Portland State University Middle East Studies Center Lecture Series

Critical observation of Gulf cities' development in the last decade reveals a number of architectural and urban paradigms. Through an elaborate attempt to construct a new contemporary identity within a knowledge-based approach to urban development, Doha emerges as a new architectural and urban utopia. A critical reading of this model suggests a number of architectural and urban challenges. This presentation will trace the change from resource and industrial economies to a creative and knowledge-based economy, a transformation which has been seen as inevitable change for Gulf cities in a rapidly approaching post-carbon world.