Abdalrahman Kittana | Birzeit University (original) (raw)
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Papers by Abdalrahman Kittana
Journal of Islamic Architecture, Dec 28, 2023
Scholars have held a longstanding fascination with the complex and intricate urban structure foun... more Scholars have held a longstanding fascination with the complex and intricate urban structure found within Islamic cities. Over the years, they have used various terms and designations, such as labyrinthine, maze-like, spontaneous, organic, and similar descriptors, to characterize this intricate nature. However, these terms often suggest a lack of order or systematic organization, which limits our understanding of how urban spaces were created and regulated, especially at the micro-level of city development.
This essay seeks to provide a case-based insights into the processes of creating, adapting, and managing spaces in pre-modern Islamic cities by examining original archival documents from the Ottoman period.
The study concludes that the dynamic character of the decision-making process, influenced by a framework for decision and counterbalancing practices, and amplified by the ability to divide the entire structure or building into components that can be interchanged with neighboring elements, opened the door to a limitless range of spatial arrangements that led to the emergence of complex interconnections and apparent irregularities.
Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, 2019
Purpose Contemporary wars are continuously striking population centres across the globe with deva... more Purpose Contemporary wars are continuously striking population centres across the globe with devastating consequences of destruction and annihilation, and leading to mass casualties within civilians. The purpose of this paper is to question the role of architecture and urban tissue in packing up civilians’ resilience and survival practices during urban warfare. Design/methodology/approach The investigation is based on critical spatial analysis of survival narratives obtained from an empirical study conducted in the city of Nablus in Palestine. Findings This paper shows that, due to its unique and highly complex socio-spatial entanglement, the kasbah of Nablus represents a paradigm in the (re)creation of community resilience. This paradigm is based on the interaction of three main elements: a multi-layered urban tissue accumulated along 2,000 years of urban evolution; a thick matrix of cultural and social constructs; and the lifting and switching of a lot of social conventions relate...
Cities across the globe are increasingly becoming the main theater of modern warfare. Reviewing t... more Cities across the globe are increasingly becoming the main theater of modern warfare. Reviewing the 15 largest conflicts in the world in which International Committee of the Red Cross is active today, the most remarkable sites that emerge are urban centers. Cities like Gaza, Aleppo, Donetsk and Aden are enduring the hardest consequences of prolonged conflicts that transform the spaces of the everyday life into scenes of confrontation with the most existential challenge: survival (Chonghaile, 2015). Wars in the middles demonstrate that the State is no longer defending its cities by its National Army; instead, the State is defended city by city and street by street through decentralized armed groups of regular armies, militia, mercenaries and armed civilians. Homes, markets, civic buildings and even hospitals are not only shelled from distance, but are also transformed into ‘miniature’ battlefields. This transformation of modern warfare from regular armies in open battlefields into p...
Purpose-Contemporary wars are continuously striking population centres across the globe with deva... more Purpose-Contemporary wars are continuously striking population centres across the globe with devastating consequences of destruction and annihilation, and leading to mass casualties within civilians. The purpose of this paper is to question the role of architecture and urban tissue in packing up civilians' resilience and survival practices during urban warfare. Design/methodology/approach-The investigation is based on critical spatial analysis of survival narratives obtained from an empirical study conducted in the city of Nablus in Palestine. Findings-This paper shows that, due to its unique and highly complex socio-spatial entanglement, the kasbah of Nablus represents a paradigm in the (re)creation of community resilience. This paradigm is based on the interaction of three main elements: a multi-layered urban tissue accumulated along 2,000 years of urban evolution; a thick matrix of cultural and social constructs; and the lifting and switching of a lot of social conventions re...
Journal of Islamic Architecture, Dec 28, 2023
Scholars have held a longstanding fascination with the complex and intricate urban structure foun... more Scholars have held a longstanding fascination with the complex and intricate urban structure found within Islamic cities. Over the years, they have used various terms and designations, such as labyrinthine, maze-like, spontaneous, organic, and similar descriptors, to characterize this intricate nature. However, these terms often suggest a lack of order or systematic organization, which limits our understanding of how urban spaces were created and regulated, especially at the micro-level of city development.
This essay seeks to provide a case-based insights into the processes of creating, adapting, and managing spaces in pre-modern Islamic cities by examining original archival documents from the Ottoman period.
The study concludes that the dynamic character of the decision-making process, influenced by a framework for decision and counterbalancing practices, and amplified by the ability to divide the entire structure or building into components that can be interchanged with neighboring elements, opened the door to a limitless range of spatial arrangements that led to the emergence of complex interconnections and apparent irregularities.
Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, 2019
Purpose Contemporary wars are continuously striking population centres across the globe with deva... more Purpose Contemporary wars are continuously striking population centres across the globe with devastating consequences of destruction and annihilation, and leading to mass casualties within civilians. The purpose of this paper is to question the role of architecture and urban tissue in packing up civilians’ resilience and survival practices during urban warfare. Design/methodology/approach The investigation is based on critical spatial analysis of survival narratives obtained from an empirical study conducted in the city of Nablus in Palestine. Findings This paper shows that, due to its unique and highly complex socio-spatial entanglement, the kasbah of Nablus represents a paradigm in the (re)creation of community resilience. This paradigm is based on the interaction of three main elements: a multi-layered urban tissue accumulated along 2,000 years of urban evolution; a thick matrix of cultural and social constructs; and the lifting and switching of a lot of social conventions relate...
Cities across the globe are increasingly becoming the main theater of modern warfare. Reviewing t... more Cities across the globe are increasingly becoming the main theater of modern warfare. Reviewing the 15 largest conflicts in the world in which International Committee of the Red Cross is active today, the most remarkable sites that emerge are urban centers. Cities like Gaza, Aleppo, Donetsk and Aden are enduring the hardest consequences of prolonged conflicts that transform the spaces of the everyday life into scenes of confrontation with the most existential challenge: survival (Chonghaile, 2015). Wars in the middles demonstrate that the State is no longer defending its cities by its National Army; instead, the State is defended city by city and street by street through decentralized armed groups of regular armies, militia, mercenaries and armed civilians. Homes, markets, civic buildings and even hospitals are not only shelled from distance, but are also transformed into ‘miniature’ battlefields. This transformation of modern warfare from regular armies in open battlefields into p...
Purpose-Contemporary wars are continuously striking population centres across the globe with deva... more Purpose-Contemporary wars are continuously striking population centres across the globe with devastating consequences of destruction and annihilation, and leading to mass casualties within civilians. The purpose of this paper is to question the role of architecture and urban tissue in packing up civilians' resilience and survival practices during urban warfare. Design/methodology/approach-The investigation is based on critical spatial analysis of survival narratives obtained from an empirical study conducted in the city of Nablus in Palestine. Findings-This paper shows that, due to its unique and highly complex socio-spatial entanglement, the kasbah of Nablus represents a paradigm in the (re)creation of community resilience. This paradigm is based on the interaction of three main elements: a multi-layered urban tissue accumulated along 2,000 years of urban evolution; a thick matrix of cultural and social constructs; and the lifting and switching of a lot of social conventions re...