Qatar Museums to feature new publications at 34th Doha International Book Fair

This Abu Dhabi photographer is on a mission to define his country's ‘architectural identity'

CNN

3 days ago

CNN

This Abu Dhabi photographer is on a mission to define his country's ‘architectural identity'

When Hussain AlMoosawi arrived home, he didn't recognize anything. The Emirati photographer, who had spent six years studying in Australia, returned to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2013. He'd missed a real estate boom of dizzying proportions: not just new buildings, but new districts. More than that, the buildings of his childhood were disappearing, replaced by shiny new skyscrapers. But for AlMoosawi, these international icons were not the urban fabric of his home: it was the oft-overlooked, mid-century office towers and residential blocks squeezed between new highways and overshadowed by luxury developments that felt most familiar. It sparked a desire to 'understand the urban context of the UAE,' and AlMoosawi set out to meticulously document and capture these underappreciated buildings, 'and reimagine the city as if it were the '80s, the time when I was born.' Initially focusing on industrial landscapes, temporary structures and air conditioning units, he began to notice symmetry in many of the buildings he was photographing, inspiring his current project: facades. 'Facades are like a face,' said AlMoosawi. 'It's something that people connect with.' His bold, geometric images strip away context to spotlight the character and diversity of everyday buildings. Using a telephoto lens to shoot close-ups from the ground or elevated positions, AlMoosawi carefully frames out distractions and sometimes removes minor obstructions like lampposts in post-processing. So far, the 41-year-old, who is editor-in-chief for National Geographic AlArabiya Magazine, has photographed over 600 buildings across the UAE, and next year hopes to complete his collection in Abu Dhabi, where he lives. In the long term, he hopes to turn the 'lifetime project' into an interactive archive that both preserves urban heritage and invites viewers to rediscover their own city. 'Our cities aren't big, in terms of scale, compared to many other cities,' said AlMoosawi. 'But then they have a story to tell, they have things between the lines that we don't see, and my quest is to see these things.' Born in 1984, AlMoosawi grew up during a period of rapid development: the UAE was formed a little over a decade earlier, and the discovery of oil in 1958 had led to significant urban expansion and an influx of foreign workers. While many early buildings were designed by Western architects, the 1970s and '80s saw more Middle Eastern and South Asian architects moving to the UAE, particularly from Egypt and India, said George Katodrytis, a professor of architecture at the American University of Sharjah, who has lived in the UAE for 25 years. This multicultural history is reflected in its architectural identity, 'which is different than the West and is not completely Islamic, in its patterns and formal language,' he added. Buildings from the early days of the UAE fused modernist forms — like precast concrete facades — with climate adaptations, social customs, and Arabian and Islamic design features like arches and domes, creating a 'hybrid' identity, said Katodrytis. Katodrytis sees a distinctive style emerging in Emirati facades of the 1970s and '80s, with features like recessed balconies creating a 'jigsaw puzzle' effect that reflects cultural preferences for privacy and heavily shaded outdoor space. 'It's not what we expect Islamic architecture to be, from a textbook or history, but it's more of an informal interpretation,' said Katodrytis. Like the rest of the UAE, Abu Dhabi has continued to expand over the past few decades. Between 1975 and 2019, its urban area grew from just 54 square kilometers to 758 square kilometers, and according to government data, the city saw a 66% increase in the number of residential and non-residential units between 2011 and 2023. In recent years, 'mega projects' such as Yas Island and Saadiyat Island have added new residential and business hubs to the ever-evolving city. Construction methods, materials and styles have changed significantly in the past 30 years, but Katodrytis can see an 'indirect' legacy in some of the city's recent structures, which have some similarities to designs from the 1980s, rather than those from the 2000s: 'The facades have more thickness, less glass, and it's a little bit more three-dimensional.' Projects like the Abrahamic Family House, an interfaith complex featuring a mosque, church, and synagogue, and Louvre Abu Dhabi, offer more subtle inflections of Arabian design, focusing more on the geometry and abstract shapes often seen in the city's 20th-century architecture. The buildings also reflect the city's distant past, when low-rise settlements centered around shared courtyards. And while many buildings from the 20th century have been seen as outdated, and even demolished to make way for new construction, there's been some changing sentiment around modern heritage. At the 2014 Venice Biennale, the UAE's exhibition highlighted 1970s-1980s residential architecture and its connection to the country's cultural identity. Since then, each Emirate has started to review its approach to urban conservation: in Abu Dhabi, 64 sites were given 'unconditional protection' in 2023, including the Cultural Foundation, a 1980s building that was earmarked for demolition in 2010 before it was ultimately refurbished. 'The interesting thing is that (many of) these buildings are not necessarily big, iconic buildings. They're middle class, even workers' housing from the '60s and '70s. So it's a different social, cultural value, which now has been elevated,' said Katodrytis. In 2024, this was formalized in a national policy that focuses on identifying, documenting, and protecting modern architectural heritage in the UAE. 'In urban planning, if the value of the land supersedes the value of the building, then the building has no relevant value, and so it's demolished to be replaced by another building,' said Katodrytis. 'Now, the historic value of the building supersedes the economic value.' Other photographers have also been documenting the Emirates' urban history: two European expatriates, known by their Instagram handle @abudhabistreets, are showcasing a side of the city beyond well-known landmarks, in a bid to reveal the cultural fabric and the city's ever-evolving identity; and architecture professor and photographer Apostolos Kyriazis spent two years documenting Abu Dhabi's public spaces for a joint research project. For AlMoosawi, buildings from the '70s and '80s are deeply nostalgic, evoking memories of his grandmother's low-rise home in Old Dubai, now a commercial center. The project has revealed to him 'a clear architectural identity' that he's found resonates with others, too. His next challenge is working out how to organize and categorize the buildings. Finding information on buildings, like the architect or even the construction date, can be tricky, especially for older and less well-known residences, AlMoosawi said. 'I had the idea to put it out there as an interactive archive,' he said. 'What I want is people to interact with these pictures. We have many people who lived in these buildings. They might have old pictures of them. So they could add more information, add more visual data, and you never know what you might get.' By the end of the project, he expects to have photographed around 2,000 buildings — and hopes the project will inspire people to look again at the urban landscapes close to home that many of us take for granted. 'I have many people who tell me, 'We've always lived here, we've never seen that,'' he added.

CNN

3 days ago

CNN

This Abu Dhabi photographer is on a mission to define his country's ‘architectural identity'

When Hussain AlMoosawi arrived home, he didn't recognize anything. The Emirati photographer, who had spent six years studying in Australia, returned to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2013. He'd missed a real estate boom of dizzying proportions: not just new buildings, but new districts. More than that, the buildings of his childhood were disappearing, replaced by shiny new skyscrapers. But for AlMoosawi, these international icons were not the urban fabric of his home: it was the oft-overlooked, mid-century office towers and residential blocks squeezed between new highways and overshadowed by luxury developments that felt most familiar. It sparked a desire to 'understand the urban context of the UAE,' and AlMoosawi set out to meticulously document and capture these underappreciated buildings, 'and reimagine the city as if it were the '80s, the time when I was born.' Initially focusing on industrial landscapes, temporary structures and air conditioning units, he began to notice symmetry in many of the buildings he was photographing, inspiring his current project: facades. 'Facades are like a face,' said AlMoosawi. 'It's something that people connect with.' His bold, geometric images strip away context to spotlight the character and diversity of everyday buildings. Using a telephoto lens to shoot close-ups from the ground or elevated positions, AlMoosawi carefully frames out distractions and sometimes removes minor obstructions like lampposts in post-processing. So far, the 41-year-old, who is editor-in-chief for National Geographic AlArabiya Magazine, has photographed over 600 buildings across the UAE, and next year hopes to complete his collection in Abu Dhabi, where he lives. In the long term, he hopes to turn the 'lifetime project' into an interactive archive that both preserves urban heritage and invites viewers to rediscover their own city. 'Our cities aren't big, in terms of scale, compared to many other cities,' said AlMoosawi. 'But then they have a story to tell, they have things between the lines that we don't see, and my quest is to see these things.' Born in 1984, AlMoosawi grew up during a period of rapid development: the UAE was formed a little over a decade earlier, and the discovery of oil in 1958 had led to significant urban expansion and an influx of foreign workers. While many early buildings were designed by Western architects, the 1970s and '80s saw more Middle Eastern and South Asian architects moving to the UAE, particularly from Egypt and India, said George Katodrytis, a professor of architecture at the American University of Sharjah, who has lived in the UAE for 25 years. This multicultural history is reflected in its architectural identity, 'which is different than the West and is not completely Islamic, in its patterns and formal language,' he added. Buildings from the early days of the UAE fused modernist forms — like precast concrete facades — with climate adaptations, social customs, and Arabian and Islamic design features like arches and domes, creating a 'hybrid' identity, said Katodrytis. Katodrytis sees a distinctive style emerging in Emirati facades of the 1970s and '80s, with features like recessed balconies creating a 'jigsaw puzzle' effect that reflects cultural preferences for privacy and heavily shaded outdoor space. 'It's not what we expect Islamic architecture to be, from a textbook or history, but it's more of an informal interpretation,' said Katodrytis. Like the rest of the UAE, Abu Dhabi has continued to expand over the past few decades. Between 1975 and 2019, its urban area grew from just 54 square kilometers to 758 square kilometers, and according to government data, the city saw a 66% increase in the number of residential and non-residential units between 2011 and 2023. In recent years, 'mega projects' such as Yas Island and Saadiyat Island have added new residential and business hubs to the ever-evolving city. Construction methods, materials and styles have changed significantly in the past 30 years, but Katodrytis can see an 'indirect' legacy in some of the city's recent structures, which have some similarities to designs from the 1980s, rather than those from the 2000s: 'The facades have more thickness, less glass, and it's a little bit more three-dimensional.' Projects like the Abrahamic Family House, an interfaith complex featuring a mosque, church, and synagogue, and Louvre Abu Dhabi, offer more subtle inflections of Arabian design, focusing more on the geometry and abstract shapes often seen in the city's 20th-century architecture. The buildings also reflect the city's distant past, when low-rise settlements centered around shared courtyards. And while many buildings from the 20th century have been seen as outdated, and even demolished to make way for new construction, there's been some changing sentiment around modern heritage. At the 2014 Venice Biennale, the UAE's exhibition highlighted 1970s-1980s residential architecture and its connection to the country's cultural identity. Since then, each Emirate has started to review its approach to urban conservation: in Abu Dhabi, 64 sites were given 'unconditional protection' in 2023, including the Cultural Foundation, a 1980s building that was earmarked for demolition in 2010 before it was ultimately refurbished. 'The interesting thing is that (many of) these buildings are not necessarily big, iconic buildings. They're middle class, even workers' housing from the '60s and '70s. So it's a different social, cultural value, which now has been elevated,' said Katodrytis. In 2024, this was formalized in a national policy that focuses on identifying, documenting, and protecting modern architectural heritage in the UAE. 'In urban planning, if the value of the land supersedes the value of the building, then the building has no relevant value, and so it's demolished to be replaced by another building,' said Katodrytis. 'Now, the historic value of the building supersedes the economic value.' Other photographers have also been documenting the Emirates' urban history: two European expatriates, known by their Instagram handle @abudhabistreets, are showcasing a side of the city beyond well-known landmarks, in a bid to reveal the cultural fabric and the city's ever-evolving identity; and architecture professor and photographer Apostolos Kyriazis spent two years documenting Abu Dhabi's public spaces for a joint research project. For AlMoosawi, buildings from the '70s and '80s are deeply nostalgic, evoking memories of his grandmother's low-rise home in Old Dubai, now a commercial center. The project has revealed to him 'a clear architectural identity' that he's found resonates with others, too. His next challenge is working out how to organize and categorize the buildings. Finding information on buildings, like the architect or even the construction date, can be tricky, especially for older and less well-known residences, AlMoosawi said. 'I had the idea to put it out there as an interactive archive,' he said. 'What I want is people to interact with these pictures. We have many people who lived in these buildings. They might have old pictures of them. So they could add more information, add more visual data, and you never know what you might get.' By the end of the project, he expects to have photographed around 2,000 buildings — and hopes the project will inspire people to look again at the urban landscapes close to home that many of us take for granted. 'I have many people who tell me, 'We've always lived here, we've never seen that,'' he added.

After fame and fallout, Lucy Wightman finds peace and clarity among the birds

Boston Globe

4 days ago

Boston Globe

After fame and fallout, Lucy Wightman finds peace and clarity among the birds

Wightman has moved through various lives in her 65 years. She's been a debutante, a photographer, a mental health professional, and a gas station attendant. But she's still best known for the feathers she once wore as part of her costume — the costume that she peeled off nightly in her role as Princess Cheyenne, Boston's most famous exotic dancer in the Advertisement On June 17, Wightman will celebrate the release of her autobiography, Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'I love the fun of those 11 years that are covered in the book,' she says, sitting in an alcove of the Plymouth Public Library. The only child of well-to-do parents, raised in Illinois and Connecticut, the former Lucy Johnson landed in Boston as a teenager in the late 1970s. She was already on her way to becoming a Zelig of sorts: Infatuated with the singer Cat Stevens, she'd gone to his concert at the New Haven Coliseum, learned of his plans for the last date of his tour in New York City, then took the train there and maneuvered her way into a liaison with the star performer. Advertisement Wightman's new autobiography follows her journey through the '70s and '80s, during the height of the Combat Zone's heyday. Provided In Boston, she answered an ad for exotic dancers in the Boston Phoenix. Quickly displaying a knack for theatricality, she became the star attraction at the Naked i Cabaret, the red-light district's most celebrated nightclub. The mainstream press took notice. 'Princess Cheyenne is to the Combat Zone what Gypsy Rose Lee was to burlesque,' wrote Stephanie Schorow in her 2017 book Well-aware of the stereotypes about her fellow dancers' lives, Wightman challenged expectations. She looked forward to her conversations with the lawyer and Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz. 'He'd ask provocative intellectual questions, like, 'How does it feel to be objectified?'' she recalls. 'And I'd say, well, I'm not the one making myself into an object. That's on other people.' She'd grown up comfortable in her own body. 'If it's just about being naked, I didn't see the big deal,' Wightman says. 'I still don't.' Once she made her name, she became a local celebrity. Often she engaged with her friend LauriUmansky on local talk-show appearances. Umansky, the author (under a pseudonym) of 'Naked Is the Best Disguise: My Life as a Stripper,' had quit the business and become a feminist scholar. 'She didn't believe I could have feminist views and do what I was doing, and I disagreed,' Wightman explains. Wightman took a respite from dancing when she reconnected with Stevens in London. For a moment, she thought she might marry the singer — he'd given her the copy of the Qur'an that had introduced him to the Islamic faith. Her mother met the famous entertainer and pronounced him humorless and 'boring'; Wightman and Stevens went their separate ways. Advertisement There were other notable encounters. One day in the club, a strange man with a curious accent came in, badgering the staff with requests to speak with 'zee Pleencess.' Amused, Wightman sat down with him and tried to communicate through doodles and playing Charades. It turned out to be the comedian Andy Kaufman, who'd become famous as Latka, the immigrant cab driver on the sitcom 'Taxi.' He was famous, that is, to almost everyone but Wightman, who worked nights and didn't watch TV. She had no idea who he was. 'He was otherworldly, above everyone's pay scale,' she recalls of the time she spent with Kaufman, who died in 1984 at age 35. 'It took me about a year to figure out he wasn't life-partner material. I was pretty naive. Still am.' Wightman's publisher is the independent, Boston-based He and Wightman have developed a close friendship, they both say. He was impressed with her writing as soon as he began reading her manuscript. 'I barely touched it,' he says. 'Her personality really comes through. Funny, smart, sensitive, tough — all of it. There are no flies on her.' Advertisement Wightman stopped dancing in 1988. 'The Zone was being cleaned up,' she says. 'And I was getting bored.' Though the book ends there, her life has remained eventful since. Beginning in 2005, she endured a public trial after being charged with 'That was a life-changer, at a cellular level,' she says. Other than a bout with long COVID, her spirits in recent years have been good, she says. She still dances around the Cape Cod house she bought last year to the sound of her most prized possession, her stadium speakers. The bird banding keeps her busy, and she's been making new friends through that. 'You're walking eight miles a day together,' she says. 'You have to have a certain intellectual capability to do the research and sort through the tiny little details.' Sometimes, when she tells a new acquaintance she has a book coming out, they blanch when she tells them about her former life. 'If somebody doesn't like it, what… ever,' she says. 'Because I had a blast.' James Sullivan can be reached at .

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This Abu Dhabi photographer is on a mission to define his country's ‘architectural identity'

This Abu Dhabi photographer is on a mission to define his country's ‘architectural identity'

After fame and fallout, Lucy Wightman finds peace and clarity among the birds

Qatar Museums to feature new publications at 34th Doha International Book Fair

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This Abu Dhabi photographer is on a mission to define his country's ‘architectural identity'

This Abu Dhabi photographer is on a mission to define his country's ‘architectural identity'

After fame and fallout, Lucy Wightman finds peace and clarity among the birds

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