Tomorrow, 1 pm: War and Architecture in Yemen
A conversation with Salma Samar Damluji & Iona Craig
Friends of The Review,
Join us tomorrow on Thursday, July 2, at 1 pm New York / 6 pm London / 8 pm Beirut for a conversation with Salma Samar Damluji and Iona Craig about the architecture of Yemen, the ongoing war there, and America’s ongoing role in that war. Consider it our way of observing the fourth of July.
Salma Samar Damluji is an architect, architectural historian and the leading authority on Yemeni architecture. She is a Professor at the American University of Beirut and the author of The Architecture of Yemen and Its Reconstruction.
Iona Craig is the preeminent English-language journalist on the conflict in Yemen. Her work has won numerous awards, including the 2016 Orwell Prize for journalism, the United Kingdom’s most prestigious honor for political writing, and the 2014 Martha Gellhorn Prize.
(Image from the cover of The Architecture of Yemen and its Reconstruction)
Yemen’s dense clusters of vertical houses constitute one of the world’s oldest and most unique architectural traditions. One of their cities, Shibam, is so dramatically vertiginous that it has been called the ‘Manhattan of the desert.’ In her book, Professor Damluji shows, through extensive fieldwork and interviews with local master builders, how Yemen’s architecture is a living paradigm, emphasizing its role in “urban development, regeneration and renewal.” Through her reporting, Iona Craig has chronicled the devastation conflict, famine, and bombing campaigns from the ongoing conflict in Yemen. By bringing together these architectural and political perspectives, we hope to show how buildings and history intersect.
With Iona joining us from London (6 pm) and Salma joining us from Beirut (8 pm), this will be our first event to span lunch, dinner, and three continents.
This event is co-hosted with The Ballot.
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