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First published in 1989. An essential reference for researchers, scholars and urban planners this is a reference for all those interested in both the history and future developments of urban design for Arab Islamic cities.
The conscious construction of urban space
This is a study in vernacular architecture covering the Middle East and North Africa, particularly concentrating on the interaction between religion and society on the one hand and building practice and city planning on the other. Using various sources, some of which date back to the fourteenth century, the author convincingly contends that building and urban development accomplished within the Arabic-Islamic cultural framework achieved a high level of sophistication.
This is a translation from the original Arabic of a treatise that dates back to the early fourteenth century, written by a builder and master-mason. It is the most comprehensive treatise on building rules within the Mediterranean region. What makes Ibn al-Rami's treatise significant is that: a) it was written by a master-mason, b) it draws upon texts that were available to him that date back to the eighth century C.E. from various regions of the Islamic world, specifically from the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Egypt, Andalus (Islamic Spain), and Tunisia. It presents rules for building and address change and growth within built environments that were compact and typical of the majority of towns a...
Politics and culture are at once semi-autonomous and intertwined. Nowhere is this more revealingly illustrated than in urban design, a field that encompasses architecture and social life, traditions and modernization. Here aesthetic goals and political intentions meet, sometimes in collaboration, sometimes in conflict. Here the formal qualities of art confront the complexities of history. When urban design policies are implemented, they reveal underlying aesthetic, cultural, and political dilemmas with startling clarity. Gwendolyn Wright focuses on three French colonies--Indochina, Morocco, and Madagascar--that were the most discussed, most often photographed, and most admired showpieces of ...
Written with the non-Muslim reader in mind, this book analyses the principles and values established by Islamic tradition to govern the social and physical environments of Muslims. The picture of Islam that emerges from this work is of a way of life with social ideals. Relying on the Qur'an and Sunna, the basic sources of Islamic law, and using examples of the built environment of early Muslims in North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia, the author explains how following these ideals can create an urban environment that responds to social and environmental variables.Islamic views on the controversial issue of modernisation are also examined. This book will be of interest to people in the fields of urban planning, architecture, sociology, anthropology, housing and built environment, as well as Islamic studies.
This book chronicles the florescence of architecture in the Arabian Gulf after the expulsion of the Portuguese in the early 1600's. It demonstrates how the power vacuum created by the collapse of Portuguese control over the trade routes in the Indian Ocean encouraged a growth in fortified architecture, especially in Oman, that radiated out to the surrounding region and was then slowly replaced by new patterns in domestic and public architecture and town planning throughout the Gulf as the trade lines were secured and the individual countries took the first steps towards the formation of today's modern nation-states.The book documents the buildings and crafts of this era and analyses them wit...
The design of streets, and the connections between streets of different character, is the most important task for architects and urbanists working in an urban context. Considered at two distinct spatial scales – that of the individual street – the Street Section – and the complex of city streets – the City Transect – Urban Section identifies a range of generic street types and their success or otherwise in responding to climatic, cultural, traditional, morphological, social and economic well being. Using comparative studies a profile of best practice in street and city design is identified, showing methodologies in both the analysis of, and design for, successful streets and public places – place-making. In uniquely dealing with both the historic and contemporary description and analysis of urban ‘streets’ around the world, the work is of both academic and professional interest to architects, urban planners and designers, highway engineers, landscape and urban design advisers in both the public and private sectors; students, amenity and civic societies, city authorities and government agencies.