HudaShaka

Cities of the Arab World – thoughts on an interdisciplinary conference

I had the pleasure of attending the Cities of the Arab World conference at Michigan State University last week.  I have to admit I wasn’t sure what to expect, given it was the first academic conference I’ve attended in a long time.  What I found particularly valuable was the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, with

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Kuwait Transformed: linking urban development to social change

It was a real treat to read Farah Al Nakib’s book: Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life.  I’ve captured some of my thoughts in a recently published review piece, excerpts are below: Al-Nakib vividly depicts the economic, social, and political interactions occurring in the port, the suq (market), the mixed-class firjan (neighborhoods), and the homes of pre-oil

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Planning the ‘Islamic City’

Provocation In his recent book, The Well-Tempered City, Jonathan Rose describes the development of cities from 3100 BC to the present day.  I was struck by his description of the “Islamic City”: “Islam offered the cities it captured a coherent, integrating vision, accompanied by economic and religious freedom that encouraged diversity and contributed to prosperity.” (p.80) Rose

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The Battle for Home: exploring questions of identity and architecture

My latest article on The Nature of Cities highlights and explores some of the questions raised by Marwa al-Sabouni’s thought-provoking book, The Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria. The article does not do justice to Marwa’s book, which is packed with brave questions, observations, and challenges to current thinking and

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