While more thorough evaluation of these phenomena is perhaps in the coming, it is worthwhile to open some other discussions, as well. The preoccupation of architects and planners with public space has left perhaps the most outstanding of the recent conflicts unnoticed by them. The 2011 Libyan Revolution all the while brought to the fore a new horizon, which metaphorically, as well as literally, has the potential to supplement contemporary theories of space, architecture and urbanism. The first small protests in Libya started in January of 2011 in a number of towns, reportedly as a response to delays in the construction of housing units. These protests quickly grew in size to become open armed clashes between the protesters and the government forces. The conflict started to resemble those in the neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt, and was seen as a part of the Arab Spring. However, as the actors in the clashes in different towns started to coordinate efforts, the conflict quickly developed into a fully fledged revolution, and the whole country became entangled in fights to control towns as nodes in the political landscape. While an external power controlled the sky, towns started falling back and forth into hands of the rebels and Gaddafi’s forces. This frantic condition meant that a lot of activities were happening in the vast areas between the towns. If the preceding revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt happened mostly in their capital cities and a couple of major urban centres, the war in Libya played out on a different spatial scale. Here the countryside was turned into a free operating ground into which fighters were retreating to ‘recharge’ and reorganize, civilians were fleeing into safety, and journalists were reporting on what was happening around them, and speculating on what was going on in the cities. This situation represented a geographical twist
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Desert in the City. Milan Zlatkov