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Title:
Le crac des chevaliers : chroniques d'un rêve de pierre

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Forteresse croisée dressée depuis huit siècles au coeur de la Syrie, le Crac des Chevaliers est un symbole permanent des échanges entre Orient et Occident, et de la fascination de deux mondes qui ne cessent de s'observer, de part et d'autre de la Méditerranée. Entièrement rebâti au XIIe siècle par les moines-soldats de l'ordre des Hospitaliers, le Crac est pris en 1271 par les mamelouks du sultan Baybars. En 2006, le Crac est inscrit au patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco ; il fait encore aujourd'hui l'objet de recherches archéologiques et historiques. Le présent ouvrage offre une synthèse claire et illustrée de son histoire, où l'expression du château idéal se mêle sans cesse au rêve oriental.

Title:
African metropolis: Una citta immaginaria / An imaginary city

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A land of promise, of contrasts between tradition and innovation, an example of a new social model based on the concept of human community, the African continent, protagonist of the exhibition at MAXXI in 2018, is examined from an innovative point of view which leads to questioning visitors on their knowledge of the places. The museum houses the site-specific works and projects from 40 artists who communicate their continent and investigate it in the dimension of urban space. The volume that accompanies the exhibitions contains essays and interview with international authors such as Marco Scotini, Sumesh Sharma, Edgar Pieterse, Akinbode Akinbiyi, and Bonaventure Ndikung.

Title:
From Cameroon to Paris

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The kind of extraordinary domed house constructed by Chad and Cameroon’s Mousgoum peoples has long held sway over the Western imagination. In fact, as Steven Nelson shows here, this prototypical beehive-shaped structure known as the teleuk has been cast as everything from a sign of authenticity to a tourist destination to a perfect fusion of form and function in an unselfconscious culture. And in this multifaceted history of the teleuk, thought of by the Mousgoum themselves as a three-dimensional symbol of their culture, Nelson charts how a singular building’s meaning has the capacity to change over time and in different places. Drawing on fieldwork in Cameroon and Japan as well as archival research in Africa, the United States, and Europe, Nelson explores how the teleuk has been understood by groups ranging from contemporary tourists to the Cameroonian government and—most importantly—today’s Mousgoum people. In doing so, he moves in and out of Africa to provide a window into a changing Mousgoum culture and to show how both African and Western peoples use the built environment to advance their own needs and desires. Highlighting the global impact of African architecture, From Cameroon to Paris will appeal to scholars and students of African art history and architectural history, as well as those interested in Western interactions with Africa.

Title:
Architecture for the Dead: Cairo's Medieval Necropolis

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In Architecture of the Dead, architect Galila El Kadi and photographer Alain Bonnamy have produced a comprehensive and visually stunning survey of all areas of the necropolis. Through detailled and painstaking research and remarkable photography, in text, maps, plans, and pictures, they describe and illustrate the astonishing variety of architectural styles in the necropolis: from Mamluk to neo-Mamluk via baroque and neo-pharaonic, from the grandest stone buildings with their decorative domes and minarets to the humblest, but elaborately decorated, wooden structures.

Title:
Street archives and city life: popular intellectuals in postcolonial Tanzania

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In ''Street Archives and City Life'', Emily Callaci maps a new terrain of political and cultural production in mid- to late twentieth-century Tanzanian urban landscapes. While the postcolonial Tanzanian ruling party (TANU) adopted a policy of rural socialism known as Ujamaa between 1967 and 1985, an influx of youth migrants to the city of Dar es Salaam generated innovative forms of urbanism through the production and circulation of what Callaci calls street archives. These urban intellectuals neither supported nor contested the ruling party's anti-city philosophy; rather, they navigated the complexities of inhabiting unplanned African cities during economic crisis and social transformation through various forms of popular texts that included women's Christian advice literature, newspaper columns, self-published pulp fiction novellas, and song lyrics. Through these textual networks, Callaci shows how youth migrants and urban intellectuals in Dar es Salaam fashioned a collective ethos of postcolonial African citizenship. This spirit ushered in a revolution rooted in the city and its networks—an urban revolution that arose in spite of the nation-state's pro-rural ideology.

Title:
Up up: stories of Johannesburg’s highrises

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''Up Up'' presents a selection of buildings in the inner city of Johannesburg, focusing on the tall modernist towers that stood out at the time they were constructed. Witnesses to profound shifts in the political history of the metropolis, the buildings have gone through immense changes. They are documented in two distinct sections: the architecture is presented with facts, floor plans, archival discoveries and contemporary images of the interior and the exterior; additionally, each building is accompanied by a reportage or subjective essay on the inner workings of the building.

Title:
Asmara, the frozen city

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Asmara, capital of the state of Eritrea, located in North Eastern Africa, is considered to be an impressive example of European urban construction of the 20th century. To this day, the influence of the former colonial power of Italy on the architecture of the city from the early 20th century to the 1940’s remains visible. Many of the buildings, erected in the futuristic, monumentalist or rationalistic style have been preserved and dominate the cityscape of Asmara. In particular, architectural projects dating back to the late 1930’s and early 1940’s are the focal point of the work of photographer Stefan Boness. These include private, public and industrial buildings, which he photographed over the course of several months and which he staged incorporating their urban surroundings. Through his photographs, Stefan Boness has succeeded in expressing the unique atmosphere of Asmara, where time seemingly is standing still.

Title:
Tunis 1800-1950 : portrait architectural et urbain

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S'appuyant sur des plans et des documents photographiques inédits, cet ouvrage ne prétend pas dresser un plan exhaustif de l'histoire urbaine de Tunis de 1800 à 1950. Il propose plutôt une introduction au patrimoine urbain de cette période, mettant en relief les principales oeuvres architecturales qui y ont vu le jour. Le lecteur découvrira les différentes tendances qui ont modelé l'environnement architectural et urbain du centre de Tunis tel que nous le connaissons aujourd'hui.

Title:
The Dome of the Rock

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The Dome of the Rock, the beautiful Muslim shrine in the walled Old City of Jerusalem, was fully restored to its original state in the last half-century. Thus, this structure, sited on the third holiest spot on earth for Muslims, is at once a product of the seventh century and almost entirely the work of our own times - a paradox in keeping with the complexities and contradictions of history and religion, architecture and ideology that define this site. This book tells the story of the Dome of the Rock, from the first decades of its creation - on the esplanade built in the fourth decade B.C.E. for the Second Jewish Temple - to its engulfment in the clashes of the Crusades and the short-lived Christianization of all of Jerusalem, to its modern acquisition of different and potent meanings for Muslim, Christian, and Jewish cultures. Oleg Grabar's presentation combines what we know of the building with the views of past observers and with the broader historical, cultural, and aesthetic implications of the monument.

Title:
Nairobi, Kenya: Migration shaping the city

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$32.00
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Nairobi, in its short history spanning just over one hundred years, has grown to be one of the most varied and international cities of our contemporary world. Migration has been shown as one of the key forces infl uencing the city. In the context of Nairobi’s complex colonial and postindependence political trajectory, migration has reinforced ethnic, spatial, and economic differences, leading to the formation of multiple power structures. This process is evident in the city’s radically different urban patterns. The book documents, along specific neighborhoods, how different cultures of urban life constitute the city today.