Empire, Architecture, And the City: French-Ottoman Encounters, 1830-1914 (Studies in Modernity and National Identity) (Book Review‪)‬

Empire, Architecture, and the City: French-Ottoman Encounters, 1830-1914. By ZEYNEP CELIK. Studies in Modernity and National Identity. Seattle: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS, 2008. Pp. xiii + 368, color illus. $60. Zeynep Celik's new book masterfully weaves together urban and architectural studies with cultural and intellectual history in what will stand as a key contribution to the study of imperialism and modernity. Taking a cross-cultural and comparative approach, the book analyzes how the French and Ottoman states staged their respective visions of empire through the construction of public space. From France's conquest of Algeria in 1830 and the Ottoman empire's promulgation of the Reform Edict (Tanzimat) in 1839 to the end of World War I, the two empires' interests were particularly entwined. Celik unpacks their complex interactions over a territory that includes France's colonies in North Africa--Algeria and Tunisia, both former Ottoman provinces--and the Ottoman empire's Arab provinces (excluding Egypt). The book centers on urban and architectural transformations, and is informed by the development of visual culture, especially photography, and discursive culture, in particular debates about urbanism, civilization, modernization, and the imperial project. As an architectural historian whose previous publications have made important contributions to the history of modern Istanbul and Algiers, the representation of Islam at world's fairs, and the gendered underpinnings of colonial architecture and Orientalist discourse, Zeynep Celik is uniquely positioned to undertake a study of this scope and conceptual ambition.