Modern Heritage Research Grants

Urban Threads: A Wearable Archive of UAE Heritage explores how photography and clothing can activate the memory of Dubai’s mid-20th-century architecture. Focusing on Al Karama, Deira, and Satwa—neighbourhoods central to the city’s urban identity—the project draws from Charlie Koolhaas’s photographic archive (2005–2025) and new documentation of façades shaped by Gulf modernism and early postmodernism. Architectural textures, tiles, and patterns will be digitally printed on fabric and crafted into one or two prototype garments in collaboration with local designers and tailors. These pieces function as wearable studies—transforming the body into a mobile archive that embodies the city’s architectural past. A printed mock-up booklet will accompany the garments, featuring photographs, drawings, and narratives that contextualize the featured buildings. Through this tactile and visual approach, Urban Threads reframes heritage preservation as an intimate, personal, and locally grounded act of cultural memory.