Publications:
The publications of the Aga Khan Program at the GSD are distributed by Harvard University Press. For further information, please check http://www.hup.harvard.edu.
The Superlative City: Dubai and the Urban Condition in the Early Twenty-First Century
edited by Ahmed Kanna
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 city's 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 Denmark 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.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/KANSUP.html
Landscapes of Development: The Impact of Modernization Discourses on the Physical Environment of the Eastern Mediterranean
edited by Panayiota Pyla
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.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/PAYLAN.html
Two Squares
edited by Hashim Sarkis with Mark Dwyer and Pars Kibarer
Through a series of essays by urban historians and designers the book examines the changing role of public space in the cities of Beirut and Istanbul as they undergo major urban redevelopment.
In the case of Beirut, the study focuses on the redesign of Martyrs’ Square, the city’s primary public space, in the aftermath of the civil war and the ongoing reconstruction efforts to rebuild the center.
In Istanbul, the study focuses on Sirkeci Square, one of the main intermodal hubs in the historic peninsula as it readies itself to host a new station for the first under-Bosphorus train tunnel.
The two urban transformations are taken as opportunities to examine the nature of public space in the 21st century city, the history and evolution of public life in the two cities, and the possibilities of using these vital transportation nodes as opportunities for new landscape, urban, and architectural design strategies. The book also includes a series of hypothetical design projects for these two locations by Harvard GSD students.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SARTWO.html
Table of Contents
Part One: Beirut
Square One: Martyrs Square, Downtown Beirut
- A Vital Void, Hashim Sarkis (Aga Khan Professor, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design)
- Reclaiming the Bourj, Samir Khalaf (Professor of Sociology, American University of Beirut)
- Considering Public Life in Beirut, Mark Dwyer (Design Critic, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design)
Part Two: Istanbul
Intermodal Istanbul, Sikerci Square
- Waterfront Development in Istanbul, Tansel Korkmaz (Professor of Architecture at Bilgi University, Istanbul)
- Sirkeci Square, Pars Kibarer, (Research Fellow, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design)
Han Tumertekin, Recent Work
edited by Hashim Sarkis
“Transgression of context runs consistently throughout the work of Tumertekin whether in his suburban residential developments, his monuments, his houses, or adaptive reuse projects, whether in Turkey, the Netherlands, or Japan, and even in the publications that his office sponsors be they on Ottoman architecture, or contemporary formal concepts. Still his projects are deeply rooted in the conditions of practice wherever they take place.”
- from introduction
As the first of a new series of occasional monographs on contemporary designers in the Middle East and Muslim world, this publication presents the architecture of Han Tumertekin, a renowned Turkish architect, to the English-speaking world. The book focuses on six recent projects including House 2B that recently won him the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Tumertekin. It examines in detail his ability to engage in some of the more difficult issues confronting architects throughout the world today such as suburban tract development, landscape and environment, and the challenges of practicing in different countries throughout the world.
The book includes an introductory essay by Hashim Sarkis, an article by Tumertekin on his design approach, and written and graphic explanations of Tumertekin’s projects.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SARHAN.html
A Turkish Triangle:
Ankara, Istanbul, and Izmir at the Gates of Europe
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 re-distributive 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 recapitulated in the 1950s from about 1 million after WWII to become the biggest city in Europe today. Ankara was created as part of the effort to re-center the administration of the country around the center of the territory of the nation state, and yet has moved from being an administrative and planned center to becoming an educational hub and regional pole.
Over the past twenty years, significant changes have occurred within Turkey and around it that have started to reshape the roles if not the primacy of these three urban poles. The weakening of the centralized planning system in Turkey in favor of strengthening local and regional powers, the disintegration of the Soviet bloc and the rise of Turkic states as zones of extended Turkish influence outside Asia Minis, the new dynamics in the Middle East, and the European hopes and challenges, promise to transform the Turkish urban polarity in significant ways.
Through a series of three case studies prepared by three preeminent academics involved in their respective city’s 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 in Turkey and their roles in organization the territory and its future reorganization.
Table of Contents:
- Introduction, Ilhan Tekeli (Professor, Middle East Technical University, Ankara)
- Izmir, Cemal Arkon (Professor at YuksekTeknoloji Enstitusu, Izmir)
- Ankara, Murat Guvenc (Professor at Middle Eastern Technical University, Ankara)
- Istanbul, Huseyin Kaptan (Professor at Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, with Zeynep Enlil)
In preparation is also Landscapes of Development, edited by Panaiyota Pyla, Associate Professor at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.