Identity Reloaded Modern Architecture and the Sense of Place in Post-oil Kuwait

سال انتشار: 1398
نوع سند: مقاله کنفرانسی
زبان: انگلیسی
مشاهده: 430

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تاریخ نمایه سازی: 8 مرداد 1398

چکیده مقاله:

Architecture has been a major agent of modernization in the Gulf. On the one hand, the governments embraced modern buildings as the perfect representation of the impatient advancement of society. On the other hand, the rapid urban transformation was blamed for the (supposedly) a critical injection of foreign narratives that have blurred the contours of the local identity and dispersed what was left with the sense of place. Among the Gulf countries, Kuwait was the first to undergo rapid urban development, together with Iran and Iraq. From the early 1960s to the early 1980s, Kuwait catalysed the attention of major international designers working with local firms and local authorities, and leaving on the ground important examples of late modern architecture. Today the lack of precise preservation guidelines and the land speculation driven by commercial forces are encouraging the demolition of the by-now consolidated city of the 1960s to build new towers of aluminium and glass. Stemming from a 5-year fieldwork in Kuwait, and from a visual and archival survey that systematically identified and monitored modern heritage in Kuwait, the present paper reflects on the impact of modern architecture in identity formation of post-oil Kuwait, on some current melancholic representation of the 1960s built environment, and on the rise of new interests for preservation rediscovering place-identity. Within this framework, the text also explores alternatives to common narratives that read modern architecture in the non-West as a one-directional process more than an objective exchange

نویسندگان

Roberto Fabbri

Department of Architecture, Arts and Design, University of Monterrey, San Pedro Garza Garcia, Nuevo León, Mexico