Contemporary Urban Landscapes of the Middle East

Mohammad Gharipour is Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University in Baltimore, USA. He obtained his master’s in architecture from the University of Tehran and his Ph.D. in architecture and landscape history at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. He has received several fellowships and awards and published six books including Persian Gardens and Pavilions: Reflections in History, Poetry and the Arts. He is the founding editor of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture.

• 1. Urban landscape: public space and environment in cities of the contemporary Middle East (MOHAMMAD GHARIPOUR), 2. Between garden and geography: landscape as an emergent concept in the wider Middle East (JAMES L. WESCOAT JR.), 3. In pursuit of a European city: competing landscapes of Eskis¸ehir’s riverfront (KIVANÇ KILINÇ AND DUYGU KAÇAR), 4. Inventing the seashore: the Tel Aviv-Jaffa promenade (ELISSA ROSENBERG), 5. Sculpted landscape: the unbuilt public square of Islamabad (FARHAN KARIM), 6. Paradise reconsidered: the early design history of Pardisan Park in Tehran (KATHLEEN JOHN-ALDER), 7. Aspiring masonry: design thinking and experimental vernacularism in Ferdowsi Garden (HOOMAN KOL), 8. Cairo’s urban parks: space, place, and meaning (AKEL ISMAIL KAHERA), 9. Beyond greening: approaches to the contemporary landscape in the United Arab Emirates (KEVIN MITCHELL), 10. Contemporary landscape as urbanism: emergent ecologies of the Doha Corniche (ANNA GRICHTING), 11. The sovereign global city: Omani post-traditional landscape urbanism (HALA F. NASSAR AND ROBERT HEWITT), 12. Epilogue: urban landscapes and future sustainable urban qualities in Middle Eastern cities (ASHRAF M. SALAMA)

‘This collection of a dozen essays covers a variety of subjects (Cairo parks, Tehran parks, xeriscapes, and stonework among them). An interesting notion appears in chapter 2, in which James Wescoat Jr., ASLA, makes the case that even the concept of "landscape" in the Middle East is fairly recent. It refers to neither just gardens nor geography there, he says, but a combination of both.’Landscape Architecture Magazine