The Other Real Doha Notes on the Beauty of Urban Violence
Ali A. Alraouf, Ph.D. Prof. of Architecture and Urbanism Head, CB, Research & Development Unit Qatar National Mater Plan - MMUP
Beyond the Architectural and Urban Spectacle
The Other Real Doha: Notes on the Beauty of Urban Violence.
• • Towards a particular way of looking at Doha, one that allows us to see beneath the physical surface of buildings and urban spectacle. • opens the gate to considering the ‘shadows’ of a city as a source of inspiration and social justice. • Who to guide Doha’s development; architects or planners, or its people. • Urban violence can include displacement of people.
The two projects that alerted me to the process of losing the real Doha are major contributors in constructing the “Collective Memory of the City”.
Msheireb: The project literally eradicated a whole neighbourhood from top to bottom. While destroying every building within the site, a good number of valuable architectural and urban heritage was vanished from the surface of the old land erasing chapters of the city’s architecture, urbanism and physical evidences of a unique cultural, social and commercial context.
Al-Asmakh: A new face left and adaptive reuse of every single building within the neighbourhood will be adopted. While the development approach in Al-Asmakh is radically different from the ruthless destruction of Msheireb area, yet a clear layer of consistency can be traced.
In the two cases, Meshierb and Al-Asmakh, displacing the expatriates’ community of workers, shop keepers, destroying small business geared for this humble class of the social diversity residing in Doha. Do we need all these galleries?? Why we keep on suggesting the transformation of every old house into a gallery and force people to leave?
A new kind of development which promotes a lifestyle that can’t accommodate the presence of simple, authentic and credible people.
The case of Doha also shows the importance of considering multiple frameworks for understanding urban social diversity in transnational and global cities.
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Thank you Ali. A. Alraouf alialraouf@yahoo.com
The Other Real Doha Notes on the Beauty of Urban Violence Ali A. Alraouf, Ph.D. P r o f .
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Prof. of Architecture and Urbanism Head of Development, CB and Research at QNMP Doha, Qatar alialraouf@yahoo.com alialraouf@gmail.com
Alraouf is an architect, urban designer and planner. He was a Visiting Scholar at Center for Environmental Design Research at University of California at Berkeley-USA. Alraouf has held permanent and visiting teaching and research positions at regional and international universities. Alraouf current research interests are: Doha’s urban Model, Knowledge cities and contemporary Gulf cities. He published more than 80 journal refereed papers, critical reviews, essays, in addition to books and book chapters. He is the recipient of number of awards including Best Research Paper in Sharjah International Conference for Urban Planning 2008 and Research Publication Achievement Award from University of Bahrain 2009. Alraouf was selected as member of 2012 Excel campaign at Qatar University.