An Exploratory and Reflective Process of Urban Spatial Morphology within Social Sustainability: Lessons from Middle Eastern Islamic Tradition

This article outlines the significant role of ideologies and values that lie beneath the physicality of the city, in reforming urban spatial morphology within a framework of social sustainability. We focus on the urban morphology of Middle Eastern cities, which have evolved within the framework of Islamic tradition, to illuminate the relationship between the ideological and physical dimensions of spatial morphology in all urban contexts. We examine the process by which a collective of religious, political, and cultural values underlying the physicality of the city have evolved into aesthetic conventions. This process played a crucial role in the maintenance of social and urban sustainability. We propose a form of “pattern language,” here termed the anatomical approach, that brings together the ideological dimension of a city's inhabitants and the physical characteristics of urban morphology. Such a model may help urban designers and architects to understand and create more responsive and friendly cities. It furthermore contributes to the planning education process by providing the essential knowledge and analytical foundation for site analysis and conservation of valuable contexts.     

城市广场:城市制约中的空间政治

现代性的线性时间维度向后现代的空间转向,是一种典型的文化表征。城市广场,作为当代城市生活转向空间存在的"第二自然"。它开始成为一种超越空间二元对立模式划分的"异位空间",并具有了特定的空间文化意味与空间政治学色彩。即城市广场的空间狂欢、类民主化的自由集市和秩序失序后的再秩序化是其显著的特征。这些都使得城市广场成为一个具有后现代意味的文化空间。     

Ideology and Television in the Eastern Arab World: 1956–1990

This article deals primarily with the relationship between ideology and television from 1956 to 1990 in the Eastern Arab world. It allows us to see what kinds of ideological ideas circulate through television, why they are constructed, and when they are being challenged. It examines why and how television promotes ideology and disseminates political messages. It takes into account different ideological perspectives. This article is a type of qualitative analysis that focuses on why governments seek to attain hegemony over television and how television has been used successfully as a tool of ideological propaganda and subservience.