This Soundscape Brings an Age-Old Model of Communal Living to Life
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Morning prayer. Children playing. Cooking dinner. Singing a lullaby. The quotidian sounds that form our everyday experiences are those that Spanish filmmaker Carlos Casas recorded in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, while visiting mahallas—tight-knit, multi-generational living quarters that feature shared amenities including kitchens and gardens—that are being threatened by new real estate developments. The country currently has around 9,000 of them, each acting as an independent administrative unit that aids hundreds of residents through services such as resolving community issues and providing social assistance. Casas captured the soundscape of these spaces for “Mahalla: Urban Rural Living,” the pavilion of the Republic of Uzbekistan at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, open today through November 21. (The project marks Uzbekistan’s inaugural participation in the event, and was curated and designed by Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein, founding partners of the Basel-based architectural firm Christ & Gantenbein and professors at the Swiss research university ETH Zürich.)
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