VIRTUAL Barcelona
Abstract
Throughout history, cities have been evolving as incubators of creativity, where cultural heritage is intertwined within its social, economic and physical constructs. As an integral part of local cultural heritage, traditional crafts, an authentic and human-centered form of cultural expression that is highly place-based, have been gaining recognition as drivers of economic and community development and urban regeneration. Historically, crafts clusters functioned as a homogeneous networked ecosystem where the social, economic, symbolic, governance and physical systems were intertwined. Historic Cairo is an example of a city whose crafts were historically embedded within its social, spatial and economic networks. The urban fabric of the city was structured around the economic and social attributes of crafts clusters, as neighbourhoods were named after the craft that was produced there or the social groups of craftsmen that lived and worked there. Faced with modern urban challenges such as informality and densification, this homogeneous ecosystem of crafts has disintegrated, causing social, economic and physical deterioration of its urban clusters. Through the exploration of complexity theory, the paper will interpret historic crafts clusters as a complex adaptive system of networks and scaffolds. As a part of a re-clustering scheme for craft clusters in Historic Cairo, the paper will focus on the role of an intermediary in mediating between horizontal and vertical networks within crafts clusters in order to revitalize crafts and stimulate innovation through collaborative processes. The re-establishing and solidifying of networks between different agents can be achieved by providing the necessary scaffolds, also referred to in literature as ‘spaces of possibilities’, which will reveal the role of the physical environment as an enabler of connectivity.
Alia Sherif is a PhD candidate at the Department of Architecture in RWTH Aachen since 2022. The title of her dissertation is: “Re-clustering Creative Ecosystems: The Role of Complexity, Networking and Authenticity in the Contextual Regeneration of Crafts Clusters in Historic Cairo”. In 2020, she obtained a double masters’ degree from BTU and Alexandria University in the joint program ‘Revitalization of Historic City Districts’. In 2017, Alia graduated from the American University in Cairo with a bachelor degree in Architectural Engineering.
Christa Reicher is a professor at the Institute for Urban Planning and Design and the director of the Institute for Urban Planning and European Urban Studies at the faculty of Architecture in RWTH Aachen. Since 2023, she has been the holder of the UNESCO Chair for Cultural Heritage and Urban Development. In 2022, she was awarded the Grand Prize for Building Culture by the Association of German Architects’ and Engineers’ Associations (DAI). Throughout her academic career, Reicher also taught at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, Bochum University of Applied Sciences, and TU Dortmund University. After studying architecture at RWTH and ETH Zurich, Reicher worked in international planning offices and co-founded the planning office Reicher Haase architects + urban planners.
Sahar Imam is a professor of Urban Design at the Faculty of Engineering in Cairo University. Imam obtained her PhD, MSc and BSc from Cairo University in 2007, 2001 and 1998 respectively. She is currently the director of ‘Center for Advancement of Post Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering Sciences’ and the founder and director of the Urban Form lab at Cairo University. Imam is a distinguished author with an extensive list of published papers and co-authored a book titled Urban Futures of the Middle East, which was published in 2021. Throughout her academic career at Cairo University, Imam has organized numerous workshops focusing on historic fabrics and socio-cultural heritage. Since 1998, Imam has been a senior architect at Integrated Studies Group, contributing to various educational, residential and administrative buildings.