Mediterranean Urbanism

Besim S. Hakim is an architect and urban planner. He has worked as a professor / scholar and as a consultant / practitioner. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and member of the American Institute of Architects. He studied architecture at Liverpool University, UK and urban design at Harvard, USA. Since 1975 he has researched and uncovered the underlying processes, codes, and management systems of traditional towns and cities located in the countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea. His book on Arabic-Islamic Cities and subsequent other studies, published from the early 1980s onwards, have been influential on numerous studies undertaken in academia and professional practice.

• Introduction.- Greece: Sources from 2nd Century B.C.E. to 19th Century C.E..- Italy: Sources from 10th to 14th Centuries C.E..- Spain: Sources from 5th to 18th Centuries C.E..- Conclusions.

"This is a book that ought to be in the library of any serious student of urbanism and urban morphology - and anyone else who believes that in meeting our modern urban challenges, we have much to learn from centuries of urban history. ... The book is also a sheer pleasure to read. Professor Besim Hakim writes in a very lucid and accessible style, and his book is beautifully illustrated." (Michael Mehaffy, Amazon.com, March, 2015) "Besim Hakim presents here a remarkable and comprehensive work on historical urban codes. ... This book must be read ... by every urbanist who wishes to understand how historical living cities evolve on their own, and how to apply those mechanisms to humanize urban form today." (Nikos A. Salingaros, Amazon.com, February, 2015)