The Arab–Islamic city has been always a glamorous urban dream in human cultural memory. This is manifested in Cairo, the world’s largest medieval urban system where traditional lifestyles are still implemented. Nevertheless, despite the extensive efforts to preserve Historic Cairo, it is sadly vulnerable. Ahmed Sedky investigates the reasons behind this condition, exploring and comparing regional and international case studies. Questions such as how and what to conserve are raised and elaborated through the perspectives of different stakeholders. A resulting evaluative framework is accumulated that underpins the criteria for assessing area conservation in the Arab–Islamic context and that can be used to delineate the causes responsible for the present condition of Historic Cairo.
Living with Heritage in Cairo
Area Conservation in the Arab–Islamic City
Ahmed Sedky
320 pp.
90 b/w illus.
15X23cm
ISBN 9789774162459
For sale worldwide
24.95
Related products
Ibn Tulun
His Lost City and Great Mosque
Tarek SwelimAhmad Ibn Tulun (835–84), the son of a Turkic slave in the Abbasid court of Baghdad, became the founder of the first independent state in Egypt since antiquity, and builder of Egypt’s short-lived third capital of the Islamic era, al-Qata’i‘ and its great congregational mosque. After recounting the story of Ibn Tulun and his successors, architectural historian Tarek Swelim presents a topographic survey of al-Qata’i‘, a city lost since its complete destruction in 905. He then provides a detailed architectural analysis of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, which was spared the destruction and is now the oldest surviving mosque in Egypt and Africa, from the time of its completion until today. Rare archival illustrations and early photographs document the changing appearance and uses of the mosque in modern times, while extraordinary 3D computer renderings take us back in time to recreate its architectural development through its early centuries. Plans, drawings, and maps complement the history, while striking modern color photographs showcase the elegant simplicity of the building’s architecture and decoration. This definitive and generously illustrated book will appeal to scholars and students of Islamic art history, as well as to anyone interested in or inspired by the beauty of early mosque architecture.
...read more
29 November 2015
Hardbound
322 pp.120 illus., including color photos, computer drawings, archival prints
19X24cm
39.95
Creating Medieval Cairo
Empire, Religion, and Architectural Preservation in Nineteenth-Century Egypt
Paula SandersThis book argues that the historic city we know as Medieval Cairo was created in the nineteenth century by both Egyptians and Europeans against a background of four overlapping political and cultural contexts: the local Egyptian, Anglo-Egyptian, Anglo-Indian, and Ottoman imperial milieux. Addressing the interrelated topics of empire, local history, religion, and transnational heritage, historian Paula Sanders shows how Cairo’s architectural heritage became canonized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book also explains why and how the city assumed its characteristically Mamluk appearance and situates the activities of the European-dominated architectural preservation committee (known as the Comité) within the history of religious life in nineteenth-century Cairo. Offering fresh perspectives and keen historical analysis, this volume examines the unacknowledged colonial legacy that continues to inform the practice of and debates over preservation in Cairo.
...read more
Hardbound
232 pp.36 b/w photographs
15X23cm
24.95
Egypt Visual Sourcebook
For Artists, Architects, and Designers
Jim HewittThis unique visual reference guide will be an invaluable resource to professional designers—from architects to illustrators, production designers, art directors, decorators, film concept artists, sculptors, and painters. It utilizes color photographs to illustrate a wide range of locations and styles of architecture throughout Egypt, particularly highlighting universal architectural elements that may be incorporated into a variety of designs and styles including arches, doorways, windows, balconies, wall finishes, and more. Photographic plates of modern and ancient Egypt, showing markets, buildings, temples, tombs, and daily life are cross-referenced with enlarged details and grouped for functional comparisons to cater to the various approaches a designer may take from conception to completion. With some 1,000 color illustrations, thorough referencing, and detailed observation, this book will serve a very specific need while also appealing to a wider audience as a visual celebration of many aspects of Egypt, familiar and unfamiliar.
...read more
Hardbound + CD
392 pp.1000 color illus.
19X24cm
35.00
Gaza Graffiti
Messages of Love and Politics
Mia GröndahlGraffiti began in Gaza in 1987, during the first Intifada, when there was no Palestinian television or radio in the Gaza Strip, and no newspapers: the messages that spread along the walls became an important means of communication. Over the years, all political groups have had their own graffiti artists. Scrawl is not tolerated—it has to look good. Hamas even offers evening classes in graffiti. Documenting the writings on the walls of Gaza over a period of seven years, celebrated Swedish photojournalist Mia Gröndahl lays before us the many roles that they perform, the colorful and surprising range of their artistic expression, and their reflection of the changing political situation. And apart from political slogans, the walls bear witness too to joy and sadness: the wedding celebrations, the many victims of the conflict, and the ever present hope of peace and freedom. For us on the outside, Mia Gröndahl’s photographs offer an exciting and unexpected view of life in Gaza.
...read more
Paperback
152 pp.150 color illus.
24X21cm
16.95