalized in a society based on Jewish nationalism, religion and ethnicity. While Israel witnessed numerous social struggles for equality and inclusion, none attempted to challenge Jewish nationalism as its core principle. The 2011 eruption of mass social unrest, the largest since the 1970s, focused on popular demands for housing as a basic right of citizenship. Indeed, protest started with a housing act: the creation of dozens of tent camps all over the country. Protesters called for a new polity based on housing, expressed by one of the movement’s symbols: an Israeli flag whose national/religious Star of David was replaced by a house. The right to housing was thereby proclaimed as the primary criterion for social inclusion. While the housing-based social movement initially puzzled Palestinian Israelis, tents soon appeared in Arab towns. Palestinian-Israeli participation proved significant, forming surprising alliances among social strata previously understood as irrevocably polarized. Examining the camps of Jaffa and Qalansuwa, this article looks into the history and implications of housing for Palestinian Israelis, and for Israeli society at large. Using Chantal Mouffe’s and Bruno Latour’s work, we ask: ‘Can dwelling be a strong enough ground for a citizenry-based polity?’
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Political Encampment and the Architecture of Public Space:TEKEL Resistance in Ankara
More LessThe protest encampment established by the workers of TEKEL (meaning ‘monopoly’ in Turkish), the privatized former state enterprise that had held a monopoly on the production of tobacco and alcoholic beverages since 1925, stood in downtown Ankara for two and a half months despite the harsh winter conditions of 2010. The encampment created significant political impetus although it was ultimately not successful in obtaining its goals. Nevertheless, the camp was significant in terms of the spatial formation of public space. Pursuant to the global wave of protests in 2011, apart from being a response to the deprivation created by neo-liberalism, the TEKEL resistance also generated a particular form of urban spatial encampment. This article discusses the formation of the TEKEL encampment and the applicable embodied practices that emerged from it. The TEKEL encampment is dealt with in two ways. On the one hand, it is investigated amidst the processes of appropriation of public urban space. On the other hand, it is explored through the lens of the TEKEL workers’ nomadic living conditions, dictated to them by the neo-liberal employment regime.
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Potential of the ‘Un-Exchangeable Monument’: Delhi’s Purana Qila, in the time of Partition, c.1947–63
More LessDuring the Indo-Pakistan Partition, the exodus of Muslims and the influx of Hindus and Sikhs indelibly transformed Delhi. Both groups occupied some of the city’s Islamic monuments as refugee camps, of which the longest running was the sixteenth-century Purana Qila (Old Fort). If there is one indelible act that symbolized the Partition, it was the mass movement of people and the exchange of movable property. It was through exchange that India and Pakistan acquired accoutrements of nationhood such as citizens, land and a bureaucratic apparatus. At a time when trivial objects like furniture and something as vital as human life were considered exchangeable, the very object that had long been considered the repository of a nation’s identity – the historic monument – became an un-exchangeable asset. Using the Purana Qila as an example, this essay suggests that during the ‘long Partition’, the modern tourist-monument carefully fashioned by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) ceased to function as such. The actions of these refugees and their refusal to leave transformed the tourist-monument into a space of protracted negotiation and resistance. At a time when everything was exchangeable, the potential for resistance came precisely from that which could not be exchanged.
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On Design and Politics of Co-producing Public Space: The Long Marches and the Reincarnation of the ‘Forecourt’ of the Pakistani Nation
More LessThe rise in the political power of social media technologies has led to claims about their democratizing and empowering functions. On the one hand, the a-spatial theorization of this ‘rise’ undermines the value and role of public space. On the other, it raises questions about traditional ways of conceptualizing this space. With the intention of broadening the concept of public space, this article investigates key socio-political processes behind temporal events like the ‘long march’ or Occupy movements, and how spatial forms of streets and public spaces interact in producing the image, value and meaning of public space. I assemble a theoretical framework in order to analyse a specific case: the ‘long marches’ and reincarnation of the ‘forecourt’ of the Pakistani nation that materialized in three public spaces in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. By focusing on the spatiality of contemporary long marches, my analyses carefully unravels the intertwinement of design and politics in socio-spatial … these public spaces, and concludes that social processes and spatial forms co-define each other.
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The Spatial Logic of the Crowd: The Effectiveness of Protest in Public Space
More LessThe result of the 2009 Iranian presidential election sparked protests in the streets of Tehran. This article focuses on the spatial logic of crowd occurrence and the role played by protest location in its effectiveness. Although the symbolism of space is pronounced in crowd studies from Gustav Le Bon to Charles Tilly, there is a lack of attention to the logic of crowd culmination and movement in relation to actual physical urban spaces. There are new studies examining how public space is utilized during times of political turmoil; these studies, however, focus mostly on the specific place of protest, and do not examine crowd dynamics in the city at large. This article, in contrast, contributes to the understanding of the spatial logic of mass occurrence by examining the city structure as a whole. It argues that the location of a public space in a city is far more important than its symbolic connotations, and that, following Tilly, the impact of crowds depends not only upon the what he calls WUNC equation (representing Worthiness, Unity, Numbers and Commitment of a crowd), but also on the spatial characteristics of the place of the protest.
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The Representative Space: Shaheed Minar – the Martyrs Monument Plaza in Dhaka
Authors: Kishwar Habib and Bruno De MeulderThe national monument Shaheed Minar finds its origin in the Bengali Language Movement, commonly considered the catalyst for the creation of Bangladesh as a sovereign state. It is situated in an in-between and contested space: between old indigenous and new postcolonial parts of Dhaka. Due in part to the monument’s historic and cultural significance, as well as to its location as the centre of public demonstration and protest, it has emerged as the city’s pre-eminent symbolic and representative space. The monument plaza is simple in design, yet very precise in its architectural expression and is structured by a dual axiality: the symbolic axis of mourning and protest and the ordinary axis of everyday life. This dual-axiality allows for coexistence of contradictory activities. It creates a sense of living apart, together, where ceremonial and mundane activities and ordinary life are regularly juxtaposed. Despite being a contested platform, the plaza is also one of the few places without fences in an area of fenced, segregated spaces. This article positions Shaheed Minar within the context of its evolution – from its role in the Language Movement to its contemporary position as both public plaza par excellence and stage for frequent political demonstration.
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BOOK REVIEWS
TURQUERIE AND THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION, 1728–1876, NEBAHAT AVCIOĞLU, (2011) Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 304 pp., 17 colour plates, 86 b/w illustrations, ISBN 9780754664222, $124.95 (cloth)
CITY AND SOUL IN DIVIDED SOCIETIES, SCOTT A. BOLLENS, (2012) London and New York: Routledge, 278 pp., 54 b/w illus., ISBN 9780415779234, $53.95 (paperback)
HAREM HISTORIES: ENVISIONING PLACES AND LIVING SPACES, MARILYN BOOTH (ED.), (2011) Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 416 pp., 39 illus., 3 figures, ISBN 9780822348696, $55 (paperback), ISBN 9780822348580, $89.95 (cloth)
DUBAI: THE CITY AS CORPORATION, AHMED KANNA, (2011) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 288 pp., 17 b/w illus., ISBN 9780816656301, $75 (cloth), ISBN 9780816656318, $25 (paper)
MAMLUK HISTORY THROUGH ARCHITECTURE: MONUMENTS, CULTURE AND POLITICS IN MEDIEVAL EGYPT AND SYRIA,NASSER RABBAT (2010) London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 288 pp., 72 b/w illus., ISBN 978845119645, $80 (cloth)
OTTOMAN IZMIR: THE RISE OF A COSMOPOLITAN PORT, 1840–1880, SIBEL ZANDI-SAYEK, (2012) Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, x + 273 pp., 55 b/w illus., 19 b/w maps, ISBN 9780816666010, $82.50 (cloth), ISBN 9780816666027, $27.50 (paperback)
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EXHIBITION REVIEWS
Authors: Julia Walker, Caitlin McKenna and Nancy Demerdash‘ZAHA HADID: FORM IN MOTION’, PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART, PERELMAN BUILDING, SEPTEMBER 20, 2011–MARCH 25, 2012
‘CITY OF MIRAGES: BAGHDAD, 1952–1982’ AND ‘CHANGE: ARCHITECTURE AND ENGINEERING IN THE MIDDLE EAST, 2000–PRESENT’, CENTER FOR ARCHITECTURE, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 22–MAY 5, 2012
‘ARTS DE L’ISLAM’, THE NEW PERMANENT EXHIBITION, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, FROM SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
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CONFERENCE PRECIS
Authors: John Ellis and Alyson Wharton‘THE CITY, LIVING HERITAGE’ THE SECOND REGIONAL EURO-MEDITERRANEAN CONFERENCE OF THE CONSORTIUM MONTADA, CONVENED AT THE INSTITUT MOULAY RACHID, SALE, MOROCCO, OCTOBER 11–12, 2012
‘LOOKING WIDELY, LOOKING CLOSELY’, THIRD BIENNIAL SYMPOSIUM OF THE HISTORIANS OF ISLMIC ART ASSOCIATION ( HIAA), OCTOBER 18–20, 2012, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK
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