Social Housing in the Middle East

As oil-rich countries in the Middle East are increasingly associated with soaring skyscrapers and modern architecture, attention is being diverted away from the pervasive struggles of social housing in those same urban settings. Social Housing in the Middle East traces the history of social housing—both gleaming postmodern projects and bare-bones urban housing structures—in an effort to provide a wider understanding of marginalized spaces and their impact on identities, communities, and class. While architects may have envisioned utopian or futuristic experiments, these buildings were often constructed with the knowledge and skill sets of local workers, and the housing was in turn adapted to suit the modern needs of residents. This tension between local needs and national aspirations are linked to issues of global importance, including security, migration, and refugee resettlement. The essays collected here consider how culture, faith, and politics influenced the solutions offered by social housing; they provide an insightful look at how social housing has evolved since the 19th century and how it will need to adapt to suit the 21st.

Covering Turkey, Egypt, Kuwait, Tunisia, Jordan, Iran and Israel, [this book is] a worthy overview of an oft-overlooked typology in the region., Social housing is an architectural effort to engage social issues, and that places this well-edited, clearly organized, tightly written book firmly on essential reading lists for architectural and social historians, planners, and policy makers.

Mohammad Gharipour is Professor at the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University. He is author of Persian Gardens and Pavilions, Contemporary Urban Landscapes of the Middle East, and Synagogues in the Islamic World. Kıvanç Kılınç is Assistant Professor of Architecture at Yaşar University in Turkey.