Architecture and Tourism in Italian Colonial Libya: An Ambivalent Modernism

To be a tourist in Libya during the period of Italian colonisation was to experience a complex negotiation of cultures. Against a sturdy backdrop of indigenous culture and architecture, modern metropolitan culture brought its systems of transportation and accommodation, as well as new hierarchies of political and social control. Although most tourists sought to escape the trappings of the metropole in favour of experiencing "difference," that difference was almost always framed, contained and even defined by Western culture.

McLaren argues that the "modern" and the "traditional" were entirely constructed by colonial authorities, who balanced their need to project an image of a modern and efficient network of travel and accommodation with the necessity of preserving the characteristic qualities of the indigenous culture. What made the tourist experience in Libya distinct from that of other tourist destinations was the constant oscillation between modernising and preservation tendencies. The movement between these forces is reflected in the structure of the book, which proceeds from the broadest level of inquiry into the colonial project in Libya to the tourist organisation itself, and finally into the architecture of the tourist environment, offering a way of viewing state-driven modernisation projects and notions of modernity from a historical and geographic perspective.

Hardcover

360 pages

ISBN: 9780295985428

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published in 2006"