Review: Damascus: Ottoman Modernity and Urban Transformation (1808–1918) by Stefan Weber

Abstract

Stefan Weber Damascus: Ottoman Modernity and Urban Transformation (1808–1918) Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2009. 2 vols. Vol. 1: text, 464 pp., 646 illus. (some in color); vol. 2: catalogue, 664 pp., 666 illus. (some in color), 1025 ground plans, 7 city plans folded in back pocket. $245, ISBN 8779344240 Stefan Weber’s monumental two-volume study of modern Damascus is an extraordinary contribution to the study of urbanism and architecture in the modern Middle East, as well as to the study of Mediterranean urban history generally. It is the product of years of fieldwork, of architectural and urban surveys, of archival research, and most of all, of thoughtful analysis. At two hefty volumes, the work dwarfs any other study on modern Arab cities, literally as well as figuratively. Damascus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the world’s oldest cities, is best known to architectural historians as one of the most important centers of the classical Islamic world. Over the course of the long nineteenth century, however, Damascus, like many provincial centers of the Ottoman Empire, underwent a tremendous transformation. Modernization altered its development by adding new neighborhoods, large thoroughfares, urban squares, public buildings, commercial infrastructure, and domestic architecture. Zeynep Celik’s recent book, Empire, Architecture and the City, presents an overview of these developments throughout the empire, and shows how the Ottoman center staged its visions of empire through the construction of public space in its Arabic-speaking provinces.1 Weber’s book places Damascus, a provincial capital, at the center of analysis, providing a history of a single city and its buildings and people with an unprecedented degree of richness and depth. His book highlights the links and distinctions in urban and architectural practices between Damascus and Istanbul, the empire’s capital, and between Damascus and many Arab cities to which it relates, including Beirut, Aleppo, and Salt (in present-day Jordan). Yet we also have unexpected comparisons, as with Bitlis (in present-day Turkey). It is no accident that the historic photographs on the cover of both volumes …