Politics of Design: Exhibitions
During the evening reception on 24 June 2010 in the Samuel Alexander Foyer (7.30-8.30pm) there will be an exhibition opening. The exhibition will showcase work from MARC researchers Dr Ralf Brand and Dr Magda Sibley's research projects.
The Urban Environment: Mirror or Mediator of Radicalisation (Dr Ralf Brand)
This Exhibition presents the results of a research project about the complicated but fascinating relationship between the urban environment and socio-political conditions in cities with different types of conflict: Belfast, Beirut, Berlin and Amsterdam. Manchester is the fourth stop of this touring exhibition. The underlying research project by Dr. Ralf Brand at the Manchester Architecture Research Centre (MARC) pursues the question how polarisation becomes materially imprinted in a city and how material aspects of a city might actually influence (accentuate or alleviate) polarisation processes. It compares the situation in four cities and speculates about ways in which architecture and urban design might contribute to reconciliation processes by tackling some of the spatial and material conditions of stereotypisation , mutual fear, lack of safe spaces for friendly encounters etc. For more inforamtion see the Urban Polarisation website.
The Historic Islamic Baths of North Africa and their survival into the 21st century (An exhibition by Dr Magda Sibley and Dr Fodil Fadli)
This exhibition is based on a three year research project funded by the AHRC between 2007 and 2010. The project has resulted in the first ever detailed survey and documentation of the surviving historic Islamic public bath-houses (known as hammams) in five North African Cities: Cairo (Egypt), Tripoli(Libya), Tunis (Tunisia), Algiers (Algeria) and Marrakech ( Morocco). A monograph which will contain more than 60 historic structures recorded, photographed and analysed and an account of their survival into the 21st Century will be published by Brill academic publishers in 2011, providing a unique opportunity to understand the variations in the architectural typology and urban morphology of this forgotten and long neglected heritage building.
Dr Magda Sibley is also a key UK partner in a European project funded by Euro_Med Heritage IV programme under the title of HAMMAMED: raising awareness for the Hammam as cultural heritage for the Mediterranean. She is currently engaged in raising awareness amongst various stakeholders in World Heritage Cities in North Africa and the Middle East in order to safeguard and rehabilitate key historic hammam buildings. She is also preparing a best practice manual for the restoration and rehabilitation of hammam buildings in the Mediterranean region, which will be published by EuroMed Heritage IV programme in 2012.
