History & Theory

HISTORY AND THEORY

An Introduction

Renée Tobe, History and Theory Coordinator

Undergraduate Teaching Staff: Reem Charif, Claudia di Palma, Miho Nakagawa, Renée Tobe.

Our thanks to our guest contributors: Ela Alanyali Aral; Emily Crompton of PRAXISS, Ismae’l Sheikh Hassan; Miho Nakagawa; and with deep respect, Mary Vaughan Johnson.

In the final year of the BSc, seminars encourage students to speak with their own voice and develop inclusivity in design. Negotiating the Public Realm examined the way social space is constructed in the city through the perspectives of different architectural theories; looking closely at the dynamics in the public realm by examining the negotiations of people and their practices, negotiations within the spaces between building and negotiations at thresholds between the private and the public. Thinking from psycho-geographic, social, political and spatial framework, we asked who has the right to the city? What are spatial and social hierarchies and relationships in the urban realm? The aim was to reveal meanings and readings of how cities are made, lived and appropriated; and what the tactics of resistance are that are employed? and how can they feed into the design process of architecture. Anti-Racism and Decolonising Architecture looked at means to explore space and place using nondiscriminatory language and references. It invited ambiguity into our understanding of how we experience the world around us and asked what are the challenges to create an inclusive and diverse space for all. We examined how we name, identify and challenge racist and colonial practice. Through discussion we found means to understand how we can create a space with no barriers, where everyone is included. We emphasised reflection about the subjectivity of each perspective and critical of its position in context. Aya Nasr: Gender segregation in Ottoman Mosques Spatial issues and injustice in women’s prayer space Tutor: Reem Charif

“Inclusion is not bringing people into what already exists, it is making a new space, a better space for everyone.” - George Dei (2006)

This essay will explore the impact of women’s prayer spaces in Ottoman mosques under the gender segregation ideology in relation to spatial components – particularly focusing on access and visibility. This essay will be split into four chapters: The first chapter will identify the different components of the Ottoman mosque in context, such as fountains and tombs as well as the mosque itself. This essay will then focus solely on the spatial qualities within each gendered space. From the second chapter it will elaborate on this further though the findings of Gülşen Dişli (2017, pp. 20-37) who analysed spatial entities of the women’s prayer spaces in Bitola Mosques – such as the use of partitions to separate men and women’s space, where the women’s space is positioned and its size and accessibility. The third chapter will focus deeper into the topic of visibility, using Xavier Marquez’s (2012, pp. 6-31) terms that indicate different types of users that affect visibility in space, such as spectators and actors. It’s essential for one to view it in this way to broaden the understanding of how people behave in the space, and which user group has power relationship. And would this affect others? In addition to this, this essay will interpret Marquez’s terms into context and link it with another reading that records the foreign perspectives by early European travellers during the Ottoman empire when they visited the mosque, written by Marion Holmes Katz (2014) – to get an overview, not only from the women but also from foreigners, as their viewpoints on gendered spatial differences may be similar in such sense. The fourth and final chapter will embody all the previous chapters by discussing the impact of criticisms raised by female intellectuals - elaborated by Bülent Batuman (2018) - which had on architectural designs of mosques to today, basing it on a theoretical framework of the topic of inclusion and seclusion. How much of a change can an architectural design go through based on the inclusion of people, but seclusion through design.

Were Ottoman mosques designed for men and women equally as they shared the same space but sat apart? And has this equity and inclusion disappeared over time, as women began to be ‘given’ marginal spaces in the mosque to pray in? This essay aims to explore this question in relation to gender segregation in Ottoman mosque spaces. It will be focusing solely on the architectural organisational system of Ottoman architecture such as visibility and access – rather than focusing on the historical moment of construction, because when one discusses gender and space, wouldn’t the organisational system such as plan layout play a huge role in this topic? In addition to this, it will explore other factors of the mosque that influence the strategy of urban planning as it’s essential to note that these factors lead up to the mosque’s design, potentially lead to how gender is used in spatial differences in Ottoman mosques. How this theory will link to arguments and concern. Muhammad Tawfik: Demolishing an Iconic Monument for Political Satisfaction Tutor: Renee Tobe

In order to understand the tremendous structural change happening in our world, we need to have a deeper look at politics through new lenses. Unfortunately, political science suffers from a deep-rooted doubt. That doubt worries the role of institutions, both formal institutional structure, which is associated with governments and constitutions, and the more informal political structures which they are inextricably linked (P, Cerny, 1990, p. ix). Having a deeper insight about politics, could help understand its relevance in architecture. Moreover, some consider politics and architecture have a direct relationship as Mitchell Kapor quoted “Architecture is politics” (S, Carenholm, 2009, p.17). Let us face it, architecture and politics belong to each other. Politics has the task of improving and developing the society we dwell with in, while architecture play a major role towards design what kind of social construction we live in (S, Carenholm, 2009, p.1). One great example to look at of how politics affects architecture is the Middle East. The Middle East is arguably the centre of the world crisis. It could also be defined as the site of the world’s most protracted conflict. This conflict did not only affect architecture, but it also created division, demolish of lands and human losses (R, Hinnebusch, 2018, p. 1-3). In this essay I will mainly focus on Iraq, and how politics affected its architecture. Iraq went through a series of events that drained the country. Some of these major events or conflicts are the war that was initiated on Iraq in 2003 by the United States. The war promised the people of Iraq freedom. However, it left noting but destruction and great political issues (History, 2009). Furthermore, another important event is when the Islamic state (ISIS) took over parts of Iraq in 2014. This caused more tensions in Iraq among Shia and Sunni groups, and between Kurdish groups in the north part of the country. Creating more tension was not the only issue, another recognisable issue was the destruction of a lot of sites in country, some of the country’s great architectural monuments were turned to dust (Rashid, 2018, p. 5-7). One of these monuments was the great mosque of Al-Nuri in Mosul. The case study that I will be presenting in the essay is the Spiral (Malwiya) Minaret of Samarra, Iraq. Samarra is an ancient city in Iraq, and it used to be considered as the second capital. The name Samarra derived from the Arabic phrase “Surra man ra’a”, which means “A joy for all those who see it”. It is the home of the Great Mosque of Samarra with its unique feature the Malwiya Minaret, which means in Arabic “twisted”. The archaeological city of Samarra was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007 due to its historical and cultural importance.

However, this beauty was as a watchtower, a theatre for war and violence during the US forces invasion in 2003. The top of the minaret was bombed in 2005 and left partially destroyed. In addition, during the period of ISIS controlling the city, the building witnessed further destruction. Now, there are claims by the Iraqi government to demolish the building completely for political reasons (J, Alfarra, 2020).

“Politics is a matter of human, and not merely mechanical, interaction between individuals, groups or institutions” stated by Guess (Geuss, 2008). Some politicians tend to use politics in order to justify their actions to people. They usually tend to release two types of statements: one to convince people on why they are taking certain actions and usually refer to as official statements, and the other is their real intentions that are usually classified and not shared to the media, which could be referred to as informal statements (Geuss, 2008). It is believed that politics and architecture have always had direct connection, which affected the way architecture is used. Many politics might consider architecture as a powerful tool to achieve their visions, either by its creation or destruction (Jolliffe, 2020). However, despite it being a useful tool in pursuing ultimate political visions or not, sometimes these visions could lead to vandalising these architectural monuments. One of these great architectural monuments that suffered due to politics is the great mosque of Samarra and its iconic spiral minaret. The mosque was used as a theatre for Iraqi war in 2003, which caused a lot of damage to the building. The ancient city of Samarra is considered to be one the world heritage treasures and a representer of the Abbasid empire. However, due to the recent wars and some other historical events that caused that ancient city a lot of damage (Alfarra, 2020). In this essay, I will be analysing some of the aims and tools of politicians and using the Iraq war as an example. Moreover, I will be looking into the impacts of politics on architecture and using the great mosque of Samarra as a case study.