The Influence of the Islamic Culture on the Urban Fabric of Alexandria (original) (raw)
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Transformation of the urban character of Arab Cities since the late last century
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To face the requirements of modern era, the current societies try to solve their problems by opting for modernity through the principles of homogenization and standardization. Indeed, accelerated modernization is advocated in all the fields of the life affecting the cultures and identities of people. Modernity threatens the heritage of the past especially that related to the old city and traditional architecture. With their traditional core, the cities of the Arab world are experiencing rapid growth whose design is based on the universal principles of urbanism and architecture giving birth to forms and urban structures which have no relationship with the local culture. With the great sets, their stereotyped constructions, and the standard accompanying facilities, the urbanization of the Arab world is anonymous raising the issue of the identity of the Arab city. Aware of the stake and the importance to assign a national style to the Algerian city which breaks with that of their home country, the French settlers were able to respond to this concern. Drawing on the traditional heritage, the French architects conceived a new style called "neo Moresque" founded on the arabisance of the imported European models. The “neo Moresque" style represents an aesthetic and architectural flowering of a century of interbreeding between the East and occident that constitutes a very rich research topic. It allows to focus on the issue of the patrimony and its conservation. It is necessary to find suitable solutions to the contemporary problems that are related to the country. The "national style" expresses urban and architectural identity of the nation, and its civilizational membership. This Millennium, Constantine with its traditional core, constitutes a case of study which highlights the problematic situation of the Algerian city. The study of this town permits to analyze and discuss the questions related to the fate of the Arab city in particular the Algerian one. It is a question of emphasize the possible ways to identify the ills of the Algerian city and try to bring adequate solutions. In fact, this paper aims to study the city of Constantine trying to think and to find the best manners to exploit the traditional heritage which is unique. This latter can serve as the starting point for contemporary urban and architectural creation. It can constitute a source of inspiration even a solution to the problem of identity and culture related to the Algerian architecture and town planning which struggle to find their way. Today, the true urgency is to establish a new Arab cultural vision that supports while being responsible for its social dimension.
Historic Urban Fabric and Its Conservation Problematic in Turkey
Historic urban fabric is the total representation of urban architecture that has the capacity of creating the urban space and urban life of a particular society. It has guidance on providing the coherence between architectural values and cultural continuity of built environment. The man designs his built environment according to some functional and cultural bases. Therefore, urban architecture is a system or structure consisted of physical, social and cultural entities. In this system, understanding historic urban fabric initially necessitates understanding the essence of the entity. The urban components may alter with changing conditions of the modern world, but the essence of historic urban fabric lies in the relatedness between the architectural elements. In modern world, with rapid urbanization, uncontrolled changes and growth of the cities have become threat to the authentic character and historic urban fabric of the cities. Moreover, with technological developments, functions of the urban environment have changed; thereafter, conservation of the historic urban fabric and its adaptation to new form of living and land uses have become significant issues for urban design and planning policies. The main objective of this paper is to assert the necessity of understanding historic urban fabric in order to provide the perpetuation of the authentic character and architectural qualities. Defining historic urban fabric for a settlement necessitates understanding and reading the space because these practices release the inventory feature of the local character in terms of conservation practices. The study puts forth the conservation problematic of historic urban fabric in Turkey in line with explaining the development process of Turkish planning system. In the last century, many Turkish towns have been disrupted with modernization tools and projects. With capitalist materialism, many global images and architectural features are stamped to the cities as contemporary projects. Sometimes, on behalf of maintaining just the physical historic urban fabric, some architectural elements are copied as a model to the new designs such that they were lack of their soul, meaning and historic significance. In this way, many cities in Turkey transformed due to the pressure of capitalist production and the historic urban fabric could not be preserved. In some Turkish cities, the strong relationship between culture and character has been broken; in the meantime the common language that constitute the urban fabric has been forgotten. This study reveals that urban artifacts of history or historic architectural values are not the end products of a settlement; they are the result of a long-term formation including physical, social, cultural, economical interactions. Inherited environment has the capacity of creating the image of the city; thus, the built environment should be evaluated with its own entirety and continuum. Key words: historic urban fabric; conservation; urban architecture; authentic character
The Central Area of Alexandria, Egypt: Development Implications and Urban Conservation
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Assessment of area conservation in the Arab-Islamic city: the case of historic Cairo
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