“Do
you speak English?”
“Yes,
a little,” said the young Turkish student at the UIA Istanbul Congress
reception desk at the airport.
I’d
had a tired sleepless night of packing and travel, and here I was, alone in the
airport of a country where little else than Turkish is spoken. I had reassured
my parents in Cairo that there would be no problems traveling alone, that this
would be a very well organized conference where there would be people waiting to
receive us and all would be well. I really was not in the least prepared for the
language barrier.
After
a few desperate sentences coupled with pointing and diagrammatic gestures on my
orange map of the Congress site, I got a rough idea of where the place to go
was. I made my way to the tourist information desk (where the attendant also
barely spoke any English!), found out how much the ride would cost me— since
the 45 Euros hollered at me by a shuttle driver seemed outrageously
expensive—armed myself with Istanbul guidebooks, and headed out to find myself
a cab.
With
all the technical procedures out of the way I could finally embark upon my trip
properly. As a graduate student of Islamic art and architecture, I was always on
the lookout for conferences or events related to my work. I had stumbled across
the tri-annual congress, organized by the Union of International Architects
(UIA) under the theme of “Cities: Grand Bazaar of Architecture,” which was
to take place July 3–10 in Istanbul. Lured by the proximity of this majestic
city to Cairo, its Ottoman monuments, and the travel facility granted by joining
such a large congress, I could not resist—which I am exceedingly glad for—as
it proved to be one of the best experiences of my life.
The
congress was overwhelming in literally every sense of the word. With over 25
keynote speakers, dozens of lectures and workshops, hundreds of exhibitions and
poster presentations, it was a lot to take in. Thousands of participants from
all over the world flocked in to experience this architecture fiesta, learning
from the events, enjoying the setting, and most importantly, meeting new people.
If I came out with nothing else from this experience apart from the people I met
and the conversations I had, then this would be a lot. However, I came out with
so much more.
It
is pointless to attempt to provide a summary of what the congress was about. I
prefer to provide an impression of the experience and what I learned.
The
first day of the congress was exhilarating. There was so much to take in that it
took a bit of time to figure out what was going on where and what to attend.
Since there were no speakers this day, my Iranian roommate and I spent the day
looking at the posters and exhibitions. The exposure was intense; with
presentations from Romania, South Africa, all the way to Japan, there was
literally something from every spot on the globe. As with any grand carnival or
fete, in the onslaught of multiple sights, sounds, and smells, a few particular
sensations and visions touched me and stayed with me in sharp clarity in this
global amalgam of architectural expression.
I
was very touched by a project by the name of “Architecture and Children”
conducted by Turkish architects and researchers who had carried out surveys and
interactive sessions with children, to try to distill the untainted
architectural vision of the child that no grown-up could ever conceive unaided.
By
the second day I had figured things out a bit better, so it made sense to attend
lectures by keynote speakers and visit other sessions and exhibitions in
between.
 |
Workshops included an exercise in which volunteers had to fill in an A3 image of Istanbul with Marshall wall paint with the aim of engaging the citizens of Istanbul with the congress.
|
The
first few keynote speeches were great and the halls very crowded, but nothing
could have prepared me for Zaha Hadeed. Besides her incredible designs, this is
a woman, and more controversially, an Arab (and for the sake of politics
I have to mention an Iraqi) woman who has penetrated a fiercely competitive
man’s world.
Another
keynote lecture, Tado Ando’s, was no less crowded, but all the more
remarkable. Whereas a large part of the success of the Hadeed lecture was due to
the controversy surrounding her identity as well as her great work, Ando’s
speech was brilliant in and of itself. Despite using a personal interpreter who
stood next to him on stage translating his speech sentence by sentence, the
message of this Japanese, self-taught architectural phenomenon was loud and
clear. His talk was personal and genuine and went straight to the heart. Rather
than merely presenting examples of his work and discussing his design
methodology, he sought to provide inspiration, laughter at his early
disappointments, and a convincing argument that determination and persistence
are just as important, if not more so, than ingenuity and skill. It must also be
mentioned that he showed incredible sensitivity by thanking his wife, who was
accompanying him, several times.
Charles
Correa, an Indian architect, who was accompanied by his wife in her beautiful
sari, also showed remarkable insight and perception in his lecture. He discussed
the importance of housing for the poor in India, yet did not limit his horizon
merely to the realm of the architect. Speaking to an audience of young students
and fellow architects, he declared it is “insulting” to say that the problem
of housing for the poor is restricted to design constraints alone—it is far
from merely being unable to design or build. Rather, the core of the problem
lies in socio-economic obstacles such as poverty and unemployment.
Correa
pointed to the fact that we have a duty and responsibility to solve the roots of
the problem that eventually leads to the need for housing solutions for the
poor, instead of just burying ourselves in the architectural design problem. His
speech was sincere, perceptive, and refreshing, inviting the architect to
contemplate other problems as well as his own design-related ones.
Similarly,
the presentation by the Emergency Architects was beautifully humanistic. This is
a France-based institute of international architects whose job is to jump in
when disaster strikes. Their work includes rebuilding homes—particularly for
the needy—after floods, earthquakes, or other similar catastrophes. It was
good to see architects reaching out to those who cannot afford the luxury of
building their own custom-designed dream houses, and doing the real job
of building the world properly.
Turning
to a more personal note of this conference, I found that, as a young and veiled
Muslim woman, I had a lot to answer for. There was a point where I found myself
having to answer for the London bombings and explaining that they had not been
carried out in the name of Islam. Ironically though, my American friend also
found herself having to answer for the actions of her government, specifically
against Iraq. I also found it surprising to see to what extent Istanbul is a
personification of “secular Turkey.”
Before
I met Hanifa, a young Turkish woman—who was also an utter sweetheart and took
us to see the hidden jewels of the “real” Istanbul on the Asian side—I had
no idea that veiled women could not go to public education institutes or be
employed by the government. The only Turkey I knew was that of the mosques of
the great Sinan, the patronage of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and the
celebrated Islamic Ottoman Empire.
Talking
to Hanifa opened up my eyes to the reality that girls are sacrificing university
to avoid taking off their veils or having to face the psychological and
emotional trauma of having to take off their scarves on university grounds and
only putting them back on upon leaving. Then there are those like Hanifa, who
leave the country to seek education elsewhere. The peak of irony is that just
minutes after Hanifa had told me about her personal experience of going to the
United States for college—only for 9-11 to strike, with the blind prejudice,
making her have to move back to Istanbul—an American woman walked up to us and
told us how beautiful our veils looked.
“I
learned so much from you.” I got this comment from several people at the end
of the trip. And I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, not only because it
was a nice thing to hear, but even more so because they were referring to what
they had learned about my culture. Despite how often the Middle East and Islam
appear in the news, the citizens of the world actually know very little about
the citizens of this region. Perhaps another time I can write about the
conversations I had with Donna from America, Rana from Iran, Tareq from Jordan,
Dolf from Holland, Stephen from Uganda, Habiba from Romania, just to name a few.
For me this really was the greatest thing about this experience, the amount of real
cultural interaction on a one-to-one basis.
**Sarah
Sharaf is an Egyptian student currently reading for an MA in Islamic art and
architecture at the American University of Cairo. You can contact her at ArtCulture@islamonline.net.
