25.03.15 - Aziza Chaouni’s participation in the MUPP-MUD City Debates 2015 Conference hosted by the American University of Beirut

On March 6^th, Associate Professor Aziza Chaouni took part in the MUPP-MUD City Debates 2015 Conference hosted by the American University of Beirut in collaboration with the AUB Neighborhood Initiative. The three-day-long conference hosted several notable speakers whose research explored "the processes of urban change associated with gentrification.” More specifically, the conference investigated Western-centric analytical frameworks and their relationship to the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern contexts.

Chaouni was part of a panel that focused on gentrification in historic contexts. She was joined by Khaldun Bshara (RIWAQ), Wael Salah Fahmi (Department of Architecture, Helwan University), and Ahmed Helmi (Ismailia Development & Real Estate Co.), with Hana Alamuddin (MUPP/MUD-ArD, American University of Beirut) serving as the moderator.

From Chaouni’s abstract:

"When faced with the uniquely preserved urban fabric of the medina of Fez and its continuously bustling life, one is easily lured by its timelessness and tends to overlook one of the major characteristics of this walled medieval city: its continuous mutability. This characteristic is even harder to perceive due to the fact that it is challenged by two dominant discourses. On one hand, government and preservation agencies’ inflated narratives represent the medina of Fez as the cradle of Morocco’s civilization; on the other the tourist industry promotes an orientalist nostalgia that depicts the medina as a fossilized urban artifact, unchanged since times immemorial. Such framing of the Medina of Fez is problematic, as it voids the unique resilience of its urban form, which was able to accommodate drastic changes while retaining its structuring DNA. Today, this resilience is challenged by the gentrification of several urban typologies of the medina of Fez including public spaces, mainly caused by the demands of tourism and political agendas subsequent to the Arab Spring. Through the case study of the Fez River Rehabilitation project that uncovered parts of a polluted river, this lecture will analyze the relationship between resilience and gentrification in a North African medieval city in mutation."

Aziza is the principal of Aziza Chaouni Projects (ACP) based in Fez, Morocco, and Toronto, Canada, and an Assistant Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Born and raised in Fez, she is trained both as a structural engineer and as an architect, with 8 years working experience in Morocco, France, and the USA. Aziza attended Columbia University and Harvard Graduate School of Design. Prior to creating ACP, Aziza co-founded and ran Bureau E.A.S.T. with partner Takako Tajima. Her work with both ACP and her previous office has won several top design Awards and Recognitions including the Holcim Gold Award for Sustainable Construction in 2009.

For more information about the conference, including a list of the lecture abstracts, visit http://www.rehabimed.net/?p=7337

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