2001 Urban Design
The Nomos against The Polis

Of the many dichotomies that surround us, be it in everyday life or in a learning environment, the opposition of the Nomad against the State is a particularly striking one. In fact, these two seemingly simplistic entities have meanings that go far beyond the initial understanding of “that which moves” and “that which does not.” For an architect and an urban designer, this particular clash opens a new way of thinking—a new way of understanding the pertinent issues of the modern city.

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari associate the Nomad with “smooth” space and the State with “striated” space. The striated space is gridded, rigid, and highly organized. Movement in it is confined as by gravity to a horizontal plane and limited by the order of that plane to preset paths between fixed and identifiable points. The space of the Nomad, on the other hand, is smooth and open-ended. It is within these smooth spaces, these rhizomatic zones that the Nomad operates, ascending and descending, emerging and receding.

When thinking of this discourse, there is a tendency to romanticize and literalize. “The myth of the Nomad” or preconceptions that date back to the establishment of orientalism are some instances of this tendency. In fact, the Nomad and the State are not two entirely distinct entities in opposition; they coexist. And the most inspiring instances of this coexistence are found in the modern city, with examples ranging from the homeless, squatters, and shantytowns to infrastructure, movement, and reuse. My proposal, therefore, is an extension of the continued engagement and interest in this particular duality of the Nomad and the State or the Nomos and the Polis.

My proposed travel will cover settlements that range in character from highly nomadic/smooth to highly striated, but always a conceptual and physical mixture of both. My itinerary includes cities such as Samarqand in Uzbekistan which still carries a memory of the nomadic nature of its inhabitants as well as the marks of a heavily striated Soviet regime. Or a city like Cairo in Egypt, which has even more layers of nomadic and imperial/religious occupation and design. Therefore, the travel will be confined to North Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia—to some of the most striking examples of cities with complex mixtures of smooth and striated growth.