photo credits: online.

Unlike many Arab cities, Muharraq, the old capital of Bahrain, has managed to preserve its traditional architecture. Due to its historical importance, house of Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa built in about 1800 (currently, part of the Shaikh Ebrahim Center) has kept its charm. More.

photo credit: online.

Yabani (Japanese in Arabic) is situated on the former demarcation line that separated East and West Beirut. Being socially entertained (Lebanon's most promising industry) and its proximity to shell dominated buildings where refugees still squat emulates the society and its views on space and the urban fabric. More. 

photo credits: online.

The once dilapidated el-Hud el-Marsoud Garden was commissioned to Abdelhalim I. Abdelhalim in 1990 to house the Cultural Park for Children. Building on local identity, culture and people, the once successful and prosperous park dilapidated again due governmental restrains and neglect. More.

photo credits: online.

With water being an integral part of Kuwait's development,  33 towers were built to provide water distribution and storage systems in Kuwait. The towers won the Aga Khan Award in 1980 and house 100,000 cubic meters. Still in use today, their prominent design became an icon of development. More.

photo credits: online.

The NaNA designed Bulgari Pavilion for Abu Dhabi Art 2012 created a gathering venue for the fair's VIPs. The architects fabricated a self-supporting structure made of transparent and translucent acrylic tubes, connected with bespoke pins, and cut to create the overall form of the arcades. More.

photo credits: online.

The Dubai Opera House proposal by Bernard Tschumi organizes the project by parallel programatic strips that vary in section, laid out on an ovoid artificial island in Dubai's Creek. The sinuous silhouettes allude to desert dunes, much like Zaha Hadid's winning proposal for the same project. More.

photo credits: online.

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA were some of the architects invited to participate in the 11th edition of Sharjah Biennial. Their temporary pavilion, Bubble, installed at Calligraphy Square in Sharjah's Heritage Area, consisted of transparent acrylic spheres and metallic stools. More.

photo credits: online.

Werner March, architect of the 1936 Olympics Stadium in Berlin, designed the Cairo International Stadium in the 1950s. The stadium echoes features of its German counterpart, particularly the colonnade along its main entrance. It was renovated recently to increase its spectator capacity. More.

photo credits: online.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi by Jean Nouvel proposes a fragmented museum building with the intent of creating open public space. The whole complex sits under a massive metal dome that shades the communal spaces, and alludes to traditional Islamic patterns. The light promises to be spectacular. More.

photo credits: online.

Al-Aqsa Mosque, "the Farthest Mosque", with its unassuming limeston facades and distinctive leaded dome, is one of the holiest sites in Islam, and the religion's first Qibla. It is also, along with the Dome of the Rock, one of the icons of al-Haram al-Sharif (may also be referred to as Al-Aqsa). More.

photo credits: online.

Vladimir Djurovic's landscape design of fashion designer Elie Saab's residence takes advantage of the breathtaking site in Faqra, Mt Lebanon. Hard and soft landscape elements are kept low and flat in order to not interrupt views to the framed vista. The stone used echoes Lebanon's natural geography. More.

photo credits: online.

Shibam in Yemen is famous for its towering mud houses, densely planned within a roughly square perimeter. The town became a model for offices like OMA and Foster + Partners as they contemplated planning for the Gulf region. Recently extensively restored, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. More.

photo credits: online.

The Landmark by Jean Nouvel is a mixed-use project with a 42 story tower proposed for downtown Beirut. Apparently, the project is at the center of a controversy, as remnants of what is believed to be Beirut's Roman gate have been found while excavating on site. The project's fate is unknown. More.

photo credits: online.

Kenzo Tange's Jeddah Royal Palace is a fascinating exercise in attempting to combine late-modern formal compositions with notions of luxury required by the program. One of the facades exhibits the clear influence of Le Corbusier, particularly in his later projects in Chandigarh (Assembly Hall). More.

photo credits: online.

An architectural gem in Tripoli with two exceptional qualities: an Oscar Niemeyer project, and an unfinished one. The site eerily captures the end of mid-century modernism in Lebanon, when the project was put on hold indefinitely in the 1970s. An incredible collection of concrete pavilions. More.

photo credits: arabiarchitecture.

The mausoleum of Zumurrud Khatun, wife of Harun al-Rashid, is one of the few remaining Abbasid monuments in Baghdad. Its unusual conical form challenges stereotypical notions about architecture from the period. The shell is a dazzling light devise, competing with the humble tomb underneath. More.

photo credits: online.

AS Architecture Studio won a competition to design the Muscat Cultural Center, promising to bring all of the city's cultural institutions under one roof, literally. A delicate perforated canopy shades the National Theater, the National Archive, and the National Library, organized around a central courtyard. More.

photo credits: online.

Tahrir Square in Cairo has become synonymous with the wave of uprisings that took place in the Arab World, known as the "Arab Spring". It highlighted the centrality of space in providing a platform for popular demands, and in supplying a spatial symbol of unity. It has had a fascinating history. More.

photo credits: online.

Beirut Terraces by Herzog & de Meuron carries on some of the office's recent explorations (such as 56 Leonard Street in NYC), and works particularly well with Beirut's Mediterranean balcony culture. The tower's rather bulky proportions are intelligently variegate with the playful changes in floor plans. More.

photo credits: online.

SOM confronted the challenge of designing an airport terminal to handle the millions of annual pilgrims to Mecca with a simple answer: an extensive open-air tensile roof. An unpretentious yet effective response to a (perpetually) temporary event, and an allusion to indigenous tent structures. More.

photo credits: online.

The Agadir Convention Centre, proposed for Morocco by OMA in 1990, is perhaps one of the office's most iconic unbuilt projects. Its hotel was conceived horizontally, as a North African Medina, and is suspended above a dunes-shaped public plaza. The project's plans are particularly masterful. More.

photo credits: online.

Bahrain's official participation in the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale highlighted the disappearing sea culture in the country. The pavilion consisted of three anonymous fishermen's huts transported to the Arsenale, speaking to the estrangement these structures are experiencing in their homeland. More.

photo credits: online.

The Queen Alia International Airport in Amman is envisioned in typical Foster + Partners fashion: a modular structure creating a canopy over horizontally distributed airport facilities. Slits integrated within the beams supporting the concrete shells allow natural light to penetrate the massive roof. More.

photo credits: online.

A competition entry for Bawadi - a Vegas-like strip of hotels in Dubai, aborted after the economic crisis - by BIG proposes a cluster of inverted glass pyramids to replace the typical unsustainable tower typology. The idea is to protect the building's facades from the harsh desert's sun. More.

photo credits: online.

The Nubian pyramids of Meroe, Sudan, with their distinctive scale and proportions, stand in sharp contrast to their Egyptian counterparts. With new pyramids unearthed recently, and although most of the extant structures are ruined, the sheer number of these pyramids is impressive. More.

photo credits: online.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina by Snøhetta, opened in 2002, is one of the most significant recently built cultural landmarks in the Arab world. Despite its scale, the building is conceived horizontally, with the massive stone-clad disk containing the reading room as the main feature. More.

photo credits: arabiarchitecture.

Al-Zaytuna Mosque, Tunis Medina, Tunisia. The oldest mosque in the country, and one of the most important in the Islamic world. The structure was rebuilt and renovated repeatedly, and today it exhibits an eclectic mix of influences. Roman architectural fragments can be seen throughout. More.

photo credits: online.

Zaha Hadid Architects designed the new Central Bank of Iraq building in Baghdad, as part of local reconstruction efforts. Featuring a 40-story tower on top of a plinth, the proposal is more solid at the bottom, opening up as it rises. The building changes the city's skyline, after decades of stagnation.

photo credits: online.

The Kaaba (literally: The Cube) is the Islamic and Arab worlds' best known and most revered architectural landmark. For centuries, it dominated Mecca with its simple monumentality. Today, it is being overwhelmed by commercial developers, as other heritage sites are systematically erased. More.