Monuments for the free spirit

The modernisation process introduced under the Sultans, which was also known as the Tanzimât, had already begun in the mid-19^th century, as many “western” innovations and technologies were established in the Middle East. That transfer of ideas experienced an initial climax with the immigration of European Jews to the British-ruled region – but the influence of Modernity on the region was by no means limited to the impressive buildings by immigrant architects, such as the White City.

While Europeans such as Arieh Sharon (born in 1900) and Dov Karmi (born in 1905) transformed the deserts around Jaffa into a Bauhaus dream, Egyptian colleagues such as Ali Labib Gabr (born in 1898) and Charles Ayrout (born in 1876) also developed completely new villas and apartment buildings with an autonomous formal language that still provides important evidence of Modernity’s pluricentric premises today. In both examples, the use of contemporary technologies, as well as the design of characteristic elements played an important role, such as rounded balconies, white façades and the rejection of any historical ornamentation.

Inversely, looking at the westernmost region of the Middle East, one can see that a smooth Modern style is not always an expression of liberation from colonial structures. The “White City” of Morocco, Casablanca, which Aaron Betsky once described as “the best model of Modernity”, since, instead of being a coherent work from that period, “combining order with excitement”, it is actually like its Israeli counterpart, a genuinely European city. The plan was not only designed by the Frenchman Michel Écochard. Moroccan architects such as Jean-François Zévaco (born in 1916) and Elie Azagury (born in 1918) were also initially part of a colonial building tradition, which continued to erect separate Muslim, Jewish and European quarters until the 1950s – all in a “Modern style”.

Lebanon chose a path somewhere between colonial and emancipatory Modernity. Like its neighbour Palestine, the country founded as late as 1920 was faced with a large number of foreign immigrants who had been forced to leave their homelands shortly earlier due to political violence or discrimination. Settlements developed according to Modern principles, including buildings that were erected by the immigrants themselves, led to a colourful mixture of Modern and eclectic quarters. The heritage of this structural development has not been fully examined to this day. Exceptional architects such as Farid Trad (born in 1901), Antoine Tabet (born in 1907) and later Joseph Philippe Karam (born in 1923) ensured that from the 1940s onwards, Beirut was called the “Paris of the Middle East” following the country’s independence.

Thus, anyone seeking the architectural traces of Modernity in Arabic-speaking countries will discover a diversity of different “Modernities”. The motivation for such examples ranges from an “ordered modernisation” to the confident adaptation of an architectural language regarded as timeless, and also from a colonial instrument of foreign power to passionate, cosmopolitan building. In many places, the political dependency of most Arab states until long after World War II led to a double modernisation: adaptation to the European ideal – and emancipation from it in a changing political climate.

Although none of the international students at the Bauhaus came from an Arab country, of all countries it is perhaps surprising that Iraq has the most impressive architectural connection to the legendary design school. Walter Gropius, who founded the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919 and designed his first campus in Dessau for the school in 1925, conceived a second extensive university campus right at the end of his life: the University of Baghdad. The complex, which was jointly developed with his office TAC and located in a bend of the River Tigris, was completed in a more eclectic way after the death of Gropius. At its centre, a giant arch entitled “Monument to the liberated sprit” (named by Gropius himself) recalls the mission of Modernity, which goes far beyond the notion of “Form Follows Function”.