Table Of ContentUrban Form and Life in
Tripoli, Libya
This book charts the city of Tripoli’s rapid economic, environmental, and
physical transformation, investigating how these new developments have
failed to incorporate the cultural and historic values of the urban fabric.
As a result, the city is juxtaposed between traditional and modern urban
forms. Urban Form and Life in Tripoli, Libya: Maintaining Cultural Heritage
seeks to address this imbalance and argues for greater understanding of local
culture and heritage and how this can be enhanced and preserved in future city
developments. It explores the challenges of enabling growth and development
to accommodate an increasing population and their changing requirements,
whilst sustaining the unique cultural and individual characteristics of place. It
traces the evolution of urban form and evaluates street quality and life within
the city centre of Tripoli, which represents one of the most central, valued and
iconic environments in Libya. It interprets the early urban structure, covering
the traditional old town and the colonial urban developments, which includes
the Italian Quarter and the Garden City. Through the case study city, the book
presents a wider approach for understanding how design can be informed by
a deeper knowledge of the structural mechanisms of evolution and change in
built form. It will appeal to academics, researchers and students interested in
urban history, Islamic architecture, and cultural studies.
Adel M. Remali is an architect, urban designer, academic, and a fellow of
the Higher Education Academy. He is a former academic and researcher at
the Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde. He is a member
of the Cluster for Research in Architecture and Urbanism of Cities in the
Global South (CRAUCGS) and a member of the Urban Design Studies
Unit (UDSU). His teaching and research work focus on urban morphology,
housing typology, and traditional cities. His recent research explores the
relationship between the cultural and behavioural factors and architecture
and urbanism.
Huyam H. Abudib is an architect and a research associate at the University of
Strathclyde. She started her university study at Temple University–Japan, and
graduated with M.Sc. in architecture and urban planning from the University
of Tripoli–Libya. She received an MRes and a PhD in Architecture from the
University of Strathclyde and is currently a member of Architecture and
Urbanism of Cities in the Global South (CRAUCGS). Her research focuses
on traditional cities and the transformation process that is taking place on
urban and architectural scales.
Architecture and Urbanism in the Global South
Series Editors
Ashraf M. Salama
Professor, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom
David Grierson
Reader, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Architecture and Urbanism in the Global South places emphasis on
developments in cities and settlements in the Global South which is defned
geographically to include key capitals, major cities, and important settlements
within Africa, the Arabian peninsula, the Indian Sub-Continent, the southern
Mediterranean and the Middle East, South America, and South Asia. The series
aims to capture and depict architectural and place production in these regions
and to portray it to the global professional and academic community. Written
by international experts and researchers, the volumes cover a wide spectrum
of topics that range from vernacular architecture, architectural heritage,
urban traditions, explorations of the works of global south and international
architects, to themes that include the architecture of squatter settlements,
housing transformations, urban governance, the impact of globalisation on
cultural identity as manifested in architecture, and sustainable urbanism.
Tiles in the Series
Architectural Excellence in Islamic Societies
Distinction through the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Ashraf M. Salama and Marwa M. El-Ashmouni
Uncertain Regional Urbanism in Venezuela
Government, Infrastructure and Environment
Fabio Massimo Capra Ribeiro
Infuence and Resistance in Post-Independence Egyptian Architecture
Marwa M. El-Ashmouni and Ashraf M. Salama
Architecture and Urban Transformation of Historical Markets
Cases from the Middle East and North America
Edited by Neveen Hamza
Urban Form and Life in Tripoli, Libya
Maintaining Cultural Heritage
Adel M. Remali and Huyam H. Abudib
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Architecture-and-Urbanism-in-the-Global-South/book-series/AUGS
Urban Form and Life in
Tripoli, Libya
Maintaining Cultural Heritage
Adel M. Remali and
Huyam H. Abudib
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Adel M. Remali and Huyam H. Abudib
The right of Adel M. Remali and Huyam H. Abudib to be identifed as
authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-367-56880-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-56881-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-09977-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003099772
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Introduction 1
PART I
Urban Morphology, Urban Form, and Urban Life 7
1 Theories and Schools of Urban Morphology 9
2 Urban Form and Urban Life 27
PART II
Tripoli’s History and Islamic Principles 55
3 Historical Evolution of the City of Tripoli 57
4 Islamic Principles of Built Environment 80
PART III
Investigating the Essence of Tripoli’s City Centre 117
5 Measuring Urban Components at the Neighbourhood
Scale: Street Network and Block Structure 119
6 Analysing the Street Front: Quality and Social Life 141
7 Analysing the Street Edge: Constitutedness and Social Life 190
Conclusion 232
References 245
Index 261
Introduction
Tripoli, being the capital of Libya for centuries, represents an important
cultural and central heritage site with an outstanding quality of urban form
and architecture. Like many other great Mediterranean cities, Tripoli’s his-
torical origin dates back to the Phoenician era. The uniqueness of its heritage
provides its city centre with a rich architecture and urban form that refects
an exceptional culture of various civilisations. Additionally, the traditional
urban spaces and buildings within the city centre have stimulated various
forms of social activities and movement patterns, of users, residences, and
visitors alike. This book titled “Urban Form and Life in Tripoli: Maintaining
Cultural Heritage” investigates the spirit of indigenous architecture and the
original identity of Tripoli’s urban fabric within rapid urbanised areas to pro-
mote strong evidence that globalisation can only succeed through the pres-
ence of local characteristics that promote social life within the urban context.
It is believed that through the study of Tripoli case, a wider approach can be
sought to understand how urban morphology as a discipline can be informed
by a deeper knowledge of the structural mechanisms of evolution and change
in the built environment.
During the second half of the twentieth century, Tripoli faced a major
transformation process. The morphological aspects of the development fol-
lowed a modern discourse, which failed to grasp the importance of original
morphological patterns in preserving the essence and local identity of the
city. In search of a quick urban solutions, the planning system of Tripoli and
other cities in Libya adopted international modernist planning strategies,
which were completely different from the local traditional one. While the
former is directed by foreign instructed methods and dominated by mobility
and heterogeneity, the latter was developed in close relation to local envi-
ronmental elements and socio-cultural factors. Sadly, the adopted modern
system, predominantly during the 1970s and 1980s, omitted local and tradi-
tional principles in designing new neighbourhoods and has created placeless
urban environments.
The rapid increase in mobility, population, and the immigration into the
city of Tripoli, in addition to new technologies and fast production systems,
encouraged the construction of high-rise buildings and apartment blocks
DOI: 10.4324/9781003099772-1
2 Introduction
during the seventies and eighties. Consequently, the relationship between
buildings and outdoor space was largely neglected in modern neighbour-
hoods. In the absence of local design guidelines, foreign frms started to apply
their own planning regulations and standards on new developments around
the city of Tripoli. These guidelines were a wide mixture of imported stan-
dards, mainly imported by German, Greek, Korean, and Polish consultants,
which introduced new schemes of urban development that treated buildings
as a collection of isolated objects and failed to create homogenised urban
fabrics. As a result, the majority of Libyan cities currently contain identical
traits of spatial organisation and building typology, where local identity is
completely lost.
Today, the local identity of Tripoli is facing a great challenge, as new devel-
opments that took place since the 1970s have not in any way expressed local
social criteria, collective spaces or traditional principles. Powered by the need
to accommodate rabidly increasing population, high-rise buildings dominate
many areas of the city through scattered non-contextual development plans.
Although they are noted to be culturally unsuitable and socially unacceptable
by the local citizens, high-rise buildings with modern style were standardised
and duplicated in various parts of the city. During the last 50 years in par-
ticular, Tripoli faced a new challenge embodied by unplanned and informal
neighbourhoods scattered around the its peripheral areas.
This study sits in the debate regarding the contribution of urban form in
meeting larger societal needs, which has formed Urban Design discipline
during the past two decades as part of the “place-making” agenda. In Islamic
contexts, this debate touches the overarching cultural confict between global
trends of westernisation and the preservation of local identity in the “home
environment”. It is believed that that there is a need to reinterpret Islamic
principles more appropriately as part of a wider confict between Tradition
and Modernisation, which is deeply present in Western and Islamic Coun-
tries alike. Traditional urban environment and street structures, therefore,
witness an increasing attention regarding their ability to make “places” that
can adapt in time and demonstrate a higher capacity to support community
identity, safety, and equity, as well as accessibility to urban resources and
effcient use of land.
The study is determined to focus on the transformation process of three
urban areas within the city centre of Tripoli in order to interpret the evo-
lution of the local built environment and its interaction with social life.
The objective is to identify and measure features of urban form that can
play a role in the re-codifcation of new urban design principles that are
conducive to place-sensitive local solutions. It is, therefore, research in
Urban Morphology. Prior to the mid-twentieth century, Tripoli’s urban
form mainly evolved according to three different models that represent the
city’s historical evolution and collectively constituted its city centre. These
urban forms are known as; the Old Town, which represent the original part
of the city, the Italian Quarter, which is the centre’s most dominant urban
Introduction 3
development, and the Garden City, which represents the sub-centre of the
city of Tripoli.
Urban morphology, as a main approach of this study, is one of the critical
disciplines in urban design applications. While the creation of urban form is
the most imperative section of urban design, the main function of urban mor-
phology is to study urban form and make theoretical and practical contribu-
tion to design urban landscape. Urban morphology, in this study, explores
how the urban form of Tripoli city centre has developed and progressed
through studying the physical urban structure at different scales; from street
blocks and street patterns to individual buildings and plots that make up the
structure of the whole urban form. Urban morphology defnes the history of
spatial, social, and economic factors that shape a specifc urban form where
people, institutions, regulations, and management are included. The morpho-
logical approach as an analytic tool assists in interpreting the development
processes of different urban forms by understanding the characteristics of
the components of the whole urban structure. Urban morphology is used to
comprehend urban elements that essentially belong to the physical and spa-
tial dimension and directly relate to the ideologies behind the urban planning
and architectural design tasks.
This work focuses on a theoretical framework of urban morphology,
drawing on a cross-section of the literature from various felds regarding
urban form and socio-cultural practices. However, the main aim of this study
is to build a body of knowledge that would lead to successfully understand-
ing the relationship between socio-cultural practices and urban form within
the city centre of Tripoli. The feld work investigates the contemporary per-
ception of Tripoli’s city centre and how people use the space in respect to
their uniqueness and individuality as an expression of culture and locality.
Using a combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods and by
understanding the patterns and relationships between physical elements of
urban form (i.e. street networks and urban blocks) and its liveability it is
hoped that a more sustainable framework can be designed and developed to
meet the needs of Tripoli’s urban future.
The book progresses in three main parts, where each part focuses on spe-
cifc aspect of the study, from establishing theories of urban morphology,
providing historical overview of Tripoli and presenting Islamic principles
of urban form, to using sets of analytical tools to interpret the evolution of
chronological urban development and social interaction in three neighbour-
hoods within the city centre of Tripoli.
Part I, Urban Morphology, Urban Form and Urban Life, is divided into
two chapters. Chapter 1 traces theories, schools, and principles of urban
morphology in the Western world along with the origin and meaning of the
term morphology. It shows how the concept of urban morphology was intro-
duced to study the physical and spatial characteristics of urban areas and
analyse the elements that confgure the urban form, and how these elements
are organised and structured. It also presents recent and current scholars,
