Category: Books

The fast-growing cities of the Persian Gulf are, whatever else they may be, indisputably sensational. The world’s tallest building is in Dubai; the 2022 World Cup in soccer will be played in fantastic Qatar facilities; Saudi Arabia is building five new cities from scratch; the Louvre, the Guggenheim and the Sorbonne, as well as many American and European universities, all have handsome outposts and campuses in the region. Such initiatives bespeak strategies to diversify economies and pursue grand ambitions across the Earth.

Shining special light on Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha—where the dynamics of extreme urbanization are so strongly evident—the authors of The New Arab Urban trace what happens when money is plentiful, regulation weak, and labor conditions severe. Just how do authorities in such settings reconcile goals of oft-claimed civic betterment with hyper-segregation and radical inequality?  How do they align cosmopolitan sensibilities with authoritarian rule? How do these elite custodians arrange tactical alliances to protect particular forms of social stratification and political control? What sense can be made of their massive investment for environmental breakthrough in the midst of world-class ecological mayhem?

To address such questions, this book’s contributors place the new Arab urban in wider contexts of trade, technology, and design. Drawn from across disciplines and diverse home countries, they investigate how these cities import projects, plans and structures from the outside, but also how, increasingly, Gulf-originated initiatives disseminate to cities far afield.

Brought together by noted scholars, sociologist Harvey Molotch and urban analyst Davide Ponzini, this timely volume adds to our understanding of the modern Arab metropolis—as well as of cities more generally. Gulf cities display development patterns that, however unanticipated in the standard paradigms of urban scholarship, now impact the world.

Molotch H., Ponzini D., (eds) (2020). The New Arab Urban: Gulf Cities of Wealth, Ambition and Distress, New York University Press

Edited by Harvey Molotch and Davide Ponzini

Available at NYU Press

Internationally renowned architects are at centre stage in public debates, not only with reference to designing aesthetically striking artefacts, but also to urban regeneration programmes and urban branding. The narrative of the ‘Bilbao effect’ has been spreading worldwide, apparently leading cities to compete in collecting spectacular projects and buildings, sometimes with little regard for their urban context. Despite the fact that these forms of urban development have been changing the landscape in several cities, attention and explanations regarding the rationalities implied in such decision making and localization processes are today limited and sometimes misleading. The authors offer a critical reappraisal of oversimplified interpretations of star architecture and its many urban implications. Drawing on the study of relevant architectural decision-making processes in Bilbao, Abu Dhabi, Paris, New York City and the Vitra Campus and on an original photographic corpus, the book argues that these phenomena have high territorial variety, depending on local as well as more contingent factors. The book explains that architectural and urban spectacles are often used by urban policymakers in order to drive political consensus, maximize media exposure and eventually cover economic and real-estate interests, potentially inducing perverse or even paradoxical effects. It pragmatically outlines critical perspectives for interpreting architectural and urban projects as meaningful elements of contemporary urban landscapes.

Ponzini D., Nastasi M. (2016). Starchitecture. Scenes, Actors and Spectacles in Contemporary Cities, New York: Monacelli Press.

Authored by Davide Ponzini and Michele Nastasi

Available at Monacelli Press