20th Century Middle-Eastern Cities (by Qitao Wang)

 

The Middle-Eastern cities refer to the cities in a region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. Islam is the largest religion in the Mid East, but there are also other faiths such as Judaism and Christianity. There are indivisible historical origins between Europe and Mid East cities, they have a long history of encounters, exchanges and conflicts. This essay will focus on the impact from west on the 20^th century Middle-Eastern cities. The whole essay will be divided into three periods - the early 20^th century, after World War 2 and the later 20^th century.

 

According to Stefano (2000:160), in the West, industrialization reached a first climax in the later 19^th century, the new civilization caused by the industrialization was spread to Mid East through Europe’s colonial development activities. Istanbul is one of the largest cities in Mid East and it was the capital of Ottoman Empire, in the later 19^th century, there was a creep ‘westernization’ of Ottoman architecture, it is similar to 15^th century - the innovative assimilation of Byzantine elements came into the new Ottoman architecture, this ‘westernization’ is unfortunate to Istanbul because during the transformation process, there was nearly no local creativity came into it, it is a slavish imitation of western style.  In the early 20^th century in Istanbul, there were vast amount of decorative features borrowed from Classical and Rococo architecture in every corner of the new districts, furthermore, at that time, western style apartments started to appear along the streets in the new districts, the French and Italian architects were very popular, they were commissioned to do some important architectural and urban projects, this situation not only happened in Istanbul, but also in other cities managed by Ottoman Empire such as Aleppo, Damascus and Baghdad, there were many representative projects - the new Rasheed Street in Baghdad, a shopping street with lateral arcades of Mediterranean character. The appearance of boulevard is because of the change on the trip mode, in the past, people chose horse for travel, with the advent of the motor car in the early 20^th century (the first car was invented in the later 19^th century, but at that time, it was not popularized), the boulevard became an indispensable functional element of modern cities, this was transmitted to Mid East through the colonialism in the early 20^th century, the witness is the small boulevard to the north of Aleppo built in the early 20^th century.

 

The colonial activities ended after World War 2 because of the internal struggles of European nations, however, around fifties of 20 century, the impact from west did not come to the end, it even reached a peak, the impact is mainly from three aspects - economic factors, demographic growth and political ambitions. Under the political ambitions impact, many politically independent national governments were established in Mid East, it was through revolutionary actions or peaceful agreements. At this period, many rich Mid East cities ‘lost most of their traditional urban heritage since the abundance of financial resources and the ensuing development pressures have led to the whole sale demolition of most of their historic centres in a short period of time.’ (Stefano 2000:175) The urban heritage in other poor cities is conserved though most people there at that time were still struggle with poverty. From early 1930s to later 1950s, the physical development of most historic Muslim cities was mainly based on three ways, at the beginning, it is based on two ways, one is continuing to construct the new city on the old historic fabric, it needs large amount of new roads and space for public buildings, the disadvantage of this method is that it will cause the continuous destroying on historic urban structures. The other method is to build new colonial cities on virgin lands. This method does not need any pre-existing urban structures, so it can avoid the demolition of historic urban structures, however, for this method, it needs huge amount of resource, capital and labour to support. So later, a median solution was carried out by the French colonial administration, the method is to create twin or parallel cities, they are allowed to be co - exist at a little distance or side by side. This method can minimize the disadvantages of the above two methods. Under this method, the representative cities are Fez, Rabat, Marrakesh, Tunis, Aleppo and Damascus.

 

Move to the sixties and the early seventies, a system of new thoroughfares designed by the French architect appeared in the old city centres of Fez, Damascus and Aleppo. (Stefano 2000:178) The main purpose of this design is to combine improved car access with a partial archaeological reconstruction of the Roman town plan, however, this design has not been fully implemented because it was too hard for the government to enforce as it even caused several violent reactions from conservationists and the capital it needed was a huge amount. In the later 20^th century, the informal sector and emerging non-governmental organizations stood up, they played a more important role in Mid East cities, the reason for this is they can assume some tasks that the government has no ability to do - even the government got enough money, for instance, they have ability ‘to mobilize the hidden resources of grass - root initiatives.’ (Stefano 2000:182) The relationship between the government and these informal groups or organizations is like partnership. The vernacular mode of development can generate a meaningful new system of cultural references through operating at grass-root level and it also has influence on narrowing the gap between tradition and modernity.

In conclusion, the 20^th century is an important period of rapid innovation and idealism sublimation for Middle-Eastern cities, Europe’s colonial development activities changed the urban structure and building style, and through the two world wars, the structure of Mid East society was also modified.

 

 

 

Reference:

Stefano Bianca, ‘The impact of Western models of development on the contemporary development patterns of historic Muslim cities’, in Urban Form in the Arab World: Past and Present, London: Thames and Hudson, 2000, pp.161-184.