Students: Dido Schumacher,  Santiago Espitia Berndt
Location: Damascus
Date: October, 2009
Type: Research project, student work

Background
Damascus is considered to be among the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. Excavations at Tell Ramad on the outskirts of the city have demonstrated that Damascus was inhabited as early as 8,000 to 10,000 BC. Research suggests that Damascus gained importance during the era of the Aramaeans in the Bronze Age, around the second and third millennium BC. The Aramaeans established a water distribution system of Damascus (also mentioned in the Bible, Genesis 14) by constructing canals and tunnels which maximized the efficiency of the local river Barada. Damascus first came under “western” control with the campaign of Alexander the Great that swept through the Near East, at that time also implementing a Hellenistic urban planning model of the gridded city. In 64 BC, the Roman general Pompey annexed the western part of Syria. The Romans occupied Damascus and subsequently incorporated it into the league of ten cities known as the Decapolis because it was considered such an important center of Greco-Roman culture. Damascus was conquered by the (Arab Islamic) Rashidun Caliphate in 634 CE and later went under the control of successive dynasties and emperers, such as the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century, Mamluk rule in the 13th century and the Ottoman empire from the beginning of the 16th century.

Themes
The shape of the old city of Damascus can be directly traced back to the Hellenic and the Roman era. The oldest gates of the city wall date back to the Roman period. The ancient castrum on the old city’s north western corner developed into the citadel, the centrally located Hellenic temple became the temple of Jupiter under the Romans, developed into an early Christian basilica and today the great Umayyad Mosque. These historic elements feature strongly in the contemporary perception of the city, proud to be one of the UNESCO world heritage sites. But the city’s history and issues of preservation have also become politicized: Which ‘style’ does the city remember? Is urban memory selective? Does it follow a specific agenda? How are the different types of histories treated in the contemporary city?

Project
What is the urban idea of the different stages of the city? How has the ancient city been overlaid by succeeding periods such as the Seljuks, or the Ottomans? What is the relationship between the palimpsest cities and the city consisting of puzzle elements? What is the relationship between the city layout, the permanence of individual urban ‘hot spots’ and the physical constructions themselves, which are often replaced in regular intervals? How does the contemporary city deal with issues of reconstruction, preservation and architectural legacy? Is the old city center threatened by the typical developments of gentrification and ‘museumization’, or can we envisage an alternative development for its future?