New Islamic Urbanism traces the changing relationship between public and private space in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, over the past seventy years, from the dawn of the oil era to the present, paying particular attention to the role architecture plays in defining public and private spaces.
Combining Michael Warner’s concepts of publics and counterpublics with theories of space and sociological approaches to architecture, Stefan Maneval explores the concept of New Islamic Urbanism in Saudi Arabia, arguing that this architectural trend, which is characterized by an emphasis on privacy protection through high enclosures, gates, blinds, and tinted windows, constitutes for some an important element of piety. At the same time, it enables different conceptions of privacy, banned social practices, as well as the formation of publics and counterpublics.
Based on rich ethnographic data collected by the author, New Islamic Urbanism challenges normative assumptions on gender segregation in Muslim societies and provides a nuanced account of the meaning of publicness and privacy in Muslim contexts in general. It will be of particular interest to an academic readership in Middle East and Islamic studies, as well as in architecture, urban planning and anthropology.
 

Stefan Maneval teaches at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and is coeditor of Muslim Matter, which documents the diversity of everyday Muslim life and material culture.
 

Introduction
1. A Brief History of Jiddah in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
2. Public and Private Space in Jeddah in the first half of the Twentieth Century
3. The Transformation of Urban Space in the Early Oil Era, 1950s and 1960s
4. Architecture and Religious Reform: Architectural Discource from the 1970s to the 1990s
5. Residential Architecture, from the 1970s to the Early Twenty-First Century
6. Navigating Urban Space: Jeddah, Early Twenty-First Century
7. Conclusion