Many of these references are to natural phenomena: the wind-blown sand dunes of the desert or the sanctuary of an oasis; others refer to a way of life seemingly passing beyond recall: the dhows used for trade and pearl diving, or the tents of the nomadic Bedouins. — Atlantic Cities
It is like the new expression of Orientalism. Middle East architecture is defined by few limited metaphors by Western architects who are really looking East to fulfill their payroll obligations.
15 Comments
Here ye here ye! I am white male student from Yale therefore my opinion matters above everybody else's. Inlcuding the King of Dubai who funds these projects. Naive opinion piece that has no idea what it means to work with a client. These references are not just a "pesky contextuality clause in a competition brief" but typically the most important part of the competition brief. Furthermore there is a reason why all the projects tend to have the exact same inspirational references- because it is demanded.
One would hope the article could look beyond the projects references and study the plans, sections, and see what more they offer. Because sometimes the projects have more to them then the references cited.
to the author of the article, kindly do not generalize. what the fuck do you mean by the middle east? these cliche's are to be had because these people have no significant sedentary culture - how do you do 'regionalism' in a desert? sand dune. there is one middle east - the land of the no-landers, the roaming ground of the cruel desert god, land of oil secreting death and corruption- and it has proclaimed war on another middle east, land of milk and honey, land of Ba`al and Tammuz and Ashtar, land of all your beliefs and delusions, of El and his son Yahweh, Qdm (Cadmus) and Erebu/ Ghorouba (Europa - Sunset), the land whose people that taught the greeks and romans who then taught you in turn, that gave you Isiris, Osiris and Horus who in turn gave you your religions.
The Middle East is the most retarted term ever and is NOT the creation of the 'Middle East'.
I was just wondering if these designs help those architects to get in touch with the nature?
Billowing sails and undulating sand dunes, the first is the stillness that motivates and the second, the motivated that alludes to stillness.
But really, I'm not crtiticizing you Orphan but the author/article. Do you know what a real crisis the region is going through? The symbols of architecture in the gulf countries as well. as erdogans turkey should no longer be dunes and sails but rather rockets, tanks and al Qaeda banners; instead of praying towards all Kaaba, these should direct their prayers towards Washington DC and Tel Aviv. The author is obviously rendered irrelevant by his or her ignorance. Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and a few days ago, a bomb less than a kilometre from my place killing 30. This is the old middle east, declared war upon by the new middle east
Its funny that most of the buildings cited on the article are actually rather nice...
Some of the buildings ARE quite nice, and the archtiects don't dictate the site or the program, so giant sculptural gestures are all one can do. As for the metaphores, they can be glib wether in the Middle East or Northern Europe, it's how architcts are taught to justify their sculptural forms. metaphore = concept.
tammuz x, no worries. I do feel these easy metaphors are bread and butter of the architects. "Middle East" is the less than fully grown and less than intelligent child who will be appropriated by Ali Baba stories. That's an imperialistic and culture colonizing way of looking since the late 19th. century. Next thing in defence would be the proliferation and revival of people's Cleopatra Style where she sleeps with all the investors and their architects and sends her poison media snakes the morning after... Hahaha... "You fuck with me I will have you bit in the pre/a/ss, master builder!"
I hope she does that before they leave their brand new SUV's in the airport parking lots and beat the dust, abandoning their employers in considerable fear for their oligarchies.
"...by Western architects who are really looking East to fulfill their payroll obligations"
isn't this a valid point that there is a disconnect in modern architecture between the designer and the site in cases like these? is the local community represented when the design is being developed in an office thousands of miles away by someone who does not fully understand the culture?
oops, Orhan I meant to write and now i cannot edit, i apologize for that.
yes, its all fake, op-ed. it is fake - as fake as israel and as ill justified. and the Gulf Arab countries rechannel colonialism within the old middle east as a proxy for their now monetarily challenged protestant anglosaxonic masters. the vengeful cruel god of the wahabi desert in cohoots with the vengeful -even if dead- god of the adventists ripping apart the rich tapestry of civilizations in the Mesopotamia, Levant, Egypt and the Maghreb. and they tickle each other with the insipidity of a fake culture of "sails" and "dunes", a neo-romanticization of the lack of a culture, the dead fossilization of myths in the form of cliche's. sails and dunes and oil wells and the US embassy and their miilitary.
it is just horrible what they are doing to syria and now us here and egypt, pummeling these countries with hordes of takfiri terrorists who kill anyone who doesnt tow their barbaric religious lines, who kill children because they might have "blasphemed", who decapitate and mutilate and evict minorities, who send car bombs into residential neighbourhoods. this is what the US and its western, israeli gulf-arab and turkish allies are helping fund. This is what you cannot see behind the preservation of these fucking Sails and Dunes: corruption, greed, ignorance and murder of innocents.
Tammuz for once i totally agree with you, and that is because I am able to understand what you are writing...
http://youtu.be/LlSImy96yhE?t=8m10s
Around 9;30 musician Ilhan Ersahin explains, rather nicely, the idea behind contemporary east west division. This clip is from a wonderful documentary exposing Istanbul via its contemporary music scene. There is a version available with English subtitles. It is well worth it if you are curious about the Istanbul. The thing is, there is no designs developed after these kinds of informations. It is an intrinsic problem of architecture of being superficial. Situation on the actual ground is much more complex and interesting.
Hasan Fathy's dunes.
I expected at least a page-full critique...How did this make newsweek? Anyway built projects that have not failed clients are hardly topics of discussion for architects unless they violate codes of conduct...but on some artistic note, criticizing buildings in this sense is somewhat stark_dogmatic....
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