“Aden was the second busiest port in the world after New York in the 1950s.”
Read Cities in the Arabian Peninsula Introduction
Here are some photos taken in the late 19th Century of Aden (with many thanks to the Qatar Digital Library):
cities
Reading: Portal9 Journal
“As a journal of stories and critical writing about urbanism and the city,
Portal 9 blends creative writing, photography, and personal essays with academic scholarship, perceptive journalism, and cultural critiques.”
With 4 beautifully designed issues so far, this young journal has been an interesting addition to the Middle East writing scene. Approaching single themes or genres via fiction, non-fiction, criticism as well as the visual arts allows for a nicely rounded experience of a subject once the issue is digested. Give it a try and maybe submit your own work. The main concern of the journal is the city and so it is a must on the shelves of architects, planners, designers as well as writers and general readers.
ISSUE #1 THE IMAGINED, the journal hit the ground running with the intangible theme of the "imagined":
“To imagine a city is to express more fully its living character, rooted in its diverse experiences and its ongoing formation. “The Imagined” in a place creates another place, a refuge; it multiplies our capacity to live, transcending actuality and broadening its horizons. ”
““In “Fiction,” we place the experiences of these new Russian writers alongside those from various Arab generations, all focused on breaking through the absurdity of ossified givens””
ISSUE #4 FOREST is a poetic contemplation of urban origins, nature and where we come from as well as where we are headed as a society.
Follow them on twitter @Portal9Journal