Damascus in Danger
Old Damascus has been ignored for too long. Things are starting to change now, but one plan - in the name of modernisation - could do more to harm, than conserve the city's incredible history.
The area in question is between Bab As-Salam and Bab Touma just outside the walls on the north eastern side of the Old City. It is the focus of a massive petition.
The treasured old city of Damascus is facing a battle for survival, says Lucy Fielder.
Huddled against the Barada River that flows through Syria’s capital city, lies an ancient warren of streets. Alleys twist off right and left; like traps for the uninitiated outsider they may lead only to a locked front door or yield a glimpse of an orange tree in a courtyard. Jasmine flowers tumble down the walls and the timber and plaster houses are so bowed with the weight of centuries they almost touch overhead. Take another turn and you emerge, blinking, onto a bustling main thoroughfare. Tiny Mamluk-era shops with stone arches spill their wares onto the pavement.
The above could describe any part of the old city of Damascus, perhaps the most intact ancient Arab city in existence. Yet the bulldozer threatens its houses, watermills and workshops with demolition. In their place developers want to build an eight-lane motorway flanked by high-rise blocks.
Experts fear old Damascus’s treasured listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site is also in jeopardy if the plan to broaden the Al-Malik Faisal Road goes ahead. “I think you could say the city is in more danger than it has ever been since it was sacked by Timur in 1401,” said a leading conservation and heritage expert, who like several other specialists only agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of this issue.
2007 presents opportunity and risk. Conservationists are grooming the city to take the Arab Cultural Capital crown next year. Areas will receive facelifts; tourist facilities will be enhanced. But the 30-year-old road plan may come to pass as soon as this month unless lobbyists apply the brakes somehow.
Shopkeeper Ibrahim Hamzeh says all his neighbours have received notices to evict their homes, which lie just outside Bab Al-Salam - one of the seven gateways to the old city. “We’re just waiting for our turn,” he said in his shop that sells carpets and trinkets near the Umayyad Mosque. “This will destroy a community. All our friends and family live around here but if we are relocated it will be to an area 25 kilometres outside the city.”
Thousands of residents of the endangered Al-Uqaiba and Al-Amara historic suburbs, outside the walls between Bab Al-Salam and Bab Touma, say they also expect to be re-housed in the Adra industrial park and satellite town.
Proponents of the plan insist that the 40-metre-wide space to be cleared contains houses no more than 70-years-old. But Hamzeh disagrees. “It’s an old area, my house is at least two hundred years old and there’s a vegetable market that has been there for hundreds of years.” According to available information most of the buildings in the areas on either side of the city wall are roughly the same age - dating from within the past 250 years since a 1759 earthquake. The development plans will mean centuries-old communities will vanish with the clay and timber.
“Damascus’s uniqueness and value is as an intact old Arab city. That’s not confined to within the walls,” said the conservation expert. Walking through the doomed area, a restoration specialist pointed out an Ottoman watermill in Al-Amara made of timber and plaster. “Imagine what an amazing restaurant this would make,” he said. “Imagine a glass floor with the river and the workings underneath. All Damascus once ate bread from this mill.”
Damascus grew beyond its wall in the 12th century and by the 18th and 19th centuries two thirds of its historic houses lay extra-muros outside, according to a 2001 International Council on Monuments and Sites report. As a result “the status of World Cultural Heritage site has been given to the entire town,” wrote the report’s author, Stefan Weber. “But the Syrian administration has unfortunately considered only the quarters intra muros as worthy of safeguarding and has enacted laws and set up a council for protection of only these quarters.”
ICOMOS, which evaluates the state of heritage sites, is to report to the World Heritage Committee in June. Veronique Dauge, head of UNESCO for the Arab world, gave the following statement by telephone from Paris: “We’ve visited Damascus and we are in close contact with the authorities in order to present the plans to the World Heritage Committee in June.” But one expert described de-listing as “very, very likely. It’s the right thing to do.”
Most people believe the Syrian Government is not aware of the degree of risk. “Only the President can stop this now,” said one expert. “I think the governorate is acting with good intentions but there’s a lack of awareness,” said another. “They can’t want Damascus to be taken off the list because the World Heritage listing is such a huge economic asset, but I don’t think anyone is taking the threat seriously enough.”
UNESCO warned Damascus governorate of the danger in the last few months, according to Mouaffak Doughman - director of the old city until late last year and now a lecturer at Damascus University’s architecture faculty. He said he believed the plan was on ice for a few months - though the eviction notices suggest the contrary.
“I think the governorate has started to think in a new way. They asked me to explain the dangers to them and I said there were many: cutting the outside and inside of the old city off from each other, covering the Barada river over and the environment concerns - the extra traffic will be very bad for the old city,” he said. Although some officials insist green land would be landscaped on either side of the new road, Doughman said tower blocks were planned instead.
Where Al-Thawra road slices through Bahsa and Saruja, already run-down concrete high-rise buildings blister up between old houses and markets. Souk Al-Sarouja resembles a limb of the old city that is withering without a blood supply; three-lane highways enclose its puzzle of cobbled streets and clay and timber houses, mosques and hammams. But perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the urban development ethos of the past few decades is in Al-Marja Square, where the 1347 Yalbougha Mosque was knocked down in the 1970s to make way for the vast concrete hulk that squats there now, half-built and subsiding.
Sarouja is also at risk. Large areas have been sold off for demolition to build tower blocks. Re-privatising the land may not be simple, say experts, but compared to losing an irreplaceable medieval suburb, it may be the best option. Sarouja was known as “Little Istanbul” in Ottoman times, when Syria was ruled from the Turkish capital, because of its wealthy inhabitants and elegance. “Some of Sarouja is older than what is in the old city,” says Rajab. “Some is Mamluk, some Ayyubid. That means 800 years old!”
Officials say the expansion of the Al-Malik Faisal road will ease the traffic in the old city and expose its walls. But according to Doughman, the widening of Al-Malik Faisal road will sever the traditional roads between the ancient suburbs and close the stranglehold of highway and concrete around the old city. And with each act of demolition, the protected area within the old city becomes more like a museum.
Michel Ecochard, a French urban planner commissioned to draw up a traffic scheme for the capital, originally conceived the road in 1968. Ecochard envisaged clearing a space around Damascus’s monuments to show them off and creating large boulevards. Courtyard houses were subsequently lost to modern buildings and street-widening schemes, but public outcry blocked the highways that were to cut through the old city. In 1972, a law came in banning any demolition intra-muros. But the historic suburbs of Al-Amara, Al-Bahsa, Qanawat, Sarouja, Al-Uqaiba and Midan were left vulnerable to development.
Luna Rajab, architect and member of the Friends of Damascus residents’ body, said Ecochard did not take Arab architectural influences into account. “In France buildings have exterior elevation. There’s something to see. With Arab architecture the beauty is on the inside. The city wall wasn’t built to be seen, so it was always covered with houses.”
Between Bab Touma and Bab Sharki the old walls are exposed but largely unremarkable. “They’ve done nothing here. There is no lighting or plaques to tell you of the historic events that happened here,” said one architectural expert. “Is it really so important to have the whole wall showing?”
A jumble of old houses cling to the Barada River outside Bab El-Faradis, which means ‘Paradise Gate’. A litter-strewn wasteland behind them forms an island between two branches of the Barada. “It really was a paradise here - a garden. People used to come for picnics,” the expert said. He produced an old photograph, which shows the houses in a better state of repair and surrounded by luxuriant plants dipping their tendrils into the river. “When this area is destroyed we’ll lose an historic opportunity to restore it, boost tourism and provide different investment opportunities - hotels, restaurants, cultural centres. Nobody’s interested in new buildings.”
He estimated that around 300 craftsmen would be sent away when the area falls and at least 300 attractive old courtyard houses will be lost. “I say to the them (the developers), don’t come to the old city if you find it ugly. Build your dream elsewhere. We’re happy with our ugly old houses,” he added.
A metro, a ring-road, moving public buildings outside the centre and providing a car park and banning parking along the existing Al-Malik Faisal road to free up an extra couple of lanes are among the solutions conservationists say should be investigated before the demolition ball starts swinging.
The expanded Al-Malik Faisal road would narrow into two-lanes on either side of the centre “so it will be a bottleneck,” said one critic of the plan. “At least this should be studied. If they can prove this will ease the traffic, fine. But experience elsewhere shows that more roads equals more cars,” he added. Rajab argues that an urban masterplan for all of Damascus is crucial. “The old city is not an oasis in the desert,” she said.
Since the first courtyard houses were converted to restaurants in the 1990s, the old quarters - which the middle classes abandoned in favour of mod cons and wide streets - are enjoying a renaissance. Young people stroll through the streets of a weekend evening; jazz bands entertain crowds in Mar Mar - a popular bar in Bab Touma; the wealthy dine on mezze in Elissar Restaurant; and on a Friday morning, students, tourists and Damascenes have breakfast beneath the orange trees in Beit Jabri’s courtyard.
But some say development needs to be more organised. “Damascus is the oldest inhabited city in the world and we need to keep it like that, not turn it into a museum,” Rajab says. “Old buildings must be given new functions at times, but the restaurants and hotels should be confined to certain areas to preserve the residential nature of the city.”
Many who renovate their houses do so with little expertise and even less taste. Columns, painted “Mamluk” stripes and fantastical, pseudo-oriental details abound. Owners need financial help to buy traditional materials cheaply says Beshr Al-Barry, an architect at the directorate of the old city. The directorate in Maktab Anbar Palace does its best to regulate the work, but there are too many houses and too few staff. About 5,000 traditional courtyard houses lie within the walls, he says, and a 1997 survey found 90 percent needed urgent repair.
After the French audit of the Old City in 1936 until 1996 families were banned from doing any internal restructuring work to their homes, even building a new bathroom. “So people would go around the rules, and build at night,” Al-Barry said. The 1970s stand out as a disastrous decade. Faced with disintegrating old houses that were hard to renovate and low in value, owners sold their painted wood panelling, tiles and fountains to antiquity sharks.
“For the past three or four years it has been getting better because there are new graduates in restoration and the level of technical training has improved,” Al-Barry added. A new generation of craftsmen must learn the old techniques and a pilot scheme to give cheap, long-term loans to owners to restore their houses has worked well in Aleppo, experts say. Al-Barry said such a plan was in the pipeline for Damascus.
But even old houses within the old city walls are not as safe as they should be. Near Bab Al-Salam, inside the walls, a vast modern mosque takes the space of perhaps 20 houses and a bulky concrete extension is being added. “If we’re not careful, in another 20 years there’ll be hardly any old houses left,” the architectural expert said.
In spite of this, welcome plans to tart up the old city are underway, starting with Souk Medhat Pasha. An EU-Syrian project aims to put the jungle of electric cables that swing overhead underfoot and remove the clutter of plastic signs and air-conditioning units from the Ottoman arched shop fronts.
Most importantly the Roman sewage system that overflows and damages walls and foundations is to be upgraded, starting with Straight Street. “We need to preserve this as a living city, and the best way is by improving the quality of life and services for residents and reducing the problems they face everyday,” Al-Barry said.
EU-Syrian projects to boost sustainable tourism in the old city include picture maps with routes through the city and plaques on the khans, madrassas and bimaristans. An “old houses” route will give tourists a peep behind the doors of a number of Damascene buildings and religious, bazaar and handicraft tours are being drawn up. A sound and light show on Salah Ad-Din Square by the Umayyad Mosque will also teach tourists about Damascus’s old city. “I’m aware of a change in thinking towards the old city of Damascus, it’s now seen as a potential area of investment,” said the project’s director, Ersan Ali.
But renovation within the walls is unlikely to save Damascus if homes and shops are destroyed outside them. If the old city of Damascus is listed as a heritage site “in danger” in June, the loss of its World Heritage designation altogether could follow as soon as six months later, experts say. It would be a sad irony if the city were to fall from grace just months after it was crowned Arab Cultural Capital for 2008.
Issue: Mars 2007
Labels: Old City, Syrian bloggers' campaign, Syrian blogosphere
Syria should have a cmmitee called the hitorical commitee of Syria that will assign areas in Syria and in every city that are considered hitorical areas that should be protected and developed for tourism, whila people in Syria might think that new is better people in the west cosider old Syria is more imporatant to visit and enjoy, I hope saving old Damascus is as important as developing new areas in Damascus , so Damascus can be the place where old meet new.
Posted by
norman |
4:58 am
eh sah enome sasa
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:46 am
bashar is a foreigner who give him the right to destroy the syrian cities? his master the pig khamainei?
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:58 am
thanks sasa for this article
Posted by
Anonymous |
7:49 am
No problem, who are you anonymous?
Posted by
sasa |
11:58 am
"bashar is a foreigner who give him the right to destroy the syrian cities? his master the pig khamainei"
I AGREE 100%.........
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:24 pm
The Damascus massacre. (effect of modernity on old buildings in Syria)
From: The Architectural Review | Date: 4/1/1995 | Author: Degeorge, Gerard
The historic city of Damascus, Syria has suffered continuous and indiscriminate destruction of its ancient buildings. The city boasts of beautiful examples of Islamic architecture dating from Roman times to the rise of the Umayyade caliphate and the wars of the Crusades. However, French colonists and succeeding nationalist regimes have made misguided attemots to modernize the city at the expense of its older structures.
In territory barely the size of the UK, Syria can boast a wealth of architectural, archaeological and historical masterpieces: the Roman theatre at Bosra, Crusader castles and in particular the Crak des Chevaliers, Byzantine churches, and Palmyra, are but a few of its most famous and spectacular. Its capital Damascus stands out with its own particularly prestigious cursus honorum. Yet in the Western mind this illustrious city evokes little more than its famous craftwork: damascene swords and damask fabric.
Damascus has no rival in wealth of legend; Abraham, Noah and Gog are among many that appear in its annals. Developed from neolithic times, it has always been recognised as the capital if not of the country then at least of its region. The focus of one of the principal Aramean states of Syria from the end of the 2nd millennium BC, it was integrated in 732 BC within the Assyrian Empire, losing political independence which it only began to recover 14 centuries later.
During Roman times, Damascus was a place of outstanding ornate monuments. Its Temple of Jupiter, built on the site of the old temple of the Aramaean god Hadad, was one of the largest in the whole of the East and sections that still exist today are its oldest architectural remains.
In 660 AD, with the Umayyades in power, the seat of the Caliphate was transferred to Damascus. Its authority spread from the Atlantic to the Indus and from the Yemen to Central Asia. Although contemporary written sources are scant and the celebrated mosque which still keeps the name of the dynasty is the only architectural relic that exists, Damascus undoubtedly achieved its highest flowering under the Umayyades.
During the Crusades, a compromise was reached with the Franks and despite the wars, Damascus was able to expand with a vast amount of religious, civil, funereal and commercial building - some of the best examples of Moslem architecture in existence. Each was remarkable in its form of harmony, restraint, quality of materials and precision of workmanship.
The thousands of acres of gardens which surrounded the old city, accommodated the yearly assembly of pilgrims and the tombs of 'saints', caliphs, attendants of the Prophet and martyrs of Holy War. With the birth of legends about characters like Adam, Cain and Abel, to Jesus and Mohammed, Damascus was guaranteed an eminent position in the Moslem world: 'it was the seal of all the Islamic countries we visited' said the Andalusian traveller Ibn Jubayr in 1184.
It was celebrated over the centuries by European visitors amazed by the archetypal great city altogether magnificent, delightful and prosperous, becoming progressively from the sixteenth century, as the gap between East and West narrowed, the exemplar par excellence of exotic and local colour.
In the first half of the twentieth century, during the period of French rule imposed in 1920 (despite promises of independence in 1915) Damascus felt the full shock of Western Modernism without parallel with its violence and the effects of the intrusion of European taste denouncing the past.
New districts were built to the north-west of the ramparts, destroying some of its best agricultural land. At the same time, the traditional urban fabric entered a process of rapid degradation. Attracted by 'modern' French-style architecture, the Damascan bourgeoisie gave in to foreign influence abandoning their beautiful homes, with courtyards and iwans, which had been much admired by travelling Westerners. The majority of them, overpopulated and badly maintained, are today in a state of irreversible delapidation.
In 1925, Damascus suffered the harshest blow in all its history: a repressive nationalistic insurrection. There was bombing from the air with tank and cannon attacks on the ground. After three days the entire Western section of the city was a heap of smoking ruins. Rebuilt today, this area is called hariqa, 'the fire'.
Immediately after the 'conciliation', during the winter of 1925-26, the French, as Mandatory Authority decided to replan the old topography, so favourable to urban guerrillas on Haussmannian principles. An external boulevard with wide openings was started and spuriously presented to Damascans as a series of 'urban improvements'. In reality it was designed to give 'the best methods of modern means of combat' as a contemporary 'confidential' report revealed.
Functional town planning
By 1968, Syria had been independent for more than 20 years. Damascus appointed the French architect Michel Ecochard to produce a master-plan, rounded on the principles of 'functional' town-planning from the Athens Charter. Ignoring the realities of Eastern socio-history, everything was sacrificed to the great infrastructures of transport. The plan recommended that monuments should be seen in real perspective. For health reasons numerous ancient buildings within the city were denied any architectural value. Outside the ramparts, the Ecochard plan was hardly followed to the letter; inside, the concert of protests which it provoked quickly stopped the works. At the same time the value of age was beginning to be realised.
In 1972, only two years after the coup d'etat which brought General Hafez al-Asad to power, a decree, alas never rigorously applied, forbad all demolition or reconstruction within the city walls.
In 1975 Damascus was registered on UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites, to try to encourage the Syrian authorities to carry out procedures respecting the old city sanctioned by the international community. In the following years, committees or associations were formed, bringing together senior officials, eminent people, academics, and architects, all with one aim - the protection and restoration of old Damascus. New measures regarding building height, materials, land-registry and so on came into force. Unfortunately, they were easily distorted by the authorities themselves or by 'investors' to line their pockets and suit their own needs in return for favours to various ministers.
In 1983, only a year after the oppression of the Hama Revolution and the methodical destruction of the old town along with its historic monuments by troops of the president's brother, Rifa'at al-Asad, old Damascus found itself again subject to arbitrary expressions of power. Inflamed by the hatred that all tyranny - from Herod of Syracuse to Ceaucescu - always feels for the old and organic and the tyrant's instinctive love of the new, rigid, straight and rectilinear, the authorities embarked on the 'improvement' works. With unaccustomed speed, without reference to UNESCO or to the Government Committee on the city, demolition contractors were unleashed. The citadel was cleared on three sides following the plan recommended by Ecochard. To best assure the safety of the officials coming to offer their prayers at the Umayyades Mosque, a wide opening was randomly bulldozed in the west rampart at the entrance to the mosque. Other 'improvements' were announced but public disapproval and protests from UNESCO were beginning to have an effect. The Department of Antiquities came out of its stupefaction and set out to rebuild and patch up the gaping holes in the damaged facade.
Besides the great sham of good intentions put forward by the State, the 'restoration' enterprises were incompetent, cheap and distorted by greed, amateurism and improvisation. None followed the appropriate guidelines. Everywhere there is defective masonry jointing, misuse of plastering, inappropriate materials and equipment, weakness of form, gaudy paintwork and kitsch ornament. Hammams, madrasas, mosques, tombs were spoiled: none of the precious patrimony of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was saved.
Mosque grotesques
The Umayyades Mosque became a victim, after the Gulf War, due to a 'restoration' decided in high level diplomacy. Financed by Kuwait to say thanks to the regime of Damascus for serving the Arab cause so well by siding with the US and its allies during the conflict, the large west minaret, the most beautiful in Syria, was spoiled. The top of the fifteenth-century minaret was inscribed to commemorate the 'renovation' of the building under the 'glorious rule of President Asad', causing the loss of so much of the beautiful golden patina accumulated over the centuries. The west wall and the tower adjoining the south side, precious remains of the ancient Temple of Jupiter, were partially dismantled. The first-century Egyptian-style capitals of the pilasters, rare in Syria, were nearly all damaged.
Most worrying remains the absence of all technical, architectural and archaeological study, even in basic form. The 'calculations' put forward for certain sections of masonry which would certainly have caused collapse, are regretfully unavailable. On the other hand, their chief designers openly admitted being inspired by an eighteenth-century drawing, by the Russian traveller Barsky, of a monument with griffons. Why then, stop at this mediocre sketch, and not restore the building to its former state before the fire of 1400 or better still to that of 1069?
UNESCO which should have been consulted, and which would have been able to provide technical and financial help, was not even informed. The International Committee reported with great anxiety at the meeting of the Committee of World Heritage in Santa Fe in December 1992 on a simple letter received in November from a tourist 'intrigued by the strangeness of works in progress'. The director of Syrian Antiquities who participated in the meeting put forward a 'Committee of Academics and Architects' who stood guarantee for the necessary works and their conformity to the appropriate regulations regarding design and craftsmanship.
In March 1993, the Minister of Culture, Najja Attar, in a curt, dismissive letter, claimed with firmness that all the guarantees would be upheld, and Syria had no need of assistance. It prevents, unhappily, any of the restorations being effected to this day.
All proposed improvements should be evaluated by a group of architects specialising in historic monuments, to ascertain their worth. The committee should co-ordinate all initiatives from municipalities or different ministries. Failing which Damascus, this urban jewel, already very much disfigured, will soon become just shapeless blocks of stone without soul.
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:29 am
Hi. I am the publisher of Syria Today magazine. Of course the article you have published in your blogge, by our contributor Lucy Field, is owned by our magazine. I would appreciate you contact me ASAP. You have published the whole story without any permission or crediting it to Syria Today.
Tel: 00963 11 88 27 03 20
My email address is mail@syria-today.com
Thank you
Kinda Kanbar
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:40 pm
Just a query - are jasmine flowers indigenous to Syria? What is the main floral crop native to Syria?
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:31 pm
* رئيس لجنة احياء دمشق القديمة يحذر من خطط لهدم محيط الجامع الأموي
موقع سيريا نيوز – الثلاثاء 10 نيسان/ أبريل 2007
يعقوب قدوري - سيريانيوز
ناشد رئيس لجنة احياء دمشق القديمة بدر الدين العوف الجهات المختصة التحرك لرفع الاستملاك عن مدينة دمشق القديمة مشيرا إلى أن عددا كبيرا من أحياء المدينة القديمة ومحيط الجامع الأموي مهددة بالهدم لتحويلها إلى مجمعات تجارية.
وقال العوف لـ"سيريانيوز" إن "معاول محافظة دمشق تدك مدينة دمشق القديمة بسبب قرار استملاك يعود إلى العام 1960 دون أن ينفذ نتيجة الاعتراضات من أهالي دمشق ومناشدات من جهات كثيرة "، واصفا قرار الاستملاك بأنه "باطل وظالم". ويمنع قانون الاستملاك الأهالي من ترميم منازلهم أو التصرف بها بأي شكل.
وذكر العوف أن الأحياء المهددة تتضمن حي الحمراوي وحي المصطبة الخضراء وسوق الصاغة القديم وسوق القباقبية والشارع المستقيم وزقاق الخجا وزرقاق الشريف وزقاق الزهر وزقاق معاوية الصغير وأحياء كثيرة أخرى تقع ضمن مدينة دمشق القديمة.
وأثار الإعلان عن عزم محافظة دمشق مؤخرا هدم سوق المناخلية والعمارة وسوق النحاسين في شارع الملك فيصل لإنشاء أتستراد عريض، أثار جدلا كبيرا بين أهالي هذه المناطق والمهتمين بالآثار الذين يطالبون بوقف هذا المشروع.
وتقول المحافظة إن علميات الهدم سوف تطال "كل ما هو عتيق، وتبقي ما هو أثري" في مشروع لإظهار ثلاثة أبواب لدمشق القديمة.
وأضاف العوف أن "دورات مجلس الشعب منذ العام 1979 وحتى العام 2006 قدمت أقتراحات قوانين وشكلت لجانا وقامت بدراسات لإلغاء قرار الاستملاك، علاوة على كتب ومطالبات بإلغائه من عدد من لجان وجمعيات في دمشق القديمة وكتب من عدد من وزارات الدولة ".
وتابع أن "رئيس مجلس الوزراء محمد ناجي عطري،ومنذ أن كان نائبا لرئيس مجلس الوزراء لشؤون الخدمات، عارض وأوقف اقتراحات القوانين ومشاريع المراسيم لإلغاء الاستملاك".
وتعد دمشق أقدم عاصمة مأهولة في التاريخ وهي مصنفة ضمن لائحة التراث العالمي في منظمة اليونسكو التابعة للأمم المتحدة.
وتعتمد محافظة دمشق على مخطط تنظيمي وضعه مهندس فرنسي يدعى إيكوشار في خمسينات القرن الماضي.
كما أصدرت محافظة دمشق مؤخرا المخطط التوجيهي للمدينة القديمة والذي واجهته اعتراضات عديدة في ندوتين عقدتا في نقابة المهندسين بدمشق من قبل مختصين قبل صدوره.
وأفاد رئيس لجنة احياء دمشق القديمة أن " اللجنة وجهات كثيرة أخرى تتابع منذ عقود ملف الاستملاك ووجهت أكثر من عشر كتب إلى وزارة شؤون رئاسة الجمهورية بهذا الخصوص" مشيرا إلى أن " الرئيس الراحل حافظ الأسد أوقف مشروعا لهدم المنطقة في عام 1984، لكن قرار الاستملاك ما زال قائما وانهارت عدة منازل عربية قديمة على أصحابها نتيجة هذا القرار".
وقال إن "ردا وصل في أواخر آذار الماضي بأن رئيس الوزراء ألف لجنة تضمن وزارات السياحة والثقافة الإدارة المحلية والمؤسسة العامة للآثار والمتاحف ومحافظة دمشق لتوظيف حي الحمراوي سياحيا وحي سوق ساروجة أيضا". وستحتفل دمشق في عام 2008 بوصفها عاصمة للثقافة العربية.
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:10 pm