Print Email Facebook Twitter Camp of Faith: On Political Theology and Urban Form Title Camp of Faith: On Political Theology and Urban Form Author Khosravi, H. Contributor Riedijk, M. (promotor) Barbieri, S.U. (promotor) Faculty Architecture and The Built Environment Department Architecture Date 2014-05-23 Abstract The dissertation explores the political foundations of the city. It positions itself around a definition of the idea of the political, which is determined by the specific constitution of opposed entities; a dichotomy between a sovereign body and movements. Subsequently, the research suggests a dialectical reading of the idea of Urban Form, which is built upon the relation between norm and exception, between friendship and enmity, inclusion and exclusion. Departing from this definition, the dissertation stresses on the (constructive) dynamism of opposing forces which motivate or shape a creative tension: the state of antithetical, which becomes spatialised in the form of the city. This political understanding of the concept of the city has always been entangled with theological polemics. In this dissertation, the very notion of separation, that is embedded in theology, becomes the core concept when an ideological power aims at defining itself through the act of exclusion. Walls, enclosures and boundaries are the architectural elements that represent this action. However here the idea of separation does not imply a form of rejection but rather an association. Camp of Faith rereads these peculiar urban forms as political repercussions of theological ideas, when the city’s architecture establishes a relationship between power, inhabitants and territory. These spatial configurations mediate the moment of conflict, when opposing forces collide and projects are initiated in a dialectical process. Cities become laboratories of projects and counter-projects. Nevertheless the research’s ambition rests in the architectural quality of such phenomena, not only reading the architecture as an outcome of a deliberate political act but also when political ideas and ideologies emerge from the very architecture of the city. Camp of Faith relies on the close reading of paradigmatic examples that unfold the theological idea of city beyond the limits of time and geography. Therefore, here, the concern is not so much changing stylistic periods, but rather the issue of continuity; a specific conception of space which has remained constant despite the advent of technological and economic development: reading the city as series of inhabitable walls. Subject CampFaithFormPolitical TheologyUrban FormIranian ArchitectureIslamic ArchitectureTehran To reference this document use: https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:75d19dc6-6e48-4d1b-a629-b05fff6e8c37 ISBN 9789461863041 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type doctoral thesis Rights (c) 2014 Khosravi, H. Files PDF Camp_of_Faith.pdf 89.16 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid%3A75d19dc6-6e48-4d1b-a629-b05fff6e8c37/datastream/OBJ/view