Khalid Al Sayed
As part of my education in the field of cultural management, when I was looking for the term “cultural engineering” in the Arab world, I did not find any information or a definition.
I did not find as well any implementation of its applications in the institutions or bodies of any Arab-governmental organisation. There are also very few specialists in this area, while we actually see this science being practiced in both Israel and Iran that have specialists and specialised bodies in this field.
When the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution in Iran declares cultural strategies based on cultural engineering, we need to pause in order to understand and draw an Arab cultural strategy based on clear foundations.
Cultural engineering is an approach for planning cultural development that takes into account the changing concepts of culture, and design practical strategies to deal with the problems facing culture.
In other words, cultural engineering is the systems, processes, alternatives and creative solutions to meet challenges to the development of cultural institutions.
Cultural engineering is compatible with the concept of cultural management, but it is more comprehensive. It is the art that produces cultural projects out of an ordinary concept, to radiant projects that achieve cultural, economic and political success.
However, there must be a comprehensive set of skills and tools according to which a detailed cultural project is designed, since cultural engineering is a viable way to create a new type of cultural thought that is based on engineering and administrative design with solid principles for forming successful cultural ideas.
In Qatar, there are two cultural management projects that may evolve into a broader concept, namely the cultural district project “Katara,” and a part of “Mushaireb” project, which is still in progress. Here we must develop other cultural projects based on the cultural map.
The real problem lies in many Arab countries executing most cultural projects on the basis of an instantaneous or seasonal idea, which is not only extremely expensive but also disappears at the end of the event.
However, when we set cultural goals, policies and plans, and draw a cultural engineering map, we may reach an integrated cultural project.
