| Swahili Port Cities: The Architecture of Elsewhere Contributor(s): Meier, Sandy Prita (Author) |
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ISBN: 025301915X ISBN-13: 9780253019158 Publisher: Indiana University Press OUR PRICE: $23.75 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: April 2016 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Architecture | Regional - Architecture | Criticism - Architecture | History - Modern (late 19th Century To 1945) |
| Dewey: 720.103 |
| LCCN: 2015033413 |
| Series: African Expressive Cultures |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 6.1" W x 9" (0.80 lbs) 242 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - East Africa |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: On the Swahili coast of East Africa, monumental stone houses, tombs, and mosques mark the border zone between the interior of the African continent and the Indian Ocean. Prita Meier explores this coastal environment and shows how an African mercantile society created a place of cosmopolitan longing. Meier understands architecture as more than a way to remake local space. Rather, the architecture of this liminal zone was an expression of the desire of coastal inhabitants to belong to places beyond their homeports. Here architecture embodies modern ideas and social identities engendered by the encounter of Africans with others in the Indian Ocean world. |