The German journalist was one of the few Westerners to permanently report from Central Asia. Her architectural guide to the city of Almaty is a kind of farewell after 18 years in a region whose importance, she says, is still not understood.
Piet Nieder, lecturer at the TU Berlin, has a long-lasting admiration for the East African country: from his first visit as a student to two years as a university lecturer right through to the research for his doctoral thesis that has now resulted in his book, The Addis Ababa House.
The Saudi capital represents a model of the new wave of modernity. The city has shifted dramatically from a traditional era, to a modern era, to a now a hyper-modernity era focusing on giga-projects. The visitor of the city can conceive the local features that distinguish Riyadh architecture from other cities on the regions.