SANAA

This study is to lay foundation for the ecosophical architectural discourse based upon the non-representational ecological 'image of thought' of Gilles Deleuze's philosophy. Deleuze's non-representational ecological 'image of thought' is the becoming-thought image based upon the non-hierarchial becoming between philosophy/science/art/architecture/etc. This ecological 'image of thought' also demands non-hierarchial architectural becoming, which can be found in many modern architectural design process and buildings. In Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa(SANAA) architecture, non-hierarchial architectural becoming are rhizomatic becoming between 1) diagrammatic design process, 2) multiplicitic/virtual spatial organization, 3) becoming/differential/relational boundary/limit, 4) neutralized structure/architecture. In SANAA's architecture, there are no pre-existing hierarchy set either by architect, society, culture, or nature, as users can set themselves their own epistemological/psychological boundaries, spatial organization, rhizomatic relationship in every becoming fashion. SANAA's architecture is the becoming-thought itself of architecture.

El tamaño, cuando es mensurable y sobre todo tangible, es una cualidad nítida y certera. A través del tamaño se definen implícitamente jerarquías. En sí mismo, el rango dimensional al cual pertenece una determinada entidad la califica. Lo enorme y lo minúsculo configuran universos singulares que contemplan la misma realidad desde extremos dimensionales opuestos. Los viajes hacia los límites de nuestro universo inteligible, en uno u otro sentido, resultan siempre fascinantes. Por eso Gulliver y Alicia, la miniatura y el coloso, mantienen su popularidad intacta. Pero el tamaño, aunque parezca contradictorio, puede también ser relativo. Porque una cosa es la envergadura, la magnitud real y absoluta de una realidad, y otra la dimensión con la cual esta es percibida.
La percepción del tamaño es siempre relativa porque incorpora de manera inevitable la relación con el universo espacial, formal, material en el cual está inserta. Este tamaño relativo es lo que conocemos habitualmente como “escala”. La valoración de las dimensiones en términos de escala adquiere espesor al incorporar aspectos interpretativos y de significado.
Una grieta en la pared, cuando es contemplada en términos de escala, no de tamaño, podría considerarse el Gran Cañón. Una sala podría hacerse de forma que adquiriera la inmensidad del sistema solar.
La escala depende de nuestra capacidad para ser conscientes de
las realidades de la percepción. Cuando uno se niega a liberar la escala
del tamaño, le queda a uno un objeto o un lenguaje que parece certero. Para mí [afirma Robert Smithson] la escala funciona a través de la incertidumbre. [1]
La manipulación de la escala con la cual es percibida una entidad
y la evocación consciente de dimensiones distanciadas de las reales, como recursos de proyecto, estarán siempre presentes en la concepción de “lo grande”. Porque la gran escala se define por el tamaño de una intervención que es, en la mayoría de las circunstancias, tan absoluto como relativo, tan real como evocado.

[1] Smithson, Robert: “The Spiral Jetty”, 1972, recopilado en Stiles, Kristine; Selz, Peter Howard: Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artist’ Writings, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Ángeles, 1996, p. 533.

Presentación monográfica sobre el tema del museo contemporáneo en varios arquitectos actuales de forma comparada, tomando como parámetros básicos de análisis la iluminación natural y el recorrido interior por el espacio expositivo.

Presentado como material docente de la asignatura "Arquitectura Contemporánea: Tendencias y Temas" del Máster habilitante de la E.T.S. Arquitectura de Valladolid en octubre de 2019.

Although urbanisation remains low in Yemen –– 32% in 2010 –– the 2000s were marked by strong urban growth in most regions as well as by various changes that deeply affected Yemeni cities, economically, politically, and socially. After describing the current state of urbanism in Yemen, including the processes of urbanisation and the parts played by political and economic actors (local, national, and international), the paper examines the consequences of urban transformations for society by observing how Yemen's particular urban characteristics are adjusting to new forms of globalised urban development. It concludes that the assets, just as much as the limitations, of Yemeni cities, as well as their regional and international roles, should be highlighted as a reminder that the economic and political frames of these expanding cities are unstable, especially in the context of the 'Arab Spring', which has affected the whole country.

“Una vez delimitado el campo particular de un tipo de arquitectura dominada por una morfología de matriz cúbica; y a partir de la generación de un análisis crítico de los aspectos externos, que aunque a veces más relegados, son los leitmotivs principales que disparan a través del tiempo nuevas exploraciones espaciales y materiales, nos hemos abocado en este trabajo al estudio y análisis de las principales motivaciones de cada autor, que eligieron orientar una respuesta de tipo cúbica a su arquitectura. Del análisis precedente se deduce que aun cuando las obras tengan en común el mismo determinador espacial, es decir, una concepción material cartesiana o rectilínea, los arquitectos llegaron a esta solución a partir de motivaciones diferentes. Analizamos en cada caso como se desarrolla esa lógica cúbica que en principio como tesis de investigación, si se estudia solamente desde un punto de vista meramente morfológico resulta una motivación banal o elemental. En cambio el estudio de las transformaciones espaciales sobre una forma de determinación que constituye una abstracción básica de la estructura física de la arquitectura (que si bien es primitivamente clara y corriente), ha generado a los artistas y arquitectos a través del tiempo, asumir como desafío no solo la morfología del “elemento-cubo” , sino también abarcar las transformaciones geométricas que este espacio intuye, es decir, el hecho de proyectar operaciones para elidir una matriz geométrica fuertemente implícita a través de la alteración  de un modelo rígido, determinado y de isotropía espacial”.

Since the advent of modern architecture, notions of free plan and transparency have proliferated well into current trends. The movement's notion of a spatially homogeneous, open and limitless 'free plan' contrasts with the spatially heterogeneous 'series of rooms' defined by load bearing walls, which in turn triggered new notions of transparency created by vast expanses of glazed walls. Similarly, transparency was also dichotomized as something that was physical or optical, as well as something conceptual, akin to spatial organization. As opposed to merely accepting the duality and possible incompatibility of these dichotomies, this paper seeks to ask how can space be both literally and phenomenally transparent, as well as exhibit both homogeneous and heterogeneous qualities? This paper explores this potential destabilization or blurring of spatial phenomena by dissecting the transparent layers and volumes of a series of selected case studies to investigate how different architects have devised strategies of spatial ambiguity and interpenetration. Projects by Peter Eisenman, Sou Fujimoto, and SANAA will be discussed and analyzed to show how the superimposition of geometries and spaces achieve different conditions of layering, transparency, and interstitiality. Their particular buildings will be explored to reveal various innovative kinds of spatial interpenetration produced through the articulate relations of the elements of architecture, which challenge conventional perceptions of interior and exterior whereby visual homogeneity blurs with spatial heterogeneity. The results show how spatial conceptions such as interpenetration and transparency have the ability to subvert not only inside-outside dialectics, but could also produce multiple degrees of interiority within complex and indeterminate spatial dimensions in constant flux as well as present alternative forms of social interaction.

Eric Firley, the co-author of a new compendium The Urban Housing Handbook, which investigates 30 major housing types from around the world, describes one of the most intriguing examples, situated in the Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In recent decades, regulations and guidance aimed at making architectural environments less disabling have improved daily life for those with mobility and sensory disabilities. This approach to accessibility clearly produces social progress. However, it also has the unfortunate side effect of casting architecture as a prosthetic device that normalizes lived experience based on an able-bodied paradigm. Rather than generate architecture whose qualities draw from the specificities of a great variety of physical conditions, it tends to reinforce what may be called the " eyes on legs " benchmark, where architectural experience is understood as a function of a body that associates the ability to walk with fully operational vision. I will argue that approaching accessibility as a compensatory measure can distract from other aspects of the complex relationships between space design and the experiences of disability. This requires challenging assumptions that imagine and interpret architectural space predominantly through a seeing and mobile body, to the detriment of other senses and of other ways of appropriating the built environment. In this chapter, I will therefore forefront disabled spatial practices that involve " more than access. " I will discuss two cases in which an architectural work provides the opportunity to conceptualize disabled experiences in ways that challenge limits in accessibility theory and practice as well as in architectural thought. Through architectural analyses of these works, I will argue that the full spectrum of bodily capacities could benefit if both architectural discourse and disability guidance and advocacy conceptualized the specificities of disabled architectural experience beyond the habitual terms of access. Both cases studies consist of architectural environments that are open to the public. In the first work, Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin (2005), I explore how access can consist of more than just functional ease of movement to a destination; rather it can be integral to our meaning-making around, and experiences of, material space. This is because the Memorial's formal and spatial organization creates the potential for an infinite number of meaning-making experiences, without prejudging their nature and by favouring the activation of all the senses. As a result, it challenges the notion that accessibility

In 1997 Kazuyo Sejima had not yet built outside of Japan, and was just beginning to attract international attention. Sydney had the opportunity to be the first international city to showcase the work of Sejima, and collaborator Ryue Nishizawa, when she was awarded the commission to design the Cinema-tech, (Stage 2 of the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay in Sydney). In a tragedy for Sydney and Australia, the project did not proceed. Nearly 20 years later, now as an established architect with a Pritzker Prize to her name, she has once again been commissioned to design a major public building in Sydney; this time an extension to the Art Gallery of NSW. In this interview from 1997, it is interesting to reflect on the work of Sejima and SANNA and what could have been.

Divination by dropping shells is addressed in this paper through the analysis of the case of a female practitioner working in S.an‘a’, the capital of Yemen. This divinatory practice is also found elsewhere in the country, particularly in Rada‘, Ma'rib, in the Tihama, and probably in Hadramawt. It generally goes by the name of wad‘—a metonymy, as a wad‘a is either a porcelain shell or a cowrie shell and, by extension, refers to other kinds of seashells, particularly those with the shiny appearance of cowries, such as olive and marginella shells. When commenting on the casts, there is a ‘‘language’’ one needs to master to interpret the items from the basket containing the seashells, understood
as signs. It is important to emphasize the traces of anthropomorphization of
the cowrie that are not related to the vulva.

Es ist ein Werksverzeichnis der Malerin und Grafikerin Jutta Müller aus Stuttgart. Leider verleugnen ihre beiden Söhne ihre Mutter, sodass ich hier in einer Sackgasse stecke. Vielleicht weiß jemand anderes noch so manches Erwähnenswerte über das große künstlerische Talent zu berichten. Ab etwa Mitte der Sechziger Jahre malte sie beeindruckende Werke!

[ESP] Para la cultura tradicional japonesa, la casa no puede entenderse sin su vinculación con la naturaleza, hecho que está presente en la configuración de la vivienda y en el valor simbólico de ciertos elementos constructivos. Esto queda reflejado, a principios del siglo XX, en los escritos de algunos autores occidentales que visitaron el país, y en otros de autores japoneses, contraponiendo estas cualidades tan apreciadas de la casa tradicional a los rápidos y sustanciales cambios que se estaban produciendo en la cultura, y por ende en la arquitectura, japonesas. A lo largo del siglo XX, la adopción de las técnicas y lenguajes de occidente y la búsqueda de un lenguaje propio, propiciaron que el interés por la casa y su relación con la naturaleza se alejaran de los principales focos de atención arquitectónicos. No será hasta finales del siglo XX y principios del XXI que la importancia de esta relación vuelva a ser reivindicada por diversos autores, que la colocarán en el centro de las inquietudes proyectuales de algunas de sus obras. En cierto sentido, estas actitudes se verán influidas por los ideales presentes en la tradición, pero sin que prevalezca una imitación del referente. Será a través de la generación nuevos mecanismos proyectuales, tres de los cuales recogeremos en este texto, que se retomará esa búsqueda del acercamiento entre naturaleza y arquitectura.
[ENG] In traditional Japanese culture, the house cannot be understood without its connection with nature. That fact qualifies the configuration of the house as well as the symbolic value of certain construction elements. This is reflected, at the beginning of the 20th century, in the writings of some Western authors who visited the country, as well as in other Japanese authors, contrasting these highly appreciated qualities of the traditional house with the rapid and substantial changes that were taking place in Japanese culture and architecture. Throughout the 20th century, the adoption of Western techniques and languages and the search for a language of its own, led to the interest in the house and its relationship with nature to move away from the main architectural focus of attention. It will not be until the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st that the importance of this relationship is once again claimed by various authors, who will place it at the center of the design concerns of some of their works. Somewhat, these attitudes may be influenced by the ideals present in tradition, but without an imitation of the referent. It will be through the generation of new project mechanisms, three of which we will collect in this text, that this search for a rapprochement between nature and architecture will be resumed.

Il est frappant de voir combien la divination par les coquillages et, en par-ticulier, par les cauris, a si peu attiré l'attention des ethnologues, du moins dans ses manifestations les moins savantes. 1 Localement, ce désintérêt rejoint, ou s'ajoute, à différentes formes de préventions, générales, et aux réserves ex-primées avec superbe par les devins lettrés. Parmi les idées largement reçues en monde arabe, il y a que ces pratiques sont à but purement lucratif et qu'elles sont le fait de nomades allogènes : la question est posée, celle du sta-tut réellement divinatoire de ces pratiques ; ou en d'autres termes, y at -il es-camotage ? Si l'on cherchait un équivalent à cette perception précise, en Occi-dent, on la trouverait avec les Romanichelles qui abordent le chaland, proposant de lui lire les lignes de la main en ne manquant pas de le délester au passage de son porte-monnaie. La divination par lâcher de coquillages est abordée ici au travers du cas d'une praticienne exerçant à Ṣanʽāʼ, capitale du Yémen. 2 Cette pratique divi-natoire apparaît ailleurs dans le pays, en particulier à Radā', Mārib, en Tihāma et, probablement en Ḥaḍramawt. 3 Elle est désignée en général par le nom de wad', et donc par métonymie, puisqu'un wad'a est une porcelaine ou cauri, et, par extension, renvoie à d'autres sortes de coquilles, en particulier, à toute co-quille proche par son apparence brillante des porcelaines, telles les Olives et Marginelles. 4 Dans le commentaire des tirages, intervient la maîtrise d'un

During the 1980s, architectural development in Sanaa underwent a major transformation: the emergence of a new form of residential buildings in a city where the ‘villa’ was the most common model for homes. This article examines how the Sanaa population has been particularly inventive in creating new residences, while respecting the principles and hierarchies that governed spatial organization in the traditional house. Not only the floorplans, but also the Yemenite style of decoration and architectural details have evolved: the arch – in all its forms – has become the key element of the national architecture. This transformation represents a combination of recent building techniques and construction materials with more traditional skills.

An article to be published at: The Journal of Aesthetics and Science of Art, June 2017:

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This article explores issues of mood and atmosphere in contemporary
art and architecture through the following two cases: 1) “The 21 –century
Museum of Contemporary Art” (2004) designed by a Japanese architectural firm known as SANAA; and 2) an installation project called “Pour Your Body Out” (2009) made by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist. Both are cases in which the mood, or an atmospheric dimension of everyday space in the contemporary world is activated. However, it is noticeable that each case brings forth mood and atmosphere in different ways. SANAA considers atmosphere (instead of using the term ‘mood’) to be something that can loosely controlled and programmed, also a means to overcome the self-disciplined nature of modern architecture that does not fully respond to the fabrics of everyday life. Meanwhile, Rist’s installation shows how mood arises in improvisational and aleatory ways. In other words, while atmosphere in the 21st–century Museum tends to be reduced as a design element, in Rist’s work it becomes an affective driver that sets out a field in which various participants are passing through each other and entangled together without forming coherent senses of community.

Resumen
El premio Pritzker, otorgado por la fundación Hyatt y la familia Pritzker, es considerado uno de los galardones más prestigiosos en el ámbito de la arquitectura, llegando a ser conocido de manera informal como el “Nobel” de la arquitectura. Desde su fundación
en 1979, son ocho los arquitectos japoneses que han sido distinguidos con este premio, lo que convierte a Japón, junto con Estados Unidos, lugar de origen del premio, en el país con más autores galardonados, y da muestra del importante papel
que desempeña la arquitectura japonesa en el ámbito internacional. Kenzo Tange en 1987, Fumihiko Maki en 1993, Tadao Ando en 1995, Kazuyo Sejima y Ryue Nishizawa en 2010, Toyo Ito en 2013, Shigeru Ban en 2014 y Arata Isozaki en la última edición hasta la fecha de 2019 se han alzado con este galardón, y a través del conocimiento, análisis y puesta en común de las aportaciones de cada uno de ellos, tanto a nivel práctico como teórico, se puede trazar una visión panorámica de la evolución de la arquitectura japonesa moderna y contemporánea y de sus planteamientos que la han situado en la posición de prestigio en que actualmente se ubica. Comenzando nuestro periplo en los años 60, momento en el que se produce el reconocimiento
internacional de Tange y la creación del Metabolismo, una de las más destacadas vanguardias arquitectónicas del siglo XX y que supuso además el arranque de las carreras de Maki o Isozaki; pasando por las radicales propuestas de Ando o Ito entre los años 70 y el final de siglo; y la continuidad de la experimentación que vemos en Ban y en Sejima y Nishazawa, podemos llevar a cabo un recorrido por algunos de los principales nombres de la arquitectura japonesa e internacional. Esta es una historia
de maestros y discípulos, y de logros basados en el desarrollo de ideas y visiones compartidas, pero también de disensiones y figuras singulares. Sin embargo, y frente a la individualidad de cada una de las prácticas, es posible plantear ciertos rasgos
comunes cuyo reconocimiento nos ayudará a centrar nuestro discurso. Estos se materializarán en propuestas de gran interés, algunas de las cuales tratan temas o ámbitos situados en polos opuestos, como son las propuestas utópicas de ciudad del
metabolismo y la casa como campo de investigación espacial; el entendimiento de las necesidades de la sociedad del momento e incluso el planteamiento de modos de vida futuros y la mirada a los lenguajes y ejemplos del pasado; o la incorporación
de los últimos avances tecnológicos y el uso reinterpretado de los materiales y formas de la tradición. Estas ideas nos ayudan a plantear una suerte de conclusión a la presente investigación, el reconocimiento de la arquitectura como campo inagotable de experimentación, idea que sentará las bases, y de hecho ya lo hace, de la arquitectura de las siguientes generaciones de arquitectos japoneses y no japoneses.

FROM THE METABOLIST PROPOSALS OF THE 60S TO THE ESSENTIALIZATION OF CONTEMPORARY LANGUAGES. A PANORAMIC VIEW OF JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE THROUGH ITS PRITZKER PRIZE WINNERS
Abstract
The Pritzker Prize, granted by the Hyatt Foundation and the Pritzker family, is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the field of architecture, becoming informally known as the “Nobel” of architecture. Since its establishment in 1979, there
are eight Japanese architects who have been distinguished with this award, which makes Japan along with the United States, place of origin of the award, the country with more winning authors, and shows the important role Japanese architecture played internationally. Kenzo Tange in 1987, Fumihiko Maki in 1993, Tadao Ando in 1995, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa in 2010, Toyo Ito in 2013, Shigeru Ban in 2014 and Arata Isozaki in the last edition to date of 2019 have won this award and through knowledge, analysis and sharing of the contributions of each, both practically and theoretically can draw an overview of the evolution of modern and contemporary Japanese architecture and its approaches that have located in the prestigious position in which it is currently located. Beginning our journey in the 60s, the time of the international recognition of Tange and the creation of Metabolism, one of the most outstanding architectural avant-garde of the twentieth century and which also led to the start of the races of Maki or Isozaki; going through the radical proposals of Ando or Ito between the 70s and the end of the century; and the continuity of the experimentation that we see in Ban and in Sejima and Nishazawa, we can take a tour of some of the main names of Japanese and international architecture. This is a story of masters and disciples, and of achievements based on the development of ideas and shared visions, but also of dissensions and singular figures. However, and opposite to the individuality of each of the practices, it is possible to raise certain common features whose recognition will help us focus our discourse. These will materialize in interesting proposals, some of which deal with issues or areas located at opposite poles, such as the utopian designs of the Metabolist city and the house as a field of space investigation; the understanding of the needs of the society of the moment and even the approach of future ways of life and the look at the languages and examples of the past; or the incorporation of the newest technological advances and the reinterpreted use of the materials and forms of tradition. These ideas help us to present a kind of conclusion to the current investigation, the recognition of architecture as an endless field of experimentation, an idea that will lay the foundations, and in fact already does, of the architecture of the following generations
of Japanese and non-Japanese architects.

Since the early seventies, the city of Sana'a, Yemen, has known a fast-growing urban expansion allowing unprecedented territorial dynamics. Nowadays, they are mainly staged on the scene of suburban spaces, and even on the fringes of the agglomeration. 
We thus witness the emergence of suburban centralities that become specific in their capacity to polarise economic activities, and to build up as key-spaces of social life.
The present thesis analyses the construction processes and the practice of these emerging centralities, the appearance of which alters the general structure of the Greater Sana'a, as well as identity relations between the urban community and their own space. Originated in private initiative and urban practices, these new centers currently redefine the actors’ strategies as a whole. What’s more, new frameworks of urbanity seem to arise: this research is devoted to the specification of its foundations.

This is a paper analyzing  how a number of Japanese avant-garde architects, such as Toyo Ito, SANAA, Kengo Kuma and others understand the meaning of"environment" when they design the buildings. Three models of their conceptual framework, namely, co-construction, fractals and being out there, are proposed.

Durante le lezioni del corso “Territory and Architecture: Interpretations and Interactions” - tenuto dal Prof. Frédéric Bonnet presso l’Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio - sono state gettate le basi per comprendere come sfere quali progetto e città, architettura e territorio siano profondamente interconnesse e interdipendenti. Alla fine del corso in questione, durato tutto il semestre primaverile 2021, questa consapevolezza si è concretizzata nell’analisi di due progetti, mettendo in campo tutta una serie di strumenti analitici afferenti al campo sì dell’architettura, ma anche dell’urbanistica. Il primo progetto analizzato è Rorschacher Siedlung, un edificio adibito al cohousing sviluppato nell’ambito dell’atelier di progettazione del Prof. Arch. Walter Angonese. Il secondo progetto è invece il complesso di appartamenti progettato dallo studio nipponico SANAA in Avenue Maréchal Fayolle a Parigi.

La ville de Sanaa connaît aujourd'hui d'importantes reconfigurations. En effet, un réseau de centralités secondaires semble se constituer. Elles se caractérisent par une certaine capacité à polariser et à attirer des activités anciennes ou nouvelles et, surtout, par un certain nombre d'originalités provenant du croisement de logiques sociales, foncières et juridiques, héritées et exogènes. Nous voyons dans les prémisses de cette multipolarité l'une des clés du développement de la capitale yéménite, favorisant l'émergence de nouvelles formes d'urbanité en périphérie et aux marges de la ville. L'article vise à décrire précisément les processus d'urbanisation et les stratégies d'acteurs qui ont conduit à cette nouvelle organisation de la trame urbaine, ainsi que les composantes urbanistiques, sociales et juridiques de ces quartiers périphériques qui constituent le grand Sanaa aujourd'hui.

Abstract: The city of Sana'a is experiencing important physical and social changes with the emergence of a network of secondary urban centers. These secondary urban centers seem to successfully attract and concentrate new and old types of activities. One of the major consequences of this recent socioeconomic , juridical and land use context is the appearance of new social networks. This multi-polar system becomes a key component of the Yemeni Capital City development, defining new urban development patterns in the outskirts of Sana'a. The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze this original urban development process, which highlights complex interactions between various actors. It results in a new meaning of the Yemeni urban patterns by redefining concepts such as " being urban " and land tenure within this multi-polar metropolitan area that Sana'a has become.

This thesis explores the ways in which landscape is relevant as a concept for designing architecture. Buildings that have been designed like landscapes have become a topic in contemporary architecture. The apparent distinction between architecture and landscape is questioned in exemplary theories and new designs. The core of this thesis is three case studies of architectural designs that use landscape strategies. The analytical model for landscape architectural composition that Steenbergen and Reh (2003) developed for the European gardens is applied as in drawing analysis of these building's inner space composition. By distinguishing the landscape composition into a four layer model - ground form, spatial form, metaphorical form and programmatic form - the analysis will alter the reading of three architectural projects. Rem Koolhaas and OMA's unbuilt Jussieu design for two university libraries in Paris of 1992 is visualised for the first time as it could have looked if built...

This is an exploratory paper on the changing meaning of "the social" in the design thought and practice of Toyo Ito, one of the internationally known architects in Japan through the framework of social ordering, cosmos and taxis, proposed by Friedrich Hayek.

One century after its reconstruction, the southern gate of Sana’a, Bāb al‑Yaman, has become not only the symbol of an ancient urban identity but also the emblem of Yemen’s political and cultural vitality. This article analyses the persistence and the symbolization of such an archetypal urban form through three levels of interpretations: first, the city dwellers’ perceptions, which replace the gate in spatial practices; then the iconographic representations of Bāb al‑Yaman, which are in line with the process of promotion of Yemen’s patrimonial and cultural treasures; and last but not least, the discourse analysis of some institutional actors, who have turned the gate into an object of claim.



Bāb al‑Yaman, porte méridionale de la ville de Sanaa, est devenue, un siècle après sa reconstruction, à la fois le symbole d’une identité urbaine héritée et l’emblème de la vitalité politique et culturelle du Yémen. C’est l’analyse de la persistance et de la symbolisation d’une forme urbaine archétypale qui est ici proposée à travers une triple lecture : celle des perceptions des citadins qui recentrent la porte dans les pratiques spatiales, celle, interprétative, des représentations iconographiques de Bāb al‑Yaman qui s’inscrivent dans un processus de valorisation des richesses patrimoniales et culturelles du pays, et, enfin, celle des discours de quelques acteurs institutionnels qui font de la porte un objet de revendications.

Au sujet de 400 manuscrits yéménites microfilmés par le Dr. Robert Stookey, dont un nombre certain provenait de collections privées, et ajoutait que ces copies étaient accessibles, sous certaines conditions, à l’Université du Texas, Austin, États-Unis.

Surtout connue pour sa vieille ville classée au patrimoine mondial de l’humanité de l’UNESCO depuis 1986, Sanaa, la capitale yéménite, est au coeur d’une évolution urbaine sans précédent depuis quelques décennies qui contribue à d’importantes reconfigurations et dynamiques territoriales et sociales. La ville dépasse aujourd’hui les 2 millions d’habitants et s’organise autour de plusieurs pôles périphériques.