Title: Cities and metaphors : beyond imaginaries of Islamic urban space /
Authors: Falahat, Somaiyeh,
Year: 2018
Subjects: Islamic cities and towns; Public spaces Islamic countries.; Architecture Islamic countries.; Urbanization Islamic countries.; City planning Islamic countries.; Architecture; City planning; Islamic cities and towns; Public spaces; Urbanization; Islamic countries.
Abstract: In the context of Islamic city studies, relying on reasoning and rational thinking has reduced descriptive, vivid features of the urban space into a generic scientific framework. Phenomenological characteristics have consequently been ignored rather than integrated into theoretical components. The book argues that this results from a lack of appropriate conceptual vocabulary in our global body of scholarly literature. It challenges existing theories, introduces and applies the urban concept of Hezar-tu to rethink the spaces of Fez, Isfahan and Tunis. This tool inverts the principles of conceptualising urban space and constructs a staging-post towards a different articulation based on in-between spaces rather than nodes, a logic of ambiguity rather than determinacy, and interior rather than exterior thinking.?
Contents: Introduction: diversifying global urban vocabulary -- The idea of the "Islamic city" -- City as labyrinth -- Hezar-tu as an urban concept -- City as Hezar-tu: Fez, Isfahan and Tunis -- Epilogue.