Archnet > Publication > The Medina, the Hammam and the Future of Sustainability

The Islamic Mediterranean city faces increasing pressures from without and within. It is faced with the question of how to support the valued institutions and traditions of the past, while confronting the influences and pressures of the present and the opportunities of the future. The hammam has been centered on a venerable tradition from the past that is both a building as well as a cultural tradition and that is trying to survive in a modern world. Hence, each of these historic building should be seen as cultural heritage sites. One of the given aspects of this study has been the question of conservation and preservation of these once elegant buildings, the hammams. <br/><br/>Strategies for the restoration of these buildings thus become the precondition for many of our other considerations. At the opposite extreme of building restoration considerations is the question of sustainability. Therefore the other major issue looked at in this study is: how can we develop scenarios that propose a sustainable future for these hammams. Scenarios that are both respectful and supportive of the historic local culture yet also create a viable strategy for developing a sustainable mode of contemporary life. It was the ambitious charge of our research to explore the territory between these two questions.

Type

journal article

Year

2008

The Islamic Mediterranean city faces increasing pressures from without and within. It is faced with the question of how to support the valued institutions and traditions of the past, while confronting the influences and pressures of the present and the opportunities of the future. The hammam has been centered on a venerable tradition from the past that is both a building as well as a cultural tradition and that is trying to survive in a modern world. Hence, each of these historic building should be seen as cultural heritage sites. One of the given aspects of this study has been the question of conservation and preservation of these once elegant buildings, the hammams.

Strategies for the restoration of these buildings thus become the precondition for many of our other considerations. At the opposite extreme of building restoration considerations is the question of sustainability. Therefore the other major issue looked at in this study is: how can we develop scenarios that propose a sustainable future for these hammams. Scenarios that are both respectful and supportive of the historic local culture yet also create a viable strategy for developing a sustainable mode of contemporary life. It was the ambitious charge of our research to explore the territory between these two questions.

Levine, Richard S.; Hughes, Michael T.; and Mather, Casey Ryan. "The Medina, the Hammam and the Future of Sustainability," in ArchNet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, vol. 2, issue 3 (2008).