TOWARDS A CONTEMPORARY THEORY OF CAIRO’S URBAN IDENTITY: CURRICULA REVISITED

Cairo Urbanism and its multiple place identities have always been a problematic issue for academics and scholars regarding both theorization and teaching. A quick look at the available literature and textbooks together with official Cairo’s Urban Reform projects asserts this debate/argument.

From retrospection, the urban design education is accused of tackling the physical measures, while denying or marginalizing the intangible socio-cultural and environmental behavioral measures. This is believed to further separate the urban design education from the real life in Cairo, causing more and more deterioration of its urbanism.

Dreaming of a Cairo Reborn after two and a half years of revolts, it is my belief that no urban reform will be successful with out in-depth studies and applications of urban sociology and environmental behavioral studies, and other cultural related sciences. From my position as educator and theorist, and based on the works of Gary Moore, Canter, Rapoport, Appleyard, and others from one side, and based on the studies accomplished by what I call “Cairo School of Urban Sociology” by Abou-Lughod, Sims, Singerman and others, on the other side, my aim is to develop a hypothetical framework for teaching urban design theories with a focus on the issue of place identity.

For that, the paper at hand tackles this issue. It discusses the current urban design theories are they are currently taught in the major Egyptian architectural and urban design schools, totally remote from reality. The aim is to propose a hypothetical framework for a model of urban design theories that include urban sociology and environmental behavioral studies as core foundations of their content. The methodology is based on a quick review of how urban design theories are taught in Egypt. Then, a quick literature review of the foundation/key concepts of culture and place and place identity will be developed. Then a trial of applying the concept on the Cairene reality with its demographic and urban diversity will set grounds for a hypothetical urban theories model with emphasis on our city victorious.