“The situation” can literally refer to anything. Curiously, this affective precision is secured by the complete absence of content in the statement. In their place, an empty term that stands for all possible parties, all possible names, and all possible events: “the situation.” Like an incantation, if you repeat it enough times, a million tiny acts of solidarity will add up to a collective perception. Just a shared hesitation to speak the language of parties, names, and events. A former Baathist Phalangist, Communist, or Pan-Arab Nationalist no longer. Has there only ever been one situation? The multiplicity implied in its nonspecificity binds one speaker to another in an implied assumption that is both intimate and collective. 1 Those who use the phrase rarely specify what situation they are referring to. In Arabic conversations, “the situation” ( الوضع) is used to indicate prevailing political, social, and economic uncertainty. The Arab City includes contributions from Ashraf Abdalla, Senan Abdelqader, Nora Akawi, Suad Amiry, Amale Andraos, Mohammed al-Asad, Caitlin Blanchfield, Mohamed Elshahed, Yasser Elsheshtawy, Rania Ghosn, Saba Innab, Adrian Lahoud, Lila Abu Lughod, Ziad Jamaleddine, Bernard Khoury, Laura Kurgan, Ali Mangera, Reinhold Martin, Timothy Mitchell, Magda Mostafa, Nasser Rabbat, Hashim Sarkis, Felicity Scott, Hala Wardé, Eyal Weizman, and Gwendolyn Wright. The essays collected here investigate cultural representation, the evolution of historical cities, contemporary architectural practices, emerging urban conditions, and responsive urban imaginaries in the Arab World. Arab cities are multifaceted places and sites of layered historical imaginaries defined by regional and territorial economies, they bridge scales of production and political engagement. Taking the “Arab City” and “Islamic Architecture” as sites of investigation rather than given categories, this book reframes the region’s buildings, cities, and landscapes and broadens its architectural and urban canons. Moving beyond reductive notions of identity, myths of authenticity, fetishized traditionalism, or the constructed opposition of tradition and modernity, The Arab City: Architecture and Representation critically engages contemporary architectural and urban production in the Middle East.
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