Browsing by Author "Husain, Asma"

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    Fatal attractions: The pleasures of spectacular terror
    (2010) Husain, Asma; El-Dahdah, Fares; Franch Gilabert, Eva
    Each spectacularly publicized terrorist event strengthens our fascination with death and destruction. Barricaded behind architectures of control, our anxieties and fears escalate. Rather than diminishing our dread, we watch with morbid pleasure as distant events unfold right before us. The terrorist eagerly performs for an attentive audience. For the tourist no longer satisfied with the mediated experience of terrorism, this thesis offers an alternative architectural response. It is the year 2010 and terrorism has popularized the city of Karachi in the international imaginary. Seized amidst the battle between progress and regression---barricaded and torn apart by terror---Karachi becomes the site for a new architectural typology of concentrated targets of terrorism. Understanding the relationship between the tourist and the terrorist as one of supply and demand, Fatal Attractions aims to balance the oscillating equilibrium that ultimately absorbs the fatality of terrorism, replacing the traditional relationship of oppression with one of liberation.