CNN
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Marwa al-Sabouni lives on a noisy street near the old part of Homs, one of Syria’s most decimated cities. Cars honk outside her door, but destruction is only one street away. Every horizon shows rubble from buildings shattered by the Assad regime’s deadly bombing.
Syria’s third largest city, Homs became known as the “capital of the revolution” when thousands of its residents rose up to protest against government oppression in 2011. The city became a rebel stronghold and paid a high price: its old mosques and churches, souks and squares now lie in ruins.
As an architect, Sabouni’s vision of Homs as a battleground started long before the war. Her new book, “The Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria,” is an extraordinary telling of how the city’s structure led, in part, to its downfall, and how architecture can heal the deep rifts in the country’s social and urban fabric.
Marwa al-Sabouni
Marwa al-Sabouni's new book, "The Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria," looks at how Hom's structure led to its downfall, and how architecture can heal the city. Her illustrations Syria's buildings and public spaces.
Seen here: The carnage of the New Clock demonstration
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Overview of the inner configuration of Krak des Chevaliers in Talkalakh, Syria showing recent damage
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The Tekkiye Suleymaniye complex in Damascus
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A typical neighborhood in Babr Amr, southwestern Homs
Maria Al-Sabouni
The Church of St Mary of the Holy Belt in Homs, its main entrance damaged
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Betweeen two minarets in Old Homs
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A neighborhood in Homs reduced to rubble
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Tradesmen and the interior of the covered section of the Old Souk in Homs
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Bab Houd in Old Homs
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An Islamic-style rib vault
Maria Al-Sabouni
Al-Hijaz train station in Damascus
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Remote, unfinished modern social housing tower blocks built by the government
Maria Al-Sabouni
Khalid Ibn-Walid Mosque in Homs, its main facade and minaret damaged
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Khan As'ad Pasha Al-Azm in Damascus
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Inside Khan As'ad Pasha Al-Azm in Damascus
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The village of New Baris, designed by Hassan Fathy
Maria Al-Sabouni
Prefabricated caravans on the playground of an evacuated school
Maria Al-Sabouni
Cross-section of a Tree unit.
(A Tree unit is part of modular network of layered apartments proposed by Sabouni. They can spread both vertically and horizontally.)
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Street view showing intersecting units
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The official plans for the rebuilding of the district of Baba Amr in the southwest of Homs
Sabouni feels the way the city was developed and planned contributed to sectarian tensions that helped fuel the fire behind the revolution. Urban ghettos segregated according to religion or origin, and a lack of public places where people could mingle and work together left the city bereft of a sense of cohesion, and its inhabitants starved of a collective identity.
“This vandalism that happened to the built environment made people not care about each other, and become very alien from each other and from the place,” Sabouni says over Skype from Homs.
The book weaves her personal journey as a young architect and mother with the story of Homs’ past, present and future – the ancient city of mummies and dark tunnels that lie beneath the surface; the corruption and cronyism that lead to the destruction of public spaces and the neglect of old buildings; and the need for a new type of inclusive architecture in order to avoid the mistakes of the past.
“(Old places like souks) had a major role in bringing people together to interact with each other,” she says. “We need to emphasize this to bring life again to the cities… Not building slums and social housing and trying to solve a problem by creating another problem, by creating isolated blocks, more concrete.”
Everyday life poses challenges, from the mundane to the life-threatening.
At the height of the conflict, bullets flew through Sabouni’s kitchen window, and she and her family slept and woke to the sounds of bombing and buildings shaking.
For two years, she did not see the moon. Since government forces took control of most of the city in 2014, the real difficulty has been wrestling with the basics like food, heat and light. For those stuck in the limbo of war, everyday domestic battles for survival become the fabric of existence once the bombs have stopped falling.
Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
Once the largest mosques in the world, built in the 9th century on the Tigris River north of Baghdad. The mosque is famous for the Malwiya Tower, a 52-meter minaret with spiraling ramps for worshipers to climb.
The site was bombed in 2005, in an insurgent attack on a NATO position, destroying the top of the minaret and surrounding walls.
Video: ISIS targets historical artifacts
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An "oasis in the Syrian desert"
according to UNESCO, this Aramaic city has stood since the second millennium BC and featured some of the most advanced architecture of the period. The site subsequently evolved through Greco-Roman and Persian periods, providing unique historic insight into those cultures. ISIS now controls the ancient city and has
destroyed shrines, temples and monuments.
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The most spectacular legacy of Buddhism in the war-torn country, among the tallest standing Buddhas in the world -- the larger at 53 meters, the other 35 -- had survived over 1,500 years since being carved out of sandstone. The Taliban considered the monuments idolatrous and
destroyed them with dynamite.
Alex Potter
Yemen's capital city of Sanaa has seen several
suicide bombings for which ISIS claimed responsibility, and air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition -- although it is unclear who is responsible to the latest damage. These have affected both the old fortified city -- inscribed on UNESCO's
World Heritage List since 1986 -- and the archaeological site of the pre-Islamic walled city of Baraqish, causing "severe damage,"
according to UNESCO itself.
Fulvio Spada, CC BY-SA 2.0
Continually inhabited for 2,500 years, and became the capital of the Romans' Arabian empire. The centerpiece is a magnificent Roman theater dating back to the second century that survived intact until the current conflict. Archaeologists have revealed the site is now severely
damaged from mortar shelling.
Michael Nicholson/Corbis Historical/Corbis via Getty Images
A world heritage site originally built in 715 by the Umayyad dynasty, ranking it among the oldest mosques in the world. The epic structure evolved through successive eras, gaining its famous minaret in the late 11th century. This was reduced to rubble in the Syrian civil war in 2013, along with serious damage to the walls and courtyard, which historians have described as the worst ever damage to Syrian heritage.
WIKI COMMONS
These 20-meter wide water wheels were first documented in the 5th century, representing an ingenious early irrigation system. Seventeen of the wooden norias (a machine for lifting water into an aqueduct) survived to present day and became Hama's primary tourist attraction, noted for their groaning sounds as they turned. Heritage experts
documented several wheels being burned by fighters in 2014.
Courtesy Guillaume Piolle/CC-BY-3.0
The fortress spans at least four millennia, from the days of Alexander the Great, through Roman, Mongol, and Ottoman rule. The site has barely changed since the 16th century and is one of Syria's most popular World Heritage sites. The citadel has been used as an army base in recent fighting and several of its historic buildings
have been destroyed.
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The covered markets in the Old City are a famous trade center for the region's finest produce, with dedicated sub-souks for fabrics, food, or accessories. The tunnels became the scene of fierce fighting and many of the oldest are
now damaged beyond recognition, which Unesco has
described as a tragedy.
Leber/ullstein bild via Getty Images
This French-built suspension bridge was a popular pedestrian crossing and vantage point for its views of the Euphrates River. It became a key supply line in a battle for the city, and
collapsed under shelling. Deir Ez-zor's Siyasiyeh Bridge was also destroyed.
Flickr Commons
The
ancient Assyrian city around Nineveh Province, Iraq was home to countless treasures of the empire, including statues, monuments and jewels. Following the 2003 invasion the site
has been devastated by looting, with many of the stolen pieces finding homes in museums abroad.
Courtesy Joris Rietbroek
The Crusader castle from the 11th century survived centuries of battles and natural disasters, becoming a World Heritage site in 2006 along with the adjacent castle of Qal'at Salah El-Din. The walls were severely damaged by
regime airstrikes and artillery in 2013, and rebels took positions within it.
Irqai Cultural center
The purported resting place of biblical prophet Jonah, along with a tooth believed to be from the whale that consumed him. The site dated to the 8th century BC, and was of great importance to Christian and Muslim faiths. It was
entirely blown up by ISIS militants in 2014 as part of their campaign against perceived apostasy.
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Among Syria's most famous Ottoman-style mosques, which also shows
Mamluk influence through its light and dark contrasts. The vast site became a hub of the battle for Homs, itself a front-line of the conflict. The sacred mausoleum has
been completely destroyed, and much of the interiors burned.
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A key city for the Greeks and Romans, established in 630 BC. Famed as the basis for enduring myths and legends, such as that of the huntress heroine of the same name and bride of Apollo. The ruins were some of the best preserved from that period, but in the wake of Libya's revolution,
vast tracts have been bulldozed including its unique necropolis complex.
Courtesy B.O'Kane / Alamy
Home to one of the world's most impressive collections, with over 100,000 pieces that cover the entirety of Islamic history. The Cairo site was first built in 1881, the museum recently underwent an eight-year multi-million dollar renovation. Shortly after re-opening, a car bomb targeting a nearby police building
caused catastrophic damage and forced the museum to close again.
Wiki commons
This 121-year-old wooden building, humble but elegant, was home to the nation's first governor general Muhammed Ali Jinnah for the last phase of his life. The residency
was attacked with rocket fire by a separatist group in 2013, and almost completely demolished. A new structure is being built on the site.
Courtesy Charles Cushman Collection, Indiana University Archives
A 15-year civil war of incredible brutality, successive battles with Israel, and sweeping urban development has robbed the 'Paris of the Middle East' of much of its visual lustre. Once known for its landscape of swaggering Ottoman, French and Art Deco architecture, officials say just 400 of 1200 protected historic buildings remain.
AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images/Irqai Military
Before-and-after photographs of the destruction. The US and ISIS trade blame for
its loss.
Sabouni’s passion for the built environment is clear, and yet the realities of living in a war zone provide a grim sense of perspective.
“When you hear about people dying in the street, just dropping down like birds, or open your window and see kids who have died just a moment ago from a mortar, you don’t worry very much about the death of a building,” she says.
And yet in times of war, architecture can take on a deeper meaning, as summed up by one of the passages in her book:
“Our homes do not just contain our life earnings, they contain our memories and dreams, they stand for what we are. To destroy one’s home should be taken as an equal crime to destroying one’s soul.”
It is this sense of the preciousness of home that Sabouni says underlines her vision for rebuilding Syria, “recapturing the values that used to be represented in areas that were successful in binding people and making them feel at home.”
“The architecture that we all should strive for is the architecture that builds a home.”