This two-day symposium held at MIT on May 10-11, 2019 sought to address the following questions: How do violence and conflict not only destroy but constitute, design, and organize the built environments and infrastructure? How do we understand the urbanization of warfare in relation to urban theory and reconstruction practices? Participants were asked to consider the recent warfare in the Middle East, with a special focus on Aleppo, in relation to the built environment and the extent to which reconstruction processes can be weaponized. 

The symposium was organized by Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Architecture, and Deen Sharp, AKPIA@MIT Post-Doctoral Fellow, and sponsored by the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A selection of the papers presented at this conference are available here.

Opening Remarks. Hashim Sarkis, MIT

Introduction. Nasser Rabbat, MIT

Session III: Reconstruction as Violence. Moderator: Huma Gupta, MIT