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Extreme Urbanism: A View on Afghanistan, Session 2 Session 2: Traditional Architecture and Urbanism in Afghanistan Seminar Transcript Until recently, Afghanistan was omnipresent in global news for the past two decades for all of the wrong reasons. As part of the Option studio, Extreme Urbanism VII: Imagining an Urban Future for Ishkashim, offered at the Harvard GSD in the fall of 2020, this workshop/lecture series aims to propose to interested audiences the opportunity to get an updated, informed view on the country. Addressing primarily architectural, urban, and territorial aspects of Afghanistan, this cycle of talks aims to create a platform where varied topics ranging from vernacular architecture and building traditions to infrastructure and cultural specificities are discussed in conJunction with issues related to historic settlements and contemporary planning in Afghanistan. The speakers will include academics from Harvard University and Kabul University, in addition to global experts, and practitioners working in or on Afghanistan. Chair • Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Assistant Professor of Urban Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design Speakers • Ayaz Hosham, Faculty, Architecture Department, Kabul University • Sofia Sahab, Former Lecturer, Urban Design and Planning Department, Kabul University • Abdul Wasay Najimi, Architect and Conservator, Aga Khan Trust for Culture BEGIN TRANSCRIPTION: Chelsea Ferrell: Hello and welcome to today's seminar, which is the second in our series on ‘Extreme Urbanism: A View on Afghanistan.’ Today's topic centers around ‘Traditional Architecture and Urbanism in Afghanistan.’ I'm Chelsea Ferrell, the Assistant Director of the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University. The mission of the institute is to engage through interdisciplinary research to advance and deepen the understanding of critical issues relevant to South Asia and its relationship with the world. Before we get started, we have a couple of housekeeping items for today. During the question and answer session, you can submit questions directly to the moderator by the Q & A function on Zoom.There will be a short survey automatically sent to you at the end of the session, we would ask that you kindly fill this out. Finally, today's session will be recorded. Without further ado, I'd like to introduce the moderator of today's panel: Dr. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes. Charlotte is an architect, scholar, and Assistant Professor of Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She holds a PhD from ETH Zurich on the effects of the political economy of food on the built environment, case study Egypt. Charlotte's teaching and research interests are related to how struggling communities can gain greater access to resources, the mainstream economy, better governance, and ecological and social justice. She co-authored Housing Cairo and Cairo Desert Cities by Ruby Press in Berlin. She's a founding member of the Parity Group, a grassroots association committed to improving gender equality in architecture. Dr. Malterre- Barthes, thank you so much for being with us today. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes: Thank you very much Chelsea for this great introduction and I have indeed the honor to moderate the second session of our extreme urbanism series. Today the panel on traditional architecture of Afghanistan, co-hosted by the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asian Institute and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. This event is born out of the option studio ‘Extreme Urbanism: Imagining an Urban Future for Ishkashim,’ offered at the Harvard GSD in the fall of 2020, initiated by Professor Rahul Mehrotra that I have the pleasure to co-instruct with. So, this series aims to propose to interested audience in the opportunity to get an updated, informed view on the country and we already have behind us the first session ‘Planning for Urban Afghanistan,’ and on October 24 we'll be hosting a third and last panel ‘Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in Afghanistan.’ Before jumping at the heart of the matter and introducing our speakers, we would like to thank, of course, the Lakshmi Mittal and Family Southeast Asia Institute, and it's a fantastic team Meena, and so many, Chelsea, thank you very much. And then the name of the Agha Khan Agency for Habitat, which is also the partner of our studio at Harvard. In Afghanistan, we'd like to thank the Ministry of Urban Development and Land, and in particular Ms Sahar Hamdard, who’s been lecturing our students and has been extremely helpful, the Directorate of Urban Development and Land of Badakhshan, the Municipality of Ishakshim and the District Governor of Ishkashim, as well as Kabul University, who is also our partner for the studio. So, with this session what we hope is to get an outlook on to traditional architecture and urbanism in Afghanistan, on vernacular and building traditions, on question of maintenance and preservation of historic settlements. And we are very happy and delighted to have our speakers today, Sofia Sahab, Ayaz Hosham, and Abdul Wasay Najimi. And I would like to start by introducing our first speaker, which is Sofia Sahab. Sofia Sahab is a former lecturer at the Department of Urban and Planning, she holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Kabul University, and Masters and PhD in Planning from Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan. She joined the Architecture Department of Kabul University in 2010 as the first female instructor and transferred to the newly established Urban Design and Planning Department in 2018 to become then the first head of these departments for a year. Dr. Sahab also works for the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing as an urban regeneration specialist. So, with that Sofia, the floor is yours. I will then introduce each of the speakers prior to their talk, and just one short point, I will be taking questions by chat in written form. So please, do feel free to to formulate your question and send them during the entire session. So with no further delay, I leave the floor to Sofia. Sofia Sahab: Thank you very much for the nice introduction. Can you see my screen? Mittal Institute: Yes, looking good. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes: Yes. Sofia Sahab: I'm Sofia Sahab, former member of the Department of Urban Design and Planning and today I'm going to present about Gozar: Afghanistan's traditional neighborhood. This is the outline of my today's presentation. First, I'd like to talk about the traditional Gozars, the characteristics of these Gozars, and then about the current or their urbanized Gozars, and then I will present about my own research that I have done during my Master's and PhD and now also. It includes the special features of Gozars and also the functions of Gozars that was a questionnaire survey with representatives and online discussion system. First, about the traditional Gozars. The term ‘Gozars’ literally means pass or passage. Gozars are centuries- old traditional neighborhoods found in Kabul City and other cities of Afghanistan and unfortunately, we do not have much literature about the Gozars. And as my research has been about the Gozars in Kabul City, so I generally talk about the characteristics of Gozars in Kabul City that might be very similar to other Gozars in like Herat City or Mazari Sharif, but it might have some differences. So, my research is on the Gozars in Kabul City. Before we had master plans or any plans for Kabul City, we had such kind of divisions like Kabul was divided into ‘Mahals,’ it was like the districts. Now, we call this as municipal district, a ‘ward’ and the Gozar that is kind of neighborhood or community and that was also called as Mahal. Mahal is also called in as neighborhoods in neighboring countries like Iran, Uzbekistan, and Turkey. And also, we had such kind of divisions like Kocha, it is a street or alley. So, it doesn't mean here that these divisions, one division were the main division or the other is the subdivision because we don't have literature on these things but Gozars and Mahals sometimes used interchangeably, and Gozar and Kocha also used interchangeably. So, we have such kind of divisions in Kabul City, but we do not have much information or literature about it. The main characteristics of these Gozars were they had or they were led by a representative or Wakil, we here call them as Wakil and they included or was organized around the religious building or mosque. And they also included a school, this religious building was also kind of a school and included retail shops and market, and they also included spaces for the community. And the one thing that was very strong in these Gozars were the social ties among its residents and the Gozar representative that these social ties brought up mutual aid, social and physical order in them. And the thing that was more common in these Gozars were the common guild among their residents in Gozars. In the name, like in this slide, I'm going to present about the names of these, like the names of each Gozar, each Gozar had a name and most often the name represented the common guild of the residents in the Gozar, like we had Gozar-e-ahangari, its translation is forging Gozar or soap-making Gozar, or other straw sales Gozar. And they were also named after popular and influential people who once inhabited in the Gozar or according to particular areas or certain geographical landmarks in the Gozars. About the current characteristics or the current urbanized Gozars, they are currently institutionalized as sub- districts of municipal district or municipal governments. They are also represented by a representative, this is a must, not written anywhere but they should have a representative, and they include mosques.

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