19.12.2012 – Issue 10 - In the Desert – Al Hiyari Sahel – Videos, Studio

Holy Ground: Unorthodox Interventions in the Wadi Rum

Lecture by Sahel Al Hiyari

I will present to you a few projects that sort of represent the trajectory of works I have done over the past 13 years. The works are focal points or images between two aspects: on one hand it is the aspect of a cultural context that is characterized by its constant transitions, ambiguities, and an architectural culture that is located at the margins of the global architectural production, while on the other hand there is a link to the idea of architecture that is mediated to its autonomy and the qualities that transcend the limitations of a certain place. Now, the geography of the Middle East like many others has its own natural process of selection by which certain ideas either survive, adapt, or they simply do not. My work is a reaction to that, it is based on a strategy that ebbs and flows with these ideas of resistance and adaptability.


From a lecture given at ETH Zurich, Chair of Prof. Dr. Josep Lluis Mateo