Modern Heritage Research Grants

This book examines the architectural exchange between Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates during the second half of the 20th century, focusing on projects by the Bulgarian firms Technoexportstroy and Bulgarproekt. Emerging during a global wave of post-independence modernization, these collaborations reveal how architecture became a medium for political identity, cultural negotiation, and technological adaptation. In Tunisia, beginning in 1961, Bulgarian architects developed climate-responsive designs—such as the El Menzah Olympic Complex—integrating Mediterranean vernacular features like domes and arcades into modernist forms. In the UAE, from the 1970s to 1990s, they translated this expertise into large civic projects including the Abu Dhabi Municipality and Al Ain Community Center, adapting to desert conditions through shaded courtyards, massive forms, and local materials. Combining archival research, field documentation, and oral histories, the project reconstructs a transnational narrative of socialist modernism, revealing how two young nations engaged architecture as a tool of diplomacy, identity, and modernization.