Alriwaq: the power of art in creating public spaces

Abstract

Bahrain like all Gulf Cooperation Council countries has transformed in a few decades from a traditional country to a modern one due to oil discovery. This modern life has created many problems within the city; the most obvious is the lack of public spaces. Modern buildings and roads replaced the courtyard, alleys and markets of the past, which were a place of social gatherings. With the latter in mind this paper would like to point out an art gallery in Adliya in Manama that has been able to recreate these experiences within Block 338. The gallery creates a few events around the block during the year which brings life to it. Adliya was not a dead space per se before these events however there were empty pockets with little or no human actives in the block. Those who visited Adliya would usually park their cars as close to the restaurant they are heading to. Al-Riwaq transformed underutilized outdoor and indoor spaces into public ones that encouraged social interactions. The event that will be analyzed within this paper is Alwan 338; this art event changed the characteristics of an abandoned building, a lifeless square and alleys to places full of people that brought life to them and added to the enthusiasm of the block. The goal of this paper is to investigate the effect of Al-Riwaq, specifically Alwan 338 in creating public spaces.