Can architecture’s efficacy transcend the postcolonial?
In a recent interview with Michel Abboud (the Lebanese-American architect behind SOMA the design firm of Park51, the Muslim community center and worship space in Lower Manhattan), editor Alex Padalka made it direct and explicit to interrogate Abboud about his personal and firm’s history and competency to take on such a large-scale project in the world’s big apple, New York City. I would concur with Padalka’s professional doubts as the 33 years old Abboud and 37 years old Sharif El-Gamal (Park51 developer, Egyptian-American) are not only young but might be inadequately experienced and not ready to handle such project scale at the politico-cultural level. However, I want to suggest an alternative view of what the interview seems to signify.
Image: SOMA, 2010
Padalka’s interviewing discourse questions Abboud’s professional potential and attempts to reveal his cultural background and political stance, which signifies a predominant “Western” preemptive/orientalist attitude towards the East/Islam (even as part of NY’s community). Similarly, Abboud’s self-justification discourse of being an eastern Christian working with Muslims (and maybe Jews!) and promoting cultural dialogue signifies a predominant “Eastern” infatuation/indecisiveness toward the West/Globalization. Both discourses drive around each other in circles.
Image: SOMA, 2010
As portrayed in the interview, the project is some kind of a wealthy, young developer’s vision designed by a young architect lucky to be his friend. The project’s architecture is discussed relative to New York’s glamorous architectural scene (specifically the motif façade) and not relative to the post 9/11 consequences and yet-unresolved tensions. Employing arabesque motifs is another pop reproduction of using formal architectural/heritage aesthetics (like arches, pediments, column capitals, wind towers, etc.) which represents concerns with historicizing identity, asserting political presence, and eventually increasing selling value.
The project, its opposition, and even the interview are actually components of a postmodern, postcolonial cultural struggle and political debate between East and West. If not being “used” as a means to an end, in its very best state Architecture’s efficacy—in this case—is struggling with transcending the postcolonial. But, can it really do so?
Read Alex Padalka’s Interview with Michel Abboud
Read more about this in The New York Times
October 10, 2010 at 1:06 pm
I don’t know what SOMA actually stands for, but I have this tendency to think that it attempts to capture the powerful essence behind the acronyms SOM (the prolific North American Skidmore, Owings and Merrill) and OMA (the prolific European Office for Metropolitan Architecture). Or, maybe it is a mere coincidence.