International Journal of Islamic Architecture - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014

The multiple new readings of globalization illuminate the global and local pressures upon the city and its particular forms of spatial organization and various architectures. Recent investigations and approaches thus reveal a revised image for the city based on innovative visions and values. The various aspects of these new developments in scholarship are complex and analysed here under six rubrics – synthetic cities and new urban forms; the Central Business District (CBD) as a generator of growth; skyscrapers as symbols of the new modernity; global architecture appropriated into the local; tourism; historic preservation and the vernacular; and, housing environments for the poor. By carefully considering the overlapping emphases of these rubrics, this editorial indicates a new paradigm within which to consider urbanism.

Using materials from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Special Collections, this article explores scantly documented master plans and architectural designs for cities and projects in or relating to the Islamic world, located in Kuwait, Tehran, Alexandria, Khartoum and London and designed by British architects Peter and Alison Smithson from the 1950s through to the 1980s. These projects illustrate the architects’ generative approach towards Islamicate building contexts and the ways in which it at once is in sync and divergent from orientalist, colonial and developmental legacies. Examining aspects of an array of projects – from a chair to a master plan – this article illuminates the pitfalls and promise of the qualities of ‘sympathy’ and ‘empathy’ in the Smithsons’ architectural projects for the Islamic world in the latter half of the twentieth century.

In the 1970s a grand-scale ceremonial urban centre, with an extensive programme of governmental, commercial and residential buildings, was planned for north Tehran. Construction began in 1975, but was soon halted by the eruption of the street protests that led to the 1979 revolution. This essay analyses the project’s conception, socio-political underpinnings and ultimate failure, by contextualizing it within Tehran’s urban landscape and by tracing its design trajectory. As a grandiose project made possible by the oil boom, the final plan of Shahestan, drawn up by the planning firm Llewelyn-Davies International, not only reflects the megalomania of Mohammad Reza Shah (r. 1941–79) but also reveals the totalitarian nature of the Pahlavi regime in the 1970s. But prior to hiring the planning firm, Queen Farah supported a rival design by the internationally famous architects Louis Kahn and Kenzo Tange, who were indeed involved in the project for a few months before Kahn’s death in 1974. I argue that this duality of patronage, and all the oppositions that it embodies, is echoed in the gendered representation of monarchy in the final plan and signifies how the project subverts a liberal narrative of modernism. Moreover, the new urban centre was not at the city’s physical core but rather at the centre of its northern part – the locus of an expanding upper middle class. The discrepancy between the intended purpose of the project and the social realities of its urban context epitomizes the regime’s paradoxical approach to modernity and modernization.

As the sole heiress to the Duke fortunes, Doris Duke came into wealth at a relatively young age and invested it in ways that reflected her evolving artistic palette. One of her major artistic achievements was the construction of Shangri La in Hawaii, a residence made entirely of Islamic art objects that were collected and commissioned by Duke during and after her honeymoon cruise in 1935. Twentieth-century orientalist art collectors exhibited an interest in a ‘Near East’ long before Duke travelled through the Middle East and India, yet Duke’s method of acquisition and access to objects was unconventional when compared to her peers. The example of Shangri La as a built collection required an aesthetic sensibility and spatial logic that was unparalleled at the time.

This article traces the historical evolution of Shangri La through Duke’s family history, art-oriented relationships and her personal adaptation of the arts and architecture of Islam. What emerges is a private residence that is a visible culmination of the relationships Duke forged in her fascination with Islamic culture, which she continually developed from its inception in 1937 until her death in 1993. As Duke’s reliance on her artistic advisors deepened, so did her own interest in designing and constructing Shangri La to suit her own needs and tastes. Moreover, as this article shows, Duke was purposeful in procuring the objects she commissioned from the ‘Muslim’ world, careful in their placement, and showed an independent will that varied from other collectors of Islamic art in the inter- and post-war periods.

The Altach Islamic cemetery, winner of the 2013 Aga Khan Award, exemplifies how Islamic funerary architecture can contribute to nurturing pluralism in Western Europe. This newly opened cemetery is part of a wider trend in European funerary architecture; the increasing number of Islamic cemeteries reveals the contemporary dynamics of Europe’s cultural and religious diversification. While this new trend provides an opportunity to broaden the scope of representation for Islam in the West, most of the new Islamic cemeteries have been designed mainly to fulfil functional necessities, neglecting an opportunity to shape an intercultural dialogue from an architectural standpoint. In this context, the Altach Islamic cemetery demonstrates a new approach to creating Islamic architecture in non-Islamic environments that fosters cultural convergence. By emphasizing the dialogic dimensions of architecture through design, implementation and public mediation, this approach allows for an understanding of architecture as a medium for community-making and as a bridge between cultures.

This article represents a contribution to social and spatial problems of low-income housing units in Egypt. It is an illustrated product of work previously accomplished in several separate studies. In this article, I attempt to offer more tangible solutions and architectural drawings inspired by ideas from traditional Cairene homes and traditional small-scale urban Japanese residences (to which I was exposed during my research in Japan) in light of surveys conducted among housing-unit residents in Egypt. The article first takes a brief look at the history of the emergence of apartments and housing units in Egypt. Second, it explores examples of small-scale apartments and housing units attempting to incorporate traditional patterns and elements into their design. Third, it proposes a 70m 2 unit plan showing architectural and structural modules, a suggested combination of four units, and proposed spatial organizations and architectural solutions for unit interiors: entrance zone, guestroom, living and sleeping zones, prayer area, washing and ablution area, kitchen, bathroom and guest toilet, and doors and partitions, while incorporating a suggested latticework device that has been proposed and discussed in detail in my previous studies.

Since the 1990s, economic determinism has principally dominated developments in many of the Persian Gulf countries. While spectacular short-term financial gains have been achieved, serious long-term retrogressive and destructive ecological and sociocultural impacts on both land and sea have been recorded. These compelling concerns for the past, present and future of this region prompted Harvard Graduate School of Design’s 2011 agreement with Msheireb Properties (a subsidiary of the Qatar Foundation) to undertake a three-phase research programme entitled ‘Gulf Sustainable Urbanism’ (GSU). For the purpose of this research project, the Gulf (Persian Gulf) region was defined as the eight countries that border the Persian Gulf, which include Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Iraq. This region provides a significant basis for future analysis and scholarship, as it exhibits continuous urban settlement and sustainability models that may prove significant as we face future ecological challenges.

The first phase of this holistic, multi-year, cross-disciplinary study focused on the past urban sustainability of ten maritime port cities in the Persian Gulf. The research worked within a framework structured by three main research topics, namely, Environment/Public Health, Social/Cultural/Economic and Urban Form/Architecture, and investigated these within four distinct scales: region, city, neighbourhood and unit. This article presents the basis of our selection process when defining urban targets and an overview of the lessons learned from the initial investigations.

Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries, Dionigi Albera and Maria Couroucli (eds) (2012) Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 277 pp., 1 b/w illus., ISBN 9780253356338, $70 (hardback), ISBN 9780253223173, $24.95 (paperback)

The Art and Architecture of Ottoman Istanbul, Richard Yeomans (2012) Reading, Berkshire: Garnet Publishing, 260 pp., 202 plates and plans, glossary, bibliography, index, ISBN 9781859642245, $46.99 (hardback)

A History of Ottoman Architecture, John Freely (2011) Boston: WIT Press, 437 pp., 373 plates and plans, glossary, bibliography. ISBN 9781845645069, $194 (hardback)

Constantinopolis/Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision and the Construction of the Ottoman Capital, ÇIğdem KafescIoglu (2009) University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 346 pp., 152 illus., 5 maps, ISBN 9780271027760, $100 (hardback)

Islamic Architecture in Iran – Post-structural Theory and the Architectural History of Iranian Mosques, Saeid Khaghani (2012) London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 288 pp., 39 b/w illus./line drawings, ISBN 9781848857292, £59.50 (hardback)

Urban Spaces in Contemporary Egyptian Literature: Portraits of Cairo, Mara Naaman (2011) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 254 pp., 11 b/w illus., 3 maps, ISBN 9780230108653, $90 (hardback)

‘Flora Islamica’, The David Collection, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 22–October 27, 2013

‘Classical Art of the Islamic World from the IX to the XIX Centuries: Ninety-Nine Names of God’, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Department of Private Collections, Moscow, RUSSIA, February 20–June 16, 2013

‘Opa-Locka: Mirage City’, History Miami, MIAMI, FLORIDA, June 28–September 8, 2013

‘Narratives of Travel Writing and Architectural History’, Third Nomad Seminar in Historiography, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, November 8–9, 2012

‘Asia and the Middle East’, the Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference, Buffalo, NY, April 10–14, 2013