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Empire, Architecture, and the City: French-Ottoman Encounters, 1830-1914
Winner of the 2010 Spiro Kostof Award (sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians)
Empire building and modernity dominate the history of the nineteenth century. The French and Ottoman empires capitalized on modern infrastructure and city building to control diverse social, cultural, and political landscapes. Zeynep Celik examines the cities of Algeria and Tunisia under French colonial rule and those of the Ottoman Arab provinces. By shifting the emphasis from the "centers" of Paris and Istanbul to the "peripheries," she presents a more nuanced look at cross-cultural exchanges. The different political agendas of the French and Ottoman empires reveal the myriad meanings behind remarkably similar urban forms and buildings. This lavishly illustrated volume makes numerous archival plans, photographs, and postcards available for the first time, along with reproductions from periodicals and official yearbooks.
Roads, railroads, ports, and waterways served many imperial agendas, ranging from military to commercial and even ideological. Interventions changed the urban fabrics in unprecedented straight arteries were cut through cities, European-style quarters were appended to historic cores, and new industrial and mining towns, military posts, and administrative centers were built according to the latest trends. These major feats of engineering were carefully planned to construct a modern image while addressing practical concerns of growth and communication.
Celik discusses public squares as privileged sites of imperial expression, as evidenced by the buildings that defined them and the iconographically charged monuments that adorned them. She examines the architecture of public buildings. Theaters, schools, and hospitals and the offices that housed the imperial administrative apparatus (city halls, government palaces, post offices, police stations, and military structures) were new secular monuments, designed according to European models but in a range of architectural expressions.
Public ceremonies, set against modern urban spaces, played key roles in conveying political messages. Celik maps out their orchestrated occupation of streets and squares. She concludes with questions on how the various attitudes of both empires engaged cultural differences, race, and civilizing missions.
Empire building and modernity dominate the history of the nineteenth century. The French and Ottoman empires capitalized on modern infrastructure and city building to control diverse social, cultural, and political landscapes. Zeynep Celik examines the cities of Algeria and Tunisia under French colonial rule and those of the Ottoman Arab provinces. By shifting the emphasis from the "centers" of Paris and Istanbul to the "peripheries," she presents a more nuanced look at cross-cultural exchanges. The different political agendas of the French and Ottoman empires reveal the myriad meanings behind remarkably similar urban forms and buildings. This lavishly illustrated volume makes numerous archival plans, photographs, and postcards available for the first time, along with reproductions from periodicals and official yearbooks.
Roads, railroads, ports, and waterways served many imperial agendas, ranging from military to commercial and even ideological. Interventions changed the urban fabrics in unprecedented straight arteries were cut through cities, European-style quarters were appended to historic cores, and new industrial and mining towns, military posts, and administrative centers were built according to the latest trends. These major feats of engineering were carefully planned to construct a modern image while addressing practical concerns of growth and communication.
Celik discusses public squares as privileged sites of imperial expression, as evidenced by the buildings that defined them and the iconographically charged monuments that adorned them. She examines the architecture of public buildings. Theaters, schools, and hospitals and the offices that housed the imperial administrative apparatus (city halls, government palaces, post offices, police stations, and military structures) were new secular monuments, designed according to European models but in a range of architectural expressions.
Public ceremonies, set against modern urban spaces, played key roles in conveying political messages. Celik maps out their orchestrated occupation of streets and squares. She concludes with questions on how the various attitudes of both empires engaged cultural differences, race, and civilizing missions.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2008
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January 23, 2010
The French-Ottoman encounters were for the most part detrimental to the latter, who had been losing a war of modernisation. ��elik reminded us that the strength of an empire rests not on its infrastructures per se but how well the hardware serve the symbol, in this case, modernity. It is interesting to note however while the French mostly transplanted and force-fed their ideas of civilisation in the Maghreb, the Ottomans made efforts in adapting to local mores during the Tanzimat period despite its various borrowings of European methods. This distinct style of rule was perhaps one reason the Ottoman Empire had lasted for as long as it did.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review