Publications
The publications of the Aga Khan Program at the GSD are distributed by Harvard University Press. For further information, please check www.hup.harvard.edu.
The Superlative City: Dubai and the Urban Condition in the Early Twenty-First Century
Edited by Ahmed KannaSpring 2008
In the last few years, the Persian Gulf city of Dubai has exploded from the Arabian sands onto the world stage. Oil wealth, land rent, and so-called informal economic practices have blanketed the urbanscape with enormous enclaved developments attracting a global elite, while the economy runs on a huge army of migrant workers from the labor-exporting countries of the Indian Ocean and Eurasian regions. The speed and aesthetic brashness with which the city has developed have left both scholarly and journalistic observers baffled and reaching for facile stereotypes with which to capture its identity and significance to the history of urban planning, architecture, social theory, and capitalism.
In The Superlative City, contributors from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and colleagues from the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Europe offer the most serious analyses of the city to appear to date. Remarkable aspects of Dubai, such as the size and theming of real estate projects and the speed of urbanization, are situated in their local and global architectural, political, and economic contexts. Planning tactics and strategies are explained. The visually arresting aspects of architecture are critiqued but also placed within a holistic view of the city that takes in the less sensational elements, such as worker camps and informal urban spaces.
Landscapes of Development: The Impact of Modernization Discourses on the Physical Environment of the Eastern Mediterranean
Edited by Panayiota PylaSpring 2008
This book examines the impact of development policies and politics on the physical environment of the Eastern Mediterranean, a region defined here not as a rigid geographical area but as a larger cultural context. Since the end of World War II, the drive toward development has featured dreams of progress and emancipation intertwined with processes of reconstruction, decolonization, and nation-building, as well as transnational agendas for socioeconomic restructuring (capitalist or otherwise) and larger postwar/Cold War power politics. In physical terms, the drive toward development has been responsible for the rapid growth of metropolitan centers, the radical restructuring of rural landscapes, and the proliferation of dams, irrigation systems, and other infrastructures.
Nine essays examine formal manifestations of development, placing the spotlight on urban and rural schemes, housing projects, and agro-landscapes and dams from Israel to Turkey, and from Greece to Syria. These contributions are all grounded in new scholarly research, employing a variety of critical tools to situate built works within the larger sociopolitical context that influenced their design and implementation, and to reflect on their social, cultural, and environmental impact.
A Turkish Triangle: Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir at the Gates of Europe
Edited by Hashim SarkisSpring 2008
Every classification of Turkish cities singles out three major urban centers while relegating the rest to the status of secondary cities. Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir have been the major poles of growth and development in Turkey since the Republic was formed. Despite a very strongly centralized system of planning and redistributive politics that favored agriculture and industrialization in rural areas and secondary cities, these three cities have maintained a rapid pace of growth and a polarity that has defied expectations and controls. The metropolis, the capital, and the port have also grown to organize the regions and secondary cities around them, to direct their growth and development, and sometimes to subsume them into their amorphous suburbs. To be sure, these three cities have followed very different paths. From a fire that annihilated its business center, Izmir was rebuilt to become the port of the Anatolian countryside and the link to Europe, especially during the reconstruction of Europe. Istanbul lost much of its imperial glories, but grew from about 1 million after World War II to become the biggest city in Europe today. Ankara was created as part of an effort to place the administration of the country in the middle of the territory of the nation-state, but since then has developed from an administrative and planned center to an educational hub and regional pole.
Through a series of three case studies prepared by preeminent academics involved in planning efforts and an introduction by Turkey’s most renowned urban historian and theorist, Ilhan Tekeli, the book studies the rise of these three main urban centers and their roles in organization the territory.
The Architecture and Memory of the Minority Quarter in the Muslim Mediterranean City
Edited by Susan Gilson Miller and Mauro BertagninA collaborative work among historians, literary specialists, and architects, this collection is directed at filling the gap in our knowledge about minority neighborhoods in the southern Mediterranean.
A series of portraits examines the minority quarters of six Mediterranean cities: Fez, Marrakesh, Trani, Tangier, Palermo, and Istanbul. Each chapter documents the architectural reminders of minority presence: the houses, churches, synagogues, shrines, legations, and other public spaces that have been abandoned or converted to other uses. Authors also examine the everyday experiences that shaped physical space, such as family life, the economy, interactions with the rest of the city, relations with state authorities, and ties with the hinterland, the region and the wider Mediterranean world. Finally, the book considers how minority space has been exploited and refashioned as a “place of memory” in which uncomfortable visions of the past have been revised and made suitable for current use.
Also forthcoming:
MakinaMedina: Reconfiguring the Relationship between Geography and Event in the City of Fez, Morocco
, edited by Hashim Sarkis and Aziza ChaouniDesert Tourism: Delineating the Fragile Edges of Development
, edited by Virginie Lefebvre and Aziza ChaouniNew Geographies Journal
Editor-in-chief: Neyran Turan
Editorial Team: Gareth Doherty, Rania Ghosn, Stephen Ramos
First issue: spring 2008
New Geographies journal aims to examine the emergence of the “geographic,” a new but for the most part latent paradigm in design today–to articulate it and to bring it to bear effectively on the social role of design. Although much of the analysis of this context in architecture, landscape and urbanism derives from the social anthropology, human geography, and economics, the journal aims to extend these arguments to the impact of global changes on the spatial dimension, whether in terms of the emergence of global spatial networks, global cities, or nomadic practices, and how these inform design practices today. Through essays and design projects, the journal aims to identify the relationship between the very small and the very large, and intends to open up discussions on the expanded role of the designer, with an emphasis on disciplinary re-framings, repositionings as well as attitudes.
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