From ‘National Geographic’

Posted by ameralwarea on

Photograph by Jon Eric Lauritzen, My Shot The Old City in Al-Ula is a beautiful example of an early Islamic settlement. Located 380 kilometers north of Medina in Saudi Arabia, Al-Ula was the capital of the ancient Lihyanites (Dedanites). The city occupies a strategic position along the main trade route carrying incense and spices and connecting civilizations of the Old World. The spectacular scenery is starting to draw in visitors but the tourism infrastructure is still relatively underdeveloped.

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Cairo’s graffiti revolution

Posted by ameralwarea on

Source: cbsnews.com

Credit: AP Photo/Nasser Nasser

n this Tuesday, March 13, 2012, photo, a boy watches an Egyptian female artist and activist at work on the “No Walls Street” during the graffiti campaign to paint a reproduction of the streets behind them and targeted the concrete blocks walls in downtown Cairo, Egypt. After Egypt’s ruling military sealed off streets around Cairo’s Tahrir Square with walls of imposing concrete blocks, a group of artists decided to reopen the avenues on their own, in the public imagination, at least.

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Mina Tent City, Saudi Arabia

Posted by ameralwarea on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina,_Saudi_Arabia

Mina is a location situated some 5 kilometres to the east of the Islamic holy city of Mecca (Makkah) in Saudi Arabia. It stands on the road from Mecca’s city centre to the Hill of Arafat.

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Qatar Philharmonic: World Premiere of Khalife’s Concerto for Rababa and Orchestra

Posted by ameralwarea on

On Qatar National Day, December 17, 2010, Hassan Moataz El Molla performed the world premiere of Marcel Khalife’s Concerto for Rababa and Orchestra. Thomas Kalb conducts the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra at the Opera House in Katara Cultural Village.

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qantara – Mediterranean Heritage Project

Posted by ameralwarea on

http://www.qantara-med.org/qantara4/index.php?&lang=en#/ho_10_11

The Qantara project, which is part of the Euromed Heritage programme, aims to contribute to mutual understanding and dialogue among Mediterranean cultures by highlighting their cultural heritage. It promotes intercultural interchange by supporting the preservation and promotion of the shared historic heritage and culture of the European-Mediterranean region, through human, scientific, and technological exchanges.

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The Clash of Ignorance

Posted by ameralwarea on

by Edward Said

Samuel Huntington’s article “The Clash of Civilizations?” appeared in the Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs, where it immediately attracted a surprising amount of attention and reaction. Because the article was intended to supply Americans with an original thesis about “a new phase” in world politics after the end of the cold war, Huntington’s terms of argument seemed compellingly large, bold, even visionary. He very clearly had his eye on rivals in the policy-making ranks, theorists such as Francis Fukuyama and his “end of history” ideas, as well as the legions who had celebrated the onset of globalism, tribalism and the dissipation of the state. But they, he allowed, had understood only some aspects of this new period. He was about to announce the “crucial, indeed a central, aspect” of what “global politics is likely to be in the coming years.

This is the full Edward Said’s lecture on Samuel Huntington’s essay and book on the “Clash of Civilizations,” at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1996)

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Kaedi Regional Hospital – Mauritania

Posted by hibaalkhalaf on

The Kaedi Hospital extension in Mauritania is one of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture-winners, which sets a good example of ‘in-between architecture’ – both Islamic and modern and neither explicitly – then it constitutes one type, one example and style from which to learn.

The architect’s brief was to build an affordable extension to the hospital that would house facilities for preventive medicine. It was also to serve as a new form of public building which could be replicated in the future. Thus, the brief included ‘low-cost’ techniques of construction that would be of economic and practical benefit for the population and use local materials and skills.

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The Persian Carpet Phenomenon

Posted by Natai Achmez on

Thoughts about Orientalism and Architecture

In Orient, Orientalism is a subject of many mixed feeling and variable viewpoints, viewpoints that spread from being considered “The Cultural Side of Western Colonization” till being made “The Most Neutral and Reliable Sources for Understanding Oriental Cultures”. And many of those who take these two points or any in between do so from their own political, social and cultural stands (ex. Liberals against Conservatives) something is not restricted to Orientalism but also to Politic, Economic, Sociology or any subject where West is involved, beside all and just to justify their points they pragmatically switch between them (sometimes West is a good source and sometimes it is not); examples are many from silly as “modern western haircuts are bad and suits are good”, till extremist: “some Islamist Jihadist movements do forbid all western products like democracy or even refrigerators but allow all kinds of western weapons”.

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Hassan Fathy (Between Art & Architecture)

Posted by ameralwarea on

Is there any difference between art and architecture?  It is impossible to conceive of the history of art in exclusion from that of architecture.

Hassan Fathy was one of those pioneer Arab architects that touched  on art 

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The Traditional urban fabric in the Arab word ‘pic’

Posted by ameralwarea on

The old and Traditional areas in the Arab world cities are characterized by their complex urban fabric, which resulted in a cumulative process of activities over time. And In order to understand what shaped this complex fabric it’s important to associate it with the notions of culture (a framework that recognizes social and historical dimensions of urban life), identity (specific characteristics of place), and authenticity.

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