Architecture gives a sense of place

Everyone occasionally enjoys the sheer thrill of discovering a city's soul, but Dr Suha Ozkan has devoted his life to it. The architect-historian revitalises cities by making them meaningful to their inhabitants.

"Architecture is life; or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived."
- Frank Lloyd Wright, acclaimed American architect

Nobody knows this better than Dr Suha Ozkan - architect, historian and theorist - who has spent a lifetime looking at how most cities around the world represent the collective character and spirit of the people who inhabit them.

Originally from Turkey, the twin focal points of Dr Ozkan's career - sustainable development and conservation of heritage - have found expression in his extensive work in emergency housing for displaced people and his concerted efforts to revitalise historic cities.

As secretary general of the

Geneva-based Aga Khan Award for Architecture, he has worked on the conservation of heritage structures. He is also the co-chair of the Sustainable Architecture taskforce of the Hassan Fathy Institute and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) among a host of other responsibilities.

In Dubai to present a talk on the need to conserve heritage, Dr Ozkan spoke to Friday on his favourite subjects: history, conservation and sustainability.

Cultural loyalty

So how does he start when preparing to work on a historic site?
"The most important thing about rebuilding or renovating heritage sites is to be loyal to what existed before," says Dr Ozkan.

"When heritage is protected it enriches the culture. What is culture? Culture is an amalgamation of social forces, faiths and learned behaviour. I think that conservation is not only an architectural issue, but also an ethical one."

Until 2006 he worked on the Aga Khan Historic Cities Programme, being involved in revitalising eight areas of the Islamic world. These were in Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Zanzibar, Samarkand, Cairo, Mostar (Bosnia), Mali and Syria.

The programme consisted of 20 distinct but interconnected projects, some of which involved participation by the international architectural community.

Changing perceptions
Dr Ozkan says working in Samarkand, the capital of Uzbekistan and once a significant point on the legendary Silk Road, was no easy task.

"It was a very challenging project," he says. "In 1984 when we visited Samarkand, we discovered that the ancient heritage sites of the place were in bad shape. Nothing could be retrieved.

"The local municipality was planning to build a 3,000-bed luxury hotel in Registan Square to boost tourism and they came to the Aga Khan Foundation to seek help in building the hotel. I asked them a very simple question: 'Can you do anything here that does not hurt the previous urban environment?' Then I asked, 'Who does the square belong to?'

"Heritage cannot belong to one person or nation, it belongs to humanity. The world had a right to decide on its conservation. I then told them to forget about the hotel and bring me an idea about how to revive the ancient Samarkand.

"They were well-meaning people and soon understood the importance of my words. We announced an international competition and invited ideas on restoration from architects worldwide.

"It was an ideas competition, not a project competition. It proved to be one of the biggest as we received nearly 1,400 registrations and finally 860 ideas.

"The ideas that were finalised were displayed on panels and the total display was nearly 1 km long. Of these, five were chosen as award-winning by a distinguished jury and 17 got a mention."

Reclaiming the past
Dr Ozkan says the competition was approached with great enthusiasm, given the historical significance of Samarkand.

"We never limited people's ideas. The Registan Square was the cultural focal point in the city and the ideas had to be around it and integrated into the city," he says.

"We wanted to reinstate houses so we invited ideas on urban planning and urban landscape - where the old had to be retrieved, reclaimed and protected but the new had to be built as well.

"What we were really impressed by was the enthusiasm and the manner in which contestants responded to an existing historical environment. What was a pity was that later only parts of the project were implemented as the country went through turmoil."

The Samarkand Competition showed how important it is to attract international attention to conservation issues, says Dr Ozkan. This is because many of the people who live next to an architectural heritage site do not recognise its value.

"However, when others come and pay attention to what is there, then they join them in appreciation." he says.

"This is exactly what happened in Samarkand. The people who helped in the competition were the same people who have cleared the housing around Registan Square, which was almost as important as the monumental buildings."

Since then he has been involved in the restoration of the Islamic Arts Museum in Doha and its corniche.

"The Doha Museum was a single building, but more important was the Doha Corniche Competition, in which we searched for a significant urban identity for the 7-km stretch of embankment in the city.

"In this competition there were many original proposals by leading architects, such as Patrick Berger, Martha Schwartz, Kamal Louafi, DD Dedign and Jean Nouvel.

"The winning entry of Jean Nouvel, when applied to Doha City and its Corniche, will (make it) significantly different. It will be more identifiable than many of the embankments in various cities in the Gulf region."

Housing the homeless
One of the most pressing issues today is the mass displacement of people made homeless by conflict or natural disasters. With millions of refugees worldwide, building emergency housing or shelters has become a major concern of governments worldwide.

Dr Ozkan's involvement with this issue began in 1970 when as a young graduate from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, he volunteered to help out victims of the Anatolia earthquake.

"As a volunteer during that incident, I threw myself into rehabilitation work," he says.

"Winter was approaching and providing shelters for the victims to face the daunting weather ahead became the top priority. I worked in a team which produced polyurethane domes (foam domes) that resembled igloos and distributed them to affected families.

"Thanks to these shelters about 400 families were able to live through the winter. Even after the devastation, the families continued to use these domes as their houses for many years as they were so light, durable and usable.

"Since then, emergency shelters have been one of my chief concerns for all kinds of disasters - wars, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis - for millions of displaced people around the world.

"While supporting the rapid construction of temporary shelters, Dr Ozkan cautions against immediately building new permanent homes in the affected areas.

"People want to have the freedom to rebuild. What the government can do is provide them with raw materials and leave them to build according to their needs.

"They should be given credit facilities or an easy instalment scheme to be able to build according to their choice. The government should only monitor and regulate and not intervene."

Designing emergency shelters
Many new forms of emergency shelters have been developed since the 1970s, such as the sandbag shelter, which uses sandbags and barbed wire - material readily available in war zones - to construct dome-shaped homes.

"Thanks to these emergency housing concepts, in recent earthquakes Turkey has done very well," says Dr Ozkan.

"However, what is really difficult is to find (an appropriate place) to set up the temporary shelters. One needs to teach the victims how to build safely. The shelters have to be set up close to the disaster zone, which represented home to the victims."

He notes that most emergency shelters, although meant as a stop-gap, become permanent homes for many people.

"That is what has been forced by the economy of scarcity. Regardless of whether the provision is temporary or permanent, people hold on to what they have. That is human nature … giving up what you have is unthinkable."

What's more, he believes each region can develop its own emergency housing material based on what is locally available and how appropriate these are to the weather.

"Indigenous housing types differ from igloos in the Arctic to grass shacks in Africa. To find out what would be the best can not only be defined by the type of disaster but also by climate, available materials and prevalent building technologies."

Having taught in institutes in North America, Europe and Central Asia, Dr Ozkan has lived in and analysed the mechanics of many cities. He feels that the manner in which they are built demonstrates their cultural sensitivities.

"The use of space is primarily determined and defined by each and every culture," he says. "People decide how they are going to interpret their living styles in the context of the space they have - be it covered, semi-covered or open to the sky - these differ according to the culture."

Population and development pressure
When a city is rebuilt, its essence is often lost. In recent decades, with population pressure increasing and people flooding into urban areas, many bustling, chaotic cities have come into being in developing countries.

So how does one retain the purity of a city's character while maintaining optimum space utilisation?
Dr Ozkan attributes the deterioration of cities to the rapid growth and modernisation that has taken place in Asia.

"Modernity and vast urbanisation time-wise coincided and caught the cities of the East and South (Asia) unprepared," he says.

The landowners dwelling in the old cities moved out to new and modern parts of the city and left the old part of the cities to immigrants.

"This new population did not have the historical links with the old environment. Therefore, they did not care for (these areas). This has been the case for Istanbul, Cairo, Karachi, Delhi etc. Recently there is a tendency to regenerate the habitat in old parts of the city.

"However, the changed conditions have made these areas both physically and socially unsafe.

"In Western cities the urban tradition is so deep-rooted because the same families have been living in those old edifices for centuries. Even when they sell, the newcomers are from the same background and are full of appreciation of that heritage."

Making a city meaningful

So how does a community ensure that a city maintains its character?
"Every place and city has its spirit. When it lacks that, it becomes meaningless. Character is a function of meaning. Meaning comes with the spirit. Old cities evolved in time and acquired their character (over the passing of) time," says Dr Ozkan.

"Among the new cities I may mention Chandigarh, designed by (French architect and planner) Le Corbusier, is a city that obtained its character by being designed liked Turin. The important thing is to have a character. To maintain that goes parallel to the recognition and appreciation of that character."

And he has a word of caution for modern architects on space utilisation.

"Architects must never forget that they live in their own time - ie, 2007," says Dr Ozkan. "They must produce the spaces and architecture of our time. That is to say they must take the responsibility to be contemporary.

"Repeating the past or copying others is unethical. Every design project needs originality that applies to that particular condition."