Is It Possible to Define Architectural Identity More Objectively?

Abstract

The concept of identity is complex and at the same time ambiguous. Architectural identity, however, is even more complex. This stems from the fact that architecture is the mirror that reflects the different political, cultural, social and economic factors that are shaping the city.In this research, Khartoum, the capital of Sudan is chosen as a case study to explore its contemporary architectural identity. Initial findings from interviewing different parties in the city including architects, academicians and planners highlighted the significant conflict in expressing the Sudanese architectural identity in the contemporary architecture. This resulted in a total disregard in considering it in both urban and architectural design processes. While the majority of interviewed participants realised this, only a few undertook certain design approaches to confront it.Therefore, this research argues that it is necessary to confront the ambiguity of architectural identity by simplifying its complexity. In order to achieve this, simpler topics such as the architectural character and architectural features are introduced then explored as ways to interpret architectural identity more objectively. It could be concluded that addressing the complexity of architectural identity will provide important answers for the future of any contemporary architecture including that of Khartoum. Is it possible to define identity?The early exploration of this research has commenced with the hypothesis that architectural identity could be precisely identified. Within this, general definitions of the term identity were explored. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, identity is "the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is". The Cambridge dictionary, however, defines it as: "who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group that make them different from others".Additionally, Fearon (1999, p.2) distilled the meaning of identity from the analysis of both the current usage in ordinary language and social science discourse. He argues that the term identity is presently used in two senses: social and personal. In the former sense, he defines identity as "a social category, a set of persons marked by a label and distinguished by rules deciding membership and (alleged) characteristic features or attributes". As for the second sense of personal identity; "an identity is some distinguishing characteristic (or characteristics) that a person takes a special pride in or views as socially consequential but more-or-less unchangeable". Lynch (1960, p.8) interprets the identity of an object as "its distinction from other things, its recognition as a separable entity. This is called identity, not in the sense of equality with something else, but with the meaning of individuality or oneness". Brislin (2012) emphasises that the definition of identity could be either tight or loose, nevertheless it endows a sense of survival: "What is identity, that ephemeral and quixotic thing? Draw it too tightly and it is a noose: a boundary marker ...

Finding post-colonial identity through vernacular and climate responsive adaptations: the architecture of Bangladesh from 1947 to 1971

“…Many studies (Fresque-Baxter and Armitage, 2012) have explored how the physical environment affects how people see themselves and how they see themselves in the world. While architecture is the mirror that reflects the different social, economic, political, and cultural factors that shape any city (Hamid et al ., 2021), identity is a quality that describes all the parts as a whole.…”