This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless. I had just arrived in Jeddah in January , and since I had not yet found a permanent place for myself, I spent a few nights at the home of the brother-in-law of my friend Mustafa. Mustafa, who was born and raised in Aden, Yemen, said that usually he would not have slept so long.
Sure you can! Just a second. Obviously it was not meant to be drawn open. Figure 5. The episode illustrates that the contemporary conception of domestic space in Jeddah follows particular local rules, even though residential architecture in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states is sometimes perceived as faceless, lacking cultural identity and a distinctly local style.
Keeping windows closed and covering them with plastic sheets and thick cloth as well as sealing off balconies and transforming them into storage rooms had become normal for them. As a newcomer to Jeddah, Mustafa, in contrast, thought the insulation of the home peculiar and even felt affected by it in a disturbing way.
By emphasising the specificities of contemporary residential architecture in Jeddah, I do not intend to deny its diversity, especially as there are huge discrepancies in living quality between different social strata. Cities are erected, organised and transformed according to the needs and desires of their inhabitants.
People born and raised in a particular city perceive its specificities as normality and thus reproduce them in their everyday practices Berking Newcomers to a city both consciously and unconsciously adapt to its specific structures β perhaps not assimilating entirely, but to a considerable extent.
