Kulkarni of Memmot, Ting, O'Rourke, and Vellinga

Technium Social Sciences Journal

Urban planning demands that the needs and problems resulting from the dynamics of society and its development should be taken into account, relying on the studies that consider the reality of the city and the factors influencing its daily life, so it can perform its function under favorable circumstances for a better future within the context of durable development. It should be remembered that the first imbalances of the urban space are those that followed the industrial revolution and the doctrines and intellectual trends. However, the modern trend in architecture and urbanization in terms of urban space is the most influential. Urban space becomes a scene of symbolic confrontations between the designer (imposed plans) and the users of space. This situation appears clearly in the deterioration of the urban space giving a significant transfer of a denial, because of its incompatibility with the needs of the population. The Algerian city has experienced, particularly after the indep...

Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 27(1), 21-39, 2015

Salama, A. M. (2015). Urban traditions in the contemporary lived space of cities on the Arabian Peninsula. Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 27(1), 21-39. ________________________________ ISSN 1050-2092 ---------------------------------------------------- This article aims to answer the question “Whose tradition?” in relation to the contemporary architecture and urbanism of the Arabian Peninsula. It first contextualizes tradition in the region within the geocultural politics of the Arab World and identifies key factors that shaped its traditional settlements, including tribal governance, social systems, building materials, and construction techniques. The article then contends that the region’s urban traditions have been transformed from ones shaped by common people to ones shaped by the elite, in which the role of rulers is heavily emphasized. To explore this view, it analyzes two representative scenes in the contemporary urban lived space of the region, using examples from Dubai and Doha. These are articulated in terms of the emergence of elite enterprises, persistent patterns of social and ethnic segregation, and a continuing struggle to construct identity. Conclusions drawn from the discussion delineate key answers to the question “Whose tradition?” But a framework of examination is also introduced that emphasizes that lived space and the traditions that ensue from it cannot be seen in isolation from other types of space — such as conceived and perceived space. There needs to be a new cycle of knowledge production about cities in the region that integrates concern for all three (lived, conceived and perceived space) to better understand its traditions."

gakkai-web.net

Time is always a deep dimensional projection of human beliefs. At best it can provide an echo of a spiritual universe which integrates man in a meaningful order and provides him with essential inner fulfilment, by the very fact that his small personal world is in harmony with a much larger reality. The conflict between the traditional culture in the Gulf cities and modern systems of thought has to be seen in this wider philosophical context, for the controversial issue is the interpretation of "development" and what it should entail: should development enable the balanced realization of the totality of human faculties and capabilities, or should it reduce reality to limited aspects of material life at the expense of other qualities? Should it promote an increase in quantifiable production only, or should it support a different type of creativity, which includes more fundamental forces and experiences? As far-fetched as these questions may seem, they determine the cultural responses which eventually generate the built environment and its physical expressions. This paper is an attempt to answer the following questions: What are the contributions in the newly developed Gulf cities to discover the potential of continuity between Past, Present and Future? And what are the new alternative approaches which could reconcile traditional principles, contemporary needs and the living future?

2019

Africana studia, 2023

The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2021

Planning Theory, 2019

The New Arab Urban is the latest effort to shed light on urbanization and urbanism in the Arab capitals of the Persian Gulf. This edited book primarily focuses on Dubai and Abu Dhabi, though also includes many incursions into neighboring Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, and a brief discussion of Beirut, Lebanon. Molotch and Ponzini, the book’s editors, have pulled together 12 essays (plus co-authored introduction and con- clusion chapters), written by a number of researchers studying Gulf urbanism from a variety of perspectives: from architecture and photography to history, planning, geogra- phy, sociology, political science, and Middle Eastern studies. It is not easy to edit a vol- ume that represents such a large spread of interests and disciplinary schools, and it shows in this book.

Building Migrant Cities in the Gulf: Urban Transformation in the Middle East, 2019

Human history has seen many settlements transformed or built entirely by expatriate work forces and foreigners arriving from various places. Recent migration patterns in the Gulf have led to emerging 'airport societies' on unprecedented scales. Most guest workers, both labourers and mid to high-income groups, perceive their stay as a temporary opportunity to earn suitable income or gain experience. This timely book analyses the essential characteristics of this unique urban phenomenon substantiated by concrete examples and empirical research. Both authors have lived and worked in the Gulf including Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates during various periods between 2006 and 2014. They explore Gulf cities from macro and interconnected perspectives rather than focusing solely on singular aspects within the built environment. As academic architects specialised in urbanism and the complex dynamics between people and places the authors build new bridges for understanding demographic and social changes impacting urban transformations in the Gulf.

Modern Architecture Kuwait, Vol. 2: Essays, Arguments & Interviews edited by Ricardo Camacho, Sara Saragoça, Roberto Fabbri, 2017

The decades between the 1950s and the 1980s represented a period of nation building in Kuwait. The 1950s Development Program (DP) marks the beginning of this period of rapid modernisation. The DP was a cultural, social, political, and an economic program, introduced by the state to distribute oil wealth among Kuwaiti citizens. However, it resulted in a deeply divided social structure and a stratified urban fabric. The DP also included urban and infrastructural changes, the modernisation of the old town, restrictive housing programs, and neighbourhood planning based on ethnicity and socioeconomic status. These 'modern' transformations represented an overarching state ideology aimed at increasing control of residents' everyday lives. These latent goals were ignored, at first, because of the economic and social opportunities provided by the DP. Thus, the multi-scaled networks established due to DP projects ensured state hegemony within a heterogeneous community and a politically volatile region. On the one hand, this thirty-year period was one of exhilarating and innovative creative activity that crushed crippling historical class dependencies and gender inequalities; on the other, it was a period of severed relationships between residents and the city's natural and built environment. This paper examines the processes and networks of the DP and illustrates how shifts in power can be mapped on the Kuwaiti landscape. The study expands on arguments developed by the author in previously published research, including a 2008 PhD dissertation entitled "Towards a Critique of an Architectural Nahdha: A Kuwaiti Example." The study relies on the primary sources obtained from Kuwait Municipality's archive and indexed in the final chapter of the dissertation; those include architectural and urban projects, drafts of master plans, sociological studies, and correspondence letters between invited architects, planners and state officials. In addition, the author revisits and expands on previously published themes such as the role of invited architects in relation to local actors and the multiple representations of Kuwaiti modernity. These arguments rely on primary sources that provide first-hand testimony of this period of development.

Conference Paper, 2020

The Gulf cities in the past decades experienced the most rapid growth. The traditional societies faced a new global wave of market economy, influenced by western lifestyle. Despite contemporary capitalism this lays a foundation for the exploitative gentrification of the urban process. Uneven development results in a wave of local market displacements. This article aims to present an empirical study on the old waterfront of Al Hafa in Salalah City. This is the major maritime trade for the incense exports between the Indian-ocean and the Mediterranean worlds, thanks to the port of Samahram which helped the city of Salalah to be a commercial center. In 2015, destruction and demolishing of the waterfront took a place due to a new waterfront project. According to publicities, the “Heritage Village” development is supposed to offer a new touristic waterfront with a rich maritime and cultural heritage. What kind of heritage will remain from the olf city of Hafa, which has existed for centuries? how will the new plan affect Al-Hafa Cournish? moreover, to what extent is the new project bound to the waterfront identity? Qualitative research based on data collect from existing documentation, and forms highlighted the urban gentrification struggles over the local economy and the wave of the new global economy. Displacement, Mass tourism