Saturday 18 December 2010

Agha khan Architecture Award - Revitalisation of the Recent Heritage of Tunis


The last of the five projects awarded by the Agha Khan was for the revitalisation of the Recent Heritage of Tunis, spearheaded by the Association de Sauvegarde de la Medina de Tunis (ASM).
It chose to look at recent buildings form the 19th and 20th century and consider it as valuable although it has a diversity of styles, form art deco, to art nouveau to pastiches of classic.
There is a fundamental questioning on what is old, how old is old and why do we need to value it, to restore it, to preserve it, to revive it.
What does history gives us?

In Kuwait, there is another type of relation with old buildings. The general trend forgoes the past: New is better as old is a reminder of difficult times. A committee is trying to work on preserving old buildings, some individuals choose to live in old houses. But it might be too late!

photos by the Agha Khan Awards for Architecture

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