Foci of architectural interest are shifting constantly. Not surprisingly, they usually coincide with historical centres of economical, political and cultural power. But occasionally, outstanding architectural works appear in conditions not that promising at the first glance. In the second “Middle East” edition of dAP, we ponder into the distant view, highlighting places, projects and personalities that bound to specific contexts, surpassing material constraints or interpreting idealized traditions, depict an optimistic and diversified image of the region flickering in constant change.
Coincidentally, two dynamically sublime views through window frames of machines in motion mark the beginnings of two “architectural” narratives that have been shaping Middle- Eastern landscapes ever since. In the initial chapter of his 1969’s “Architecture for the Poor”, Hassan Fathy gave...
Read moreThere is a certain romantic aspect to the Middle East, very hard to avoid when we look at it from a European (“Western”) perspective: mythical place from books where anything can happen. How does the contemporary Middle East look like when seen from inside, related to architectural project...
Read morePublic space in a Middle Eastern city
MOHAMMAD AL ASAD: this is a very difficult subject to address because there is always the talk of the fact that there are no true public spaces in this part of the world, but then you have Cairo and “Tahrir square” which shows how a public space...
Doha, the capital of Qatar, keeps positioning and re-inventing itself on the map of international architecture and urbanism with different...
Read moreIN THE CITY: WILD JORDAN
As you all know, normally people think of a buildings having four elevations and in Jordan, in Amman, we have the 5th elevation, which is the most important because we have a very complex geomorphological city, where you see the roof. So the fifth elevation is the...