Book Launch: Reconstruction as Violence in Assad's Syria

Join the UCL Urban Lab and The Bartlett Development Planning Unit as they host the launch of Reconstruction as Violence in Assad's Syria edited by Nasser Rabbat and Deen Sharp. Opening with a presentation from Deen Sharp (LSE), Wendy Pullan (University of Cambridge) and Emma DiNapoli followed by a discussion between Deen Sharp, architect Sawsan Abou Zainedin and Ammar Azzouz (University of Oxford). Chaired by Dr Catalina Ortiz (Director of UCL Urban Lab) and Dr Azadeh Mashayekhi (The Bartlett DPU). 

Refreshments and networking to follow the presentations and discussion. 

This event is part of a series of activities celebrating 20 years of UCL Urban Lab.

Reconstruction as Violence in Assad's Syria is a sustained critique of postwar reconstruction in Syria as a politically neutral process. It delves into the complex interplay of post-conflict reconstruction in Syria, challenging the traditionally held dichotomy between the end of violence and the commencement of rebuilding. The contributors to this volume—architects, urbanists, geographers, and historians—employ critical concepts such as urbicide, domicide, and “civilian crisis architecture” to argue against the conventional theoretical frameworks that support a neat separation of phases. They illustrate how reconstruction often extends the dynamics of conflict into the urban and social realms, suggesting that the built environment becomes a battleground for further violence. They emphasize the importance of acknowledging the historical, economic, societal, legal, and bureaucratic contexts that shape reconstruction efforts, arguing for initiatives that prioritize equity, inclusivity, and community participation.

The book starkly underscores the authors’ stance that to overlook any of these dimensions, or to disengage from the reconstruction process altogether, represents a political choice with potentially detrimental effects on Syria and beyond in the Arab world, where countries like Palestine, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, and Sudan are undergoing similar cycles of destruction and rebuilding. It calls for a reimagined approach to reconstruction, one that fosters peace, resilience, and social justice in post-conflict societies.

This event is currently fully booked, please join the waiting list. 

Speakers:

Chairs: Catalina Ortiz and Azadeh Mashayekhi   

Sawsan Abou Zainedin is a Syrian architect and urban development planner. Her work addresses the spatial manifestations of conflicts through research and practice, with a focus on the political, socioeconomic, and technical challenges of urban development and reconstruction in Syria. She is a co-founding director of Sakan Housing Communities, a non-profit social enterprise for developing inclusive and socially just housing programs to aid recovery in Syria. Sawsan holds a Urban Development Planning MSc from The Bartlett’s Development Planning Unit, UCL. She also holds a post-graduate diploma in Integrated Planning and Urban Strategies from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies at Erasmus University and and an Architecture BSc, University of Aleppo.

Ammar Azzouz is a British Academy Research Fellow at University of Oxford. He is the author of Domicide: Architecture, War and the Destruction of Home in Syria, published by Bloomsbury in 2023, with a foreword by Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent. He is currently conducting research on Syrian art and culture in exile with a focus on the post-revolution art. Azzouz has written for a wide range of platforms including the New York Times, Financial Times and the Guardian.

Deen Sharp is an LSE Visiting Fellow in Human Geography and Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a senior advisor for the Aga Khan Prize for Architecture. He was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the co-director of Terreform, Center for Advanced Urban Research. Sharp is the co-editor with Claire Panetta of Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (Urban Research, 2016) and co-editor with Michael Sorkin Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope (Terreform and American University in Cairo Press, 2021). He has also published in Progress in Human Geography, Urban Studies and The Journal of Architecture.

Emma DiNapoli is a human rights lawyer. She studied law at J.D. from Columbia Law School and holds a B.A. in English Literature and Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. Emma has written extensively on post-conflict justice and law reform, international human rights and humanitarian law, and she has previously worked on human rights issues in Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Sudan, among other places. 

Wendy Pullan is Professor of Architecture and Urban Studies at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Centre for Urban Conflicts Research. From 2014 to 2017, she served as Head of the Department of Architecture. She was Principal Investigator of Conflict in Cities and the Contested State, which earned her the RIBA President’s Award for Research. Her publications include Locating Urban Conflicts (2013), The Struggle for Jerusalem’s Holy Places (2013), “Violent Infrastructures, Places of Conflict” (2018), and “Justice as the Urban Everyday” (2019). She is a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.