Editorial introduction

Special issue on urbanization in the Gulf

Abstract

With rapid urbanization and the hunger for new architectural trends, buildings built since the 1960s face the threat of being classified as old and with no value. Lately governments in the Gulf region, such as in Abu Dhabi have paid attention to such buildings and have taken steps to safeguard their modern cultural heritage and building stock (Chabbi & Mahdy, 2011a, 2011b; Yildirim, 2015). The first paper by Husnéin (2017) discusses the importance of this topic and explores the role that the built cultural heritage (Damlūji, 2006) can play to improve the public realm within a sustainable urbanism.