Conflict Urbanism Aleppo
This is the first in a series of multidisciplinary Mellon seminars on the topic of Conflict Urbanism, as part of a multi-university initiative in Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities. This year, we will focus on Aleppo, Syria and the places now inhabited by refugees from the city. We will begin with an art historical, and historical survey of one of the most continuously inhabited cities in the world dating back to 10 000 BC. We will examine the urban artifacts of colonialization, the diverse religious and cultural monuments, and the trade routes that have formed the city as it existed until 2011. Then we will look beyond the recent dramatic eruption of state violence and civil war to its antecedents and contexts in rural-urban migration, largely driven by other factors, including poverty and drought. We will examine the time-based destruction of Aleppo at macro and micro levels, analyzing conflict patterns in its social and urban structure. We will then expand what we call “Aleppo” to include the tens of thousands of former residents now sheltered in other cities and in refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan. In order to re-imagine the city in it’s post-conflict state our work will be informed by an analysis of the problems encountered in the rebuilding of cities as diverse as Beirut, Kabul, and Sarajevo, which are in various states of rebuilding post-conflict and offer a range of results that need interrogation.
