Abstract

In 1978, when Edward Said, published Orientalism, the West was close to the end of a period of nostalgic interest into the Middle Eastern Culture. There was a recongized view of Orientalism and all it implies. But there is also a reverse, the way the East looks at the West. J. Carrier published in 1995 Occidentalism. A positive interpretation of Occidentalism is fruitful in Architecture. We have experimented with this approach with the class of students of the Architecture Department, 3rd year, of Kuwait University. The problem presented was an urban design theme, focused on the redesign of a piece of a dense built area in Florence. The students offered a range of varied proposals giving the project their interpretation of Italianity. Additional consideration has to be given to the fact that they didn’t visit the city, so their knowledge of the site is absorbed through their instructors and the information they got from different sources, not last Google Earth.