Cities and Metaphors Beyond Imaginaries of Islamic Urban Space Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design Series
Auteur : Falahat Somaiyeh
Introducing a new concept of urban space, Cities and Metaphors encourages a theoretical realignment of how the city is experienced, thought and discussed.
In the context of ?Islamic city? studies, relying on reasoning and rational thinking has reduced descriptive, vivid features of the urban space into a generic scientific framework. Phenomenological characteristics have consequently been ignored rather than integrated into theoretical components. The book argues that this results from a lack of appropriate conceptual vocabulary in our global body of scholarly literature. It challenges existing theories, introduces and applies the concept of Hezar-tu (?a thousand insides?) to rethink the spaces in historic cores of Fez, Isfahan and Tunis. This tool constructs a staging post towards a different articulation of urban space based on spatial, physical, virtual, symbolic and social edges and thresholds; nodes of sociospatial relationships; zones of containment; state of intermediacy; and, thus, a logic of ambiguity rather than determinacy. Presenting alternative narrations of paths through sequential discovery of spaces, this book brings the sensual features of urban space into the focus.
The book finally shows that concepts derived from local contexts enable us to tailor our methods and theoretical structures to the idiosyncrasies of each city while retaining the global commonalities of all. Hence, in broader terms, it contributes to a growing awareness that urban studies should be more inclusive by bringing the diverse global contexts of cities into the body of our urban knowledge.
Introduction: Diversifying global urban vocabulary 1. The idea of the ‘Islamic City’ 2. City as labyrinth 3. Hezar-tu as an urban concept 4. City as Hezar-tu: Fez, Isfahan and Tunis Epilogue
Somaiyeh Falahat is a Feodor-Lynen Research Fellow in the Department of Geography and a Research Associate at Trinity Hall College, University of Cambridge, UK.
Date de parution : 01-2023
15.6x23.4 cm
Date de parution : 04-2018
15.6x23.4 cm
Thèmes de Cities and Metaphors :
Mots-clés :
Islamic City; Isfahan; Courtyard Typology; fez; Traditional Arab Cities; tunis; Ville Nouvelle; Moslem; Phenomenological Characteristics; Middle Eastern; Urban Space; Ibn Al Arabi; Case Study Cities; Contemporary Urban Theories; Religious Buildings; Specific Urban Space; Practical Spatialities; Roofed Passage; Labyrinth City; In-between Spaces; Conceptual Vocabulary; Superimposed; Follow; Labyrinthine City; Spatial Milieu; Existential Essence; North African Cities; Historic Cores; Esoteric Meaning; Visual Layers