Hadara edition1

HADARASHARJAH’S JOURNAL OF CULTURE, BUSINESS AND IDEAS
A LITERARY RENAISSANCE
Sharjah is the first city in the Arabian
Gulf to host World Book Capital
WORKING WITH HISTORY
Heritage hotel redefines the emirate’s
hospitality landscape
HOSPITAL ON THE HILL
A pioneering clinic brings hope and healing
to the Rohingya in Bangladesh
SHEIKH SULTAN BIN AHMED AL QASIMI
A portrait of a man at the helm of change

Your musical destination in Sharjah Dedicated to bringing a broad
range of performance arts and
concerts to all music lovers of all
ages, Al Majaz Amphitheatre has
built a unique platform that
supports art and culture in
Sharjah, the UAE and the Arab
region. It has emerged as the
popular entertainment destination
of the Emirate with its hosting of
world-class events featuring
globally renowned artists and
superstars from across the world.
It is where you can experience the
magic of music.

19-22 SEP 2019
Expo Centre Sharjah, UAE
XPOSE GREAT
ADVENTURE
@xposureXPF xposure.ae©Keith Berr | Kraut Brothers

VOL. 1 / ISSUE 1 / JUNE-DECEMBER 2019
HADARA
FEATURES
HOSPITAL ON THE HILL
A pioneering clinic brings hope and
healing to the Rohingya in Bangladesh
THE HADARA INTERVIEW
His Excellency Sheikh Sultan Bin Ahmed
Al Qasimi on photography, life and work
FOR ART’S SAKE
With three curators, the 14th Sharjah
Biennial escapes the echo chamber
68
78
86
Contributors
2
1 3
5
4
1 2 3 4 5 6
6
Mark Stratton
When an oryx
walked through the
dunes in Sharjah it
was one of those
inspirational mo-
ments that have de-
fined Mark’s 20-year
career travelling the
far reaches of the
world as a journalist
reporting for British
media and record-
ing for the BBC.
7
Pietari Posti
Pietari is a Finnish
illustrator who oper-
ates Studio Posti from
Barcelona, working
with magazines, book
editorials and global
brands such as Ran-
dom House, Apple,
The New York Times
and The Guardian.
We asked Pietari to
illustrate our World
Book Capital piece.
Rabee Younes
Rabee has worked
with some of the
world’s most influ-
ential magazines,
including Vogue, Elle
and L’Officiel. Based
in Beirut, he travelled
to Sharjah to shoot
our cover story. For
this, as with every
shoot, he sought to
express authenticity
through his art.
Kaamil Ahmed
Kaamil Ahmed
reports on conflict,
the environment and
refugees in South
Asia and the Middle
East. He is now
focused on writing a
book about the Ro-
hingya, following their
lives as refugees in
all the places they
seek safety beyond
Myanmar.
Abby Sewell
Abby covers refugee
and social issues,
travel, politics and
culture for Lebanon’s
The Daily Star,
National Geographic
Travel and U.S. News
& World Report. Here,
she researched
efforts to preserve
historic architecture
in the city she calls
home, Beirut.
Gabriel Leigh
Gabriel covers
transport, culture and
business for Monocle
and The New York
Times, among others,
but is never happier
than when he can
write about aviation
and the people who
lead it. His 24-hour trip
to Sharjah to meet Air
Arabia’s charismatic
CEO was a whirlwind.
Anna Seaman
Anna is an arts
writer and editor
specialised in con-
temporary Middle
Eastern art. For this
issue, she travelled
to Khorfakkan to
visit artist Mo-
hammed Ahmed
Ibrahim in his studio
and to Kalba for the
far reaches of the
Sharjah Biennial.
7
4 HADARAMAGAZINE.COM HADARAMAGAZINE.COM 5
EDITOR PETER DRENNAN
CREATIVE DIRECTOR PAUL LUSSIER
PHOTO EDITOR MICHAEL GREEN
DEPUTY EDITOR CATHERINE BOLGAR
ASSOCIATE EDITOR PETER SCHERES
CHIEF COPY EDITOR ROBERT FEIT
Hadara is a bi-annual publication produced by Archimedia London
Limited and the Sharjah Government Media Bureau. Archimedia: The
Coliseum No. 6, 10 Salisbury Promenade, London, N8 0RX. Printed by
Hampton Printing Ltd. The articles published reflect the opinions of
the respective authors, these are not necessarily shared by the
publishers or the editorial team. All rights reserved. Reproduction in
whole or in part without permission is strictly prohibited.
DIGITAL DESIGNER MATTHEW COGSWELL
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR
CAROLINE STEINER
CIRCULATION AND DISTRIBUTION PARTNER
GLOBAL MEDIA HUB
CONTACT US HELLO@ARCHIMEDIA.UK.COM
FIND US ONLINE: HADARAMAGAZINE.COM @HADARAMAGAZINE @HADARAMAGAZINE HADARA MAGAZINE
SHARJAHARTFOUNDATION

Business
52
Changemakers
Sheraa shows how to create a
start-up culture from scratch.
59
Solva Technologies
Two brothers revolutionise deliv-
ery with electric motorbikes.
62
Air Arabia
Adel Ali’s airline is soaring
to new heights.
67
Gaza Sky Geeks
Stuck behind a blockade,
Gazans find entrepreneurial
freedom online.
Travel
96
Sharjah’s Wild Nature
The emirate packs in many
surprisingly diverse habitats.
104
Get Lost!
From the corniche to the
labyrinth of souks, Sharjah
invites exploration.
108
Modern Nomad
A short flight away, Lebanon’s
Beiteddine Palace hosts a
summer arts festival.
110
Where to Eat
Al Rawi is café, concept
and more.
The Edit
111
Smoke on the Water
Sharjah’s annual powerboat
championship week.
114
Something for the Weekend
Nawar Al Qassimi shares her
weekend secrets.
116
Profit & Purpose
Badr Jafar on corporate venture
capital in the region.
Cover photograph of Sheikh Sultan Bin
Ahmed Al Qasimi by Rabee Younes
6 HADARAMAGAZINE.COM
Brieﬁng
Bee’ah’s new HQ; 1001 Nights:
The Last Chapter; Nujoom Al
Ghanem at the Venice Biennale;
a new mosque opens in Sharjah.
Culture
16
A Literary Renaissance
Sharjah hosts World
Book Capital, a first in the
Arabian Gulf.
23
Rain Room
An art exhibition finds the
perfect permanent home—
in the desert.
24
Autumn Art
A preview of the Sharjah
Art Foundation’s autumn
programme.
28
Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim
One of the UAE’s leading
contemporary artists at work
and at home.
Design
32
Al Bait Sharjah
Turning a heritage family home
into a unique boutique hotel.
41
Aljoud Lootah
The products and furniture are
modern, the geometry timeless.
42
Michael Rice
Pushing porcelain to the
border of order and chaos.
43
Sharjah Triennial
A new forum on urbanism
and architecture will shape
tomorrow’s cities.
46
Beirut’s Heritage
They survived war; will
these battered treasures
survive progress?
50
Dimension
Award-nominated Al Mureijah
Art Spaces.
96
42
111
Welcome
Those who know Sharjah know it as a place
for art, literature, architecture, design. A place
with history—something rare in this region,
where skyscrapers have shot up on sandy shores
once trod by fishermen and pearl traders. Shar-
jah also has skyscrapers, but it sees the future
not as an either/or but an also—heritage and
modernity. Sharjah charges into the future as
it also embraces its past, lest its lessons, its tra-
ditions, the very roots of culture, be lost in the
shifting sands of time.
This journal, Hadara, takes its name from the
Arabic word meaning civilisation or culture.
The essence of who we are and what is import-
ant to us.
Hadara will explore the many riches of Shar-
jah and the broader region, always with an
appreciation for culture. In this issue, we cele-
brate such achievements as Sharjah’s renowned
photography festival, Xposure; local artist Mo-
hammed Ahmed Ibrahim and Sharjah as World
Book Capital 2019 and, obviously, the Sharjah
Biennial. Culture is more broadly defined than
just the arts—so we include forward thinkers
like a pair of brothers who have come up with an
electric motorbike for environmentally friend-
ly deliveries and Sheraa, which has created an
entire culture—for start-ups and innovators.
We also take culture to a personal level. Whether
it’s His Excellency Sheikh Sultan Bin Ahmed Al
Qasimi discussing photography, life and much
more, or Adel Ali, founder of Air Arabia, de-
scribing how he created an airline from scratch
and against all odds, or designer Jacinda Raniolo
explaining how she preserved the familial feel of
the heritage homes that make up the boutique
luxury hotel Al Bait Sharjah—all of them em-
phasise the importance of culture and of the past
in propelling Sharjah toward its best future.
We do step out of Sharjah, to visit Lebanon
for example, because after all you, our readers,
are international in your outlook. Yet, sometimes
we don’t pay enough attention to the hidden gems
closest to home. Did you know Sharjah is home
to a pair of leopards, which have not been seen
in the wild in the UAE for about a decade? Have
you been to the buried village of Al Madam? Have
you seen architect Zaha Hadid’s sustainable sand
dune building on the edge of Sharjah?
This celebration of all things cultural is not
lightweight or lite. It’s been said that culture is
all that’s left after everything else has been for-
gotten. In Hadara, we welcome you to dive head-
long into culture. Far from forgetting everything
else, we are bringing it together with culture, to
savour it and to build a better future.
TARIQ SAEED ALLAY
Director, Sharjah Government Media Bureau
HADARAMAGAZINE.COM 7
HADARA
CERAMICSCOURTESY1971DESIGNSPACE;KAYAKSCOURTESYOFSHARJAHTOURISM;POWERBOATCOURTESYOFF1H20

Brieﬁng
JUNE-DECEMBER 2019
XPOSURE 2019
International photography
festival in the spotlight
Xposure, the leading photography festival in the MENA region,
opens on September 19 in Sharjah. The four-day festival, now
in its fourth edition, offers exhibitions, workshops, seminars,
talks and walks with acclaimed photographers and filmmakers.
British photojournalist Don McCullin, American photographer
David Burnett, and Kathy Moran, National Geographic’s senior
editor for natural history, were among those who headlined last
year’s edition. The 2019 season of the Xposure International
Photography and Film Competition opened for entry on April 1,
submissions are welcome until July 10. New categories—Night
Photography, Portrait and People, Mobile Photography, and
Nature and Landscape—broaden the highly anticipated compe-
tition. Winners and runners-up in each category will attend
the festival to receive their prizes.
THE CULTURE, DESIGN, BUSINESS, LIFESTYLE, TRAVEL,
AND TECHNOLOGY STORIES SHAPING THE SEASON
For tickets to Xposure, or to enter the competition, go to
https://xposure.ae. Each entrant may submit up to 10 images.
Category winning image by Ahmed Albairaq.
HADARA
Hadara is a bi-annual journal, with its roots in Sharjah,
that encompasses culture and the arts, design and
architecture, travel, business and lifestyle.
@HADARAMAGAZINE @HADARAMAGAZINE HADARAMAGAZINE
Look out for our second edition
January 6th, 2020
You can also find us online: hadaramagazine.com
Welcome to our launch edition

The 20 shortlisted
projects for the 2019 Aga
Khan Award for Archi-
tecture were announced
on April 25th in Geneva.
Three of the projects are
in the UAE, the most
for any country. Two of
those are in Sharjah: Al
Mureijah Art Spaces, by
Sharjah-based architects
Mona El Mousfy and
Sharmeen Azam Inayat,
and Wasit Wetland Cen-
tre, by X-Architects of
Dubai. The third, Con-
crete at Alserkal Avenue,
by OMA, is in Dubai.
With Al Mureijah Art
Spaces, El Mousfy and
Inayat created contem-
porary art exhibition
spaces that dialogue
with the surrounding his-
torical city center. The
project, for Sharjah Art
Foundation, provides
both climate-controlled
indoor galleries as well
as outdoor spaces in
courtyards and rooftops
for art suited to exterior
exhibition, while con-
necting the area to the
wider heritage district.
The buildings opened
with Sharjah Biennial
11 in 2013.
Wasit Wetland Centre
brings visitors unob-
trusively to a rehabili-
tated chain of coastal
wetlands, a habitat for
birds and a green lung
for Sharjah. The centre
informs visitors about
the many bird species,
including 33,000 migrat-
ing birds and other local
fauna, and encourages
the preservation of the
wetlands. The architec-
ture of the centre uses
the site’s existing topog-
raphy to minimise the
structure’s visual impact,
with an underground
passage and low-profile
observation stations.
Concrete is a venue
for art and cultural events
in the Alserkal Avenue
cultural hub in a former
industrial complex in
Dubai. Its flexible floor
plan, with four eight-
metre-high pivoting and
sliding walls, allows easy
adaptation and maxi-
mum use of the space for
a variety of events. The
project is the first in the
UAE for OMA, or the
Office for Metropolitan
Architecture, the firm
co-founded by Dutch
architect Rem Koolhaas.
The Aga Khan
Award honours excel-
lence in building con-
cepts that address the
needs of communities
in which Muslims have
a significant presence.
The shortlisted projects
are now undergoing
examination by a team
of experts who evaluate
each project on-site.
The winner of the US$1
million prize will be
announced this autumn.
—Catherine Bolgar
Rising from the desert on the edge
of the city of Sharjah, the remark-
able new headquarters of Bee’ah—a
leading environmental management
company—will be one of the most
sustainable and architecturally
ambitious buildings in the Middle
East. It is on course to open by the
end of this year.
Designed by the internationally
renowned Zaha Hadid Architects,
its shape mirrors the surrounding
sand dunes and has been posi-
tioned to take full advantage of the
prevailing shamal winds. A series
of “dunes” are connected by a cen-
tral courtyard that forms an oasis
inside the building. This enhances
the natural ventilation, reducing
the need to cool the building in
milder months and also provides
daylight while limiting the amount
of glazing exposed to the sun. The
exterior finishes have been chosen
to reflect the sun’s rays and further
reduce energy use. Outdoor areas
and breakout spaces will include
native plants and water features to
reflect the local environment.
Zaha Hadid Architects says that
Bee’ah “aims to set new standards in
the UAE through utilising 100% re-
newable energy sources to power its
new headquarters and ensuring that
the maximum amount of recycled
materials recovered from waste are
used in its construction.”
All water on the site will be
recycled and the ultra-low-carbon
building will be powered by convert-
ing municipal waste into energy at
Bee’ah’s pioneering waste-manage-
ment centre along with photovoltaic
cells which are situated among the
site’s landscaping.
Bee’ah describes it as “an office
of the future.” It will be the first
building in the region to have
advanced artificial intelligence
which will use robots to help host
meetings, book appointments and
deal with visitors, as well as monitor
aspects of the building such as ener-
gy consumption.
Bee’ah aims to create a “green-
er future generation” by helping
children to understand that they
have a responsibility to protect
the environment. The company
already runs a series of educational
programmes for over 200 schools
across the emirate and, when the
new building is open, the local
community will be able to visit its
educational facilities and exhibi-
tion spaces. —Helen Jones
ARCHITECTURE
Zaha Hadid’s
sustainable
“sand dune”
emerges from
the desert
Undulating shapes
are a signature of
designs by Zaha
Hadid. Bee’ah
commissioned the
winner of the
Pritzker and Stirling
prizes in 2014 to
design its new
headquarters.
Brieﬁng
ARCHITECTURE
Three UAE
projects on
Aga Khan
Architecture
shortlist
Al Mureijah Art Spaces,
above, transformed
dilapidated buildings into
indoor and outdoor
contemporary art venues.
COURTESYOFBEE’AH

Brieﬁng
12 HADARAMAGAZINE.COM HADARA.AE 13
How can one tell a fresh version of
a tale that has captivated people
around the world for a thousand
years? 1001 Nights: The Last Chapter,
which opened at Sharjah’s Al Majaz
Amphitheatre on April 23, succeed-
ed by spinning the story forward
and going very, very big.
“[This] is set to change the face
of live entertainment in the UAE,
and will reinvent the genre of
performing arts,” Sheikh Sultan
bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, head of the
Inauguration Ceremony Committee
of Sharjah as UNESCO World Book
Capital 2019, proclaimed when it
was first announced.
Everyone knows how Schehe-
razade cleverly evades execution at
the hands of King Shahryar by tell-
ing him a series of cliffhangers over
1,001 nights. In The Last Chapter, we
meet her on her death bed, having
summoned her three children,
Fayrouz, Kader and Amin, to send
them off on one final mission.
The original tale is thought to
have been the work of many authors,
probably from many lands. The new
production also resulted from the
combination of many international
talents. Creative director Philippe
Skaff built a mega-team of perform-
ers, assembling 557 artists from 25
countries, including talent from
Sydney-based creative company Art-
ists in Motion and circus performers
from Montreal’s The 7 Fingers.
“It all started with me saying,
‘Sebastien [Soldevila, the director],
we don’t want another Schehera-
zade. Let us start with an old
Scheherazade for a change. Now
let us rewrite the story,’” Skaff says.
Skaff ’s production was an all-en-
compassing experience in every
sense. The amphitheatre was trans-
formed into an interactive stage set
across three backdrops: an enchant-
ing garden, an island, and a desert.
Huge video screens transported au-
diences into a whole new world, as
acrobats flew through the air, and a
51-piece symphony orchestra provid-
ed an ethereal soundtrack. Maxime
Lepage composed the original mix
of classical and electronic music.
“A show is an overall vibration
that penetrates the audience to
create emotions,” Skaff says. “The
secret of a successful show is for
that vibration not to last only for an
hour and a half but to leave a lasting
imprint on the collective memory of
people. I think that The Last Chapter
has done that.”
The UAE has always been
special to Skaff, who is at the helm
of creative collective Multiple
International. Over the two decades
that he has been coming here, Skaff
has watched the arts and culture
landscape take shape. At the same
venue in 2014, Skaff ’s epic Cluster of
Light production charted the birth
of Islam.
With The Last Chapter, Skaff
racheted up “epic” by several
notches, bringing Scheherazade’s
magical, dreamlike stories to life
with stunts, horses, light effects
and elaborate costumes cut from
a kilometre-long stretch of fabric.
The production combined the best
human talents in acting, singing
and dancing with innovative use
of audiovisual technology.
Sharjah’s emergence on the
international performing-arts stage
isn’t about to slow down. Skaff
believes with The Last Chapter, the
emirate should be “proud of what it
has offered the world.”—CB
1001 Nights: The Last Chapter played
at Al Majaz Amphitheatre from April
23-April 27.
THEATRE
Scheherazade dies, giving new
life to Sharjah’s performing arts

Brieﬁng
ARCHITECTURE
Sharjah’s Ruler
opens the emirate’s
largest mosque
Some five years in construction,
the largest mosque in the emirate
welcomed its first worshippers on
May 11th. Sharjah Mosque was
inaugurated by the emirate’s Ruler,
His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan
Bin Mohamed Al Qasimi. The
AED300 million structure was
commissioned in 2014, its striking
Islamic architectural style sought to
balance aesthetic appeal and ease of
accessibility.
Surrounded by gardens and foun-
tains, the site covers almost 186,000
square metres and can accommodate
up to 25,000 worshippers, inside
and outdoors. The elegant main
prayer hall has arched stained-glass
windows, walls decorated with verses
from the Quran and a striking geo-
metric chandelier at its centre. Out-
side, domes, minarets and columns
The new Sharjah
Mosque is now the
largest in the emir-
ate, the structure
can accommodate
25,000 worshippers
ART
Nujoom Al Ghanem
at Venice Biennale
Nujoom Al Ghanem is the first
woman to exhibit her work in a solo
presentation at the National Pavilion
of the UAE at the Venice Biennale.
Indeed, she is only the second artist
ever to be given the stage alone (after
Mohammed Kazem in 2013). In
Passage, her 26-minute, two-channel
video, she combines poetry with the
language of film to tell the fictional
story of Falak, a displaced woman
searching for her home, as well the
real tale of making the film. The pre-
sentation, curated by Sam Bardaouil
and Till Fellrath, purposely blurs the
line between truth, reality and story;
a comment perhaps, on the modern
condition. Biennale Arte 2019 closes
on November 24th.
BUSINESS
Gulftainer
starts works in
Wilmington
Gulftainer, the world’s largest
privately owned independent port
operator and logistics company,
has embarked on a first tranche of
infrastructure works at the Port of
Wilmington in Delaware, confirmed
Eric Casey, CEO of GT USA Wilm-
ington, in March. The Sharjah-based
company signed a 50-year conces-
sion to operate and expand the port
in September 2018, the $600m com-
mitment is the largest-ever invest-
ment by a private Emirati company
in the US. Extension of the dock and
crane rail should be completed this
summer, warehouse improvements
are also under way. “In the coming
months we’ll start work to upgrade
the cargo throughput capability
from 350,000 to 600,000 TEUs
and add capacity for roll-on roll-off
cargo,” Casey says. —PD
pay homage to the Ottoman style.
The mosque is at the intersection
of the Mleiha and Emirates Roads
and will serve the areas of Tay,
Seouh, Badea, Hawshi, and Juwaiza.
The location is ideal too for those
travelling to or from the Northern
Emirates.
The mosque has a museum, café
and gift shop and will include a
library rich in Islamic works. —PD
BARBARAZANONCOURTESYOFNATIONALPAVILIONUAE/LABIENNALEDIVENEZIABERNARDJOUARET
23RAIN ROOM
The only permanent
art installation in the
Middle East is the very
definition of an immer-
sive art experience.
Writer Peter Scheres
experiences a magical
desert downpour.
Culture
SHARJAH IS UNESCO WORLD BOOK CAPITAL FOR 2019 / RAIN ROOM IS AN IMMERSIVE ART
EXPERIENCE / SHARJAH ART FOUNDATION PROVES INTUITIVE IN PREPARING ITS AUTUMN PROGRAMME /
CONTEMPORARY ARTIST MOHAMMED AHMED IBRAHIM IS A MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS

Culture
A Cultural
and Literary
Renaissance
A
rabic is one of the most widely spoken languages
in the world, the shared tongue from the Atlantic
Ocean to the Arabian Gulf. Its rich literary culture
dates back centuries. Sharjah is keeping this tradi-
tion alive while also moving it forward as it becomes
a global publishing hub and pushes to make books available to all.
Sharjah’s efforts earned it the title of World Book Capital for
2019, chosen by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the International Federation of
Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the International
Publishers Association (IPA). Sharjah’s slogan as World Book Cap-
ital is “Open Books, Open Minds.”
“The Sharjah World Book Capital is not just a title or a trophy
we will put on our shelves and be proud of,” says Bodour Al Qasi-
mi, vice president of the International Publishers Association and
head of the Sharjah World Book Capital 2019 committee.
“This title reflects something important, and I hope the Arab
world will take notice,” she says. “It reflects the beginning of our
cultural and literary renaissance. It is a signal that Arab literature,
which enriched the world in the past when most of the world was
plunged into the dark ages, is coming back and it will add person-
ality and diversity to world culture.”
One of the pearls of Arab literature, One Thousand and One
Nights, was the theme of an eye-popping opening ceremony on
World Book Day on April 23. It tells the tale of Scheherazade,
SHARJAH BECOMES THE FIRST CITY IN
THE ARABIAN GULF TO HOST UNESCO’S WORLD
BOOK CAPITAL. THE FOCUS FOR THE YEAR-
LONG PROGRAMME IS FIRMLY ON INCLUSIVITY.
BY CATHERINE BOLGAR
ILLUSTRATIONS BY PIETARI POSTI

Culture
the young bride who, to delay her husband putting her to death
in the morning, tells him stories, all ending in cliffhangers. Rath-
er than recount Scheherazade’s famous tales, the story jumps to
an imagined Last Chapter in which, now elderly and dying, she
tells one last story to her children, who then set off on adventures.
1001 Nights: The Last Chapter featured a cast of 557 people from 25
countries, a full orchestra and even horses, while weaving theatre,
symphony and circus elements.
At the opening ceremony, His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin
Mohamed Al Qasimi, the ruler of Sharjah, unveiled the Sharjah
World Book Capital Monument, its spiral like an unfurling scroll,
and plans for House of Wisdom, a library and cultural centre, to
be designed by renowned UK architectural firm, Foster + Partners.
“Today, I stand proud, my joy beyond description, celebrating
Sharjah World Book Capital,” he told the gathering.
His Highness is no stranger to literary circles in the Arab world
and worldwide. His philosophy is simple, yet powerful: Govern-
ments have to combine interest in developing economies with in-
terest in developing culture.
“It is not just about infinite production of profit,” Bodour Al
Qasimi says. “It has to be about developing a human being who
is capable of thinking, capable of communicating and capable of
imagining. Everything we have been doing in Sharjah reflects this
philosophy, and now more and more governments are taking no-
tice and following suit. We are proud, and we are determined to
keep playing a leading role in bringing books and literature to the
centre of our lives.”
It was precisely this idea of making literature pervasive in society
that clinched Sharjah’s bid to be World Book Capital. For UNES-
CO, books and reading are important to two overlapping missions:
culture and education. Literature is important for individuals’ de-
velopment, and literacy is important for the overall economy. “The
panel was unanimous,” says Ian Denison, chief of the UNESCO
Publications Unit. “Sharjah addressed how they promote and help
“This title reﬂects something important, and I hope the Arab world will take notice.
It reﬂects the beginning of our cultural and literary renaissance.”
Bodour Al Qasimi, publisher
and avid reader.
Opposite top: House of Wisdom;
bottom right: His Highness
Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Mohamed Al
Qasimi at the opening ceremony
for World Book Capital 2019.
CHILDRENCOURTESYOFSHARJAHBOOKAUTHORITY

Culture
communities to read, and how to develop the book industry on a
sustainable basis,” which helped them seal the win.
As part of its proposal, Sharjah created programmes for mul-
tiple niches: women’s literacy, Braille and audio books for the
visually impaired, literacy for prisons and rehabilitation centres,
programmes for refugees in Syria and other places with natural
and human disasters, reading for children and, especially, projects
to get books to the migrant population in their native languages,
such as Hindi, Urdu or Tagalog. Sharjah is home to many migrant
workers, who make up close to 90% of the population of both the
emirate and the UAE overall.
“The World Book Capital programme promotes social inclusion
by empowering people with knowledge,” Al Qasimi says. “When
we build communities that read, we open doors of intercultural
understanding. This understanding becomes a wellspring for the
promotion of cooperation, harmony and inclusion in community.”
The panel “chose Sharjah because of the innovative, com-
prehensive and inclusive nature of its application,” affirms José
Borghino, secretary general of the IPA. “The focus on children
and migrants was especially innovative.”
Rather than expect people who are not among the educated
elites to seek out culture, Sharjah is bringing culture to these vari-
ous communities, via mobile libraries and libraries in parks. One
idea that honours local traditions is a mobile library set up as a
Bedouin tent. “It makes it more exciting and engaging,” says Ger-
ald Leitner, secretary general of the IFLA.
Another keystone project is “Knowledge Without Borders,”
a government programme headed by Al Qasimi, which last year
gave 42,000 families across Sharjah free home libraries of 50 fic-
tion and non-fiction books. “That doesn’t happen without a gov-
ernment that is serious about culture,” Leitner says.
The government encourages a book culture in other ways, too.
In 2017, it established an economic free zone for publishing, Shar-
jah Publishing City, with tax-free status and infrastructure from
office space to warehouses and assistance with licensing, permits
and more.
Sharjah also hosts an international book fair, the third largest
in the world, and “the best book fair in the whole Arab region,”
UNESCO’s Denison says. “Everybody from the region comes to
buy books or negotiate rights.”
Indeed, Al Qasimi notes that The Handmaid’s Tale was just pub-
lished in Arabic for the first time and sold out immediately at the
Sharjah International Book Fair.
“What the UAE is trying to do is kickstart what amounts to
a new publishing and literary hub,” Borghino says. “Each of the
emirates has a focus, and Sharjah has decided it wants to be a
knowledge economy. Books and reading are fundamental to that.”
Sharjah has a keen interest to take UAE and Arab literature
to worldwide audiences. “Research and studies show that global
audiences are thirsty for original and culturally diverse books,”
Al Qasimi says. “We are hoping that our efforts to develop local
and regional writers will help us supply the global market with
literature and books from our part of the world.” The region’s
governments have set up foundations and funds to help translate
works into Arabic and from Arabic into other languages.
The World Book Capital is “an opportunity to remind peo-
ple that historically the thing that marked the Arab world out
was this celebration of knowledge and the democratic spread of
knowledge. It’s a reminder that culture, creativity, thinking and
knowledge have been, and continue to be, important,” says IF-
LA’s Leitner.
The diversity of the Arab world is one of its unique features
that is reflected in its cultures in general and in Arabic litera-
ture in particular. “We share a common language,” Al Qasimi
says. “Arabic bonds us as a medium of expression but zoom in
on each country in the Arab world and you will find a fascinat-
ing diversity of origins and influences. That is its beauty, and
that is also a source of richness that inspires different streams of
creativity in Arabic poetry and literature. Standard Arabic has
allowed us to cross-influence each other through literary means
and has also allowed us to inspire each other despite our differ-
ences in the Arab World.”
That is true even for the youngest readers. In recent years, the
region has undergone several transformations and there are topics
and issues Arab children face in their daily lives everywhere. “I
wanted these themes and recurring realities to be presented to our
young readers in a way that resonated; and what is better than
high-quality literature to develop their understanding of the world
and the Arabic language itself?” Al Qasimi says. She established
Kalimat Group in 2007 because there was a shortage of culturally
relevant and entertaining stories for children written in the Arabic
language.
Sharjah hosts an 11-day international reading festival for chil-
dren and young adults. The annual festival celebrated its 11th year
in April. “Reading, whether electronic or on paper, is an essential
ingredient in creating a generation of leaders who are able to think
on their own and who are confident in their identity,” Al Qasimi
says. “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
“It has to be about developing a human being who is capable of thinking,
capable of communicating and capable of imagining.
Everything we have been doing in Sharjah reﬂects this philosophy.”

You step into the dark space, excit-
ed, even a little fearful, and discover
something familiar, a throwback to
an earlier moment in your life. Yet,
it’s different.
It seems a simple idea: a room
that’s an upside-down fountain, par-
tially illuminated by a single light.
You are invited to walk straight into
the downpour. You brace and step
in, but you don’t get wet. Sensors
detect where you are and stop the
rain from falling just there.
Random International, an art
collective based in London and Ber-
lin, created this immersive installa-
tion in 2012, a piece that sits at the
intersection of art, technology and
nature. It has been exhibited in Lon-
don, Los Angeles, New York and
Shanghai. Now, making its Mid-
dle East premiere, Rain Room has
found its permanent home in Shar-
jah. This is an experience by itself –
a single art project rarely becomes a
permanent installation.
The specially created building,
itself impressive, was designed by
the Sharjah Art Foundation and
the UAE-based SpaceContinuum
Design Studio, in collaboration
with Sharjah-based Shape Archi-
tecture Practice + Research. Its
bold, straight lines are in marked
contrast to the Al Majarrah Park
opposite and the lively wider neigh-
bourhood. Despite the openness
of the structure’s interior, and the
noise of the city beyond, a calmness
inside brings you quickly into focus,
a sensation intensified by the long,
sloping corridor that leads from the
entrance to the rain.
The experience is defined and
amplified by its location. Compared
with previous host cities, the con-
trast between the installation and
the surrounding climate is greatest
in Sharjah. In a country with so lit-
tle water, a room with rain is some-
thing magical by itself.
But there’s something more. As
you enter the rainfall something
strange happens. The rain itself
becomes a room within a room, a
space for feelings and emotions.
Coming from a country where water
is abundant, as I do – there are few
places where life is shaped as much
by water as it is in the Netherlands –
rain is both necessary and resented,
even dangerous. Rain is something
to be prepared for and avoided.
Stepping into this rainy rectan-
gle cube gives me the smallest feel-
ing of fear. My heart rate goes up at
the thought of getting wet. But the
reality is totally different. As I walk
slowly, a dry zone moves with me,
protectively. The sound of everlast-
ing rain blocks out distractions.
The thin light turns my fellow visi-
tors – only six people may enter at
a time – into ghostly silhouettes,
as drops glint all around them. An
invisible hand has guided me to a
room that is not dangerous but safe.
It is protecting me. The room takes
care that I am not getting wet. And
it takes me back to my memories of
rainy days when I only could sit in-
side: warm, cosy and safe.
Walking through this special
space, leaving the rain through an
invisible door and entering again via
another, I feel a sensation of hap-
piness, curiosity and joy. After 15
minutes of contemplation, I leave
this room made of rain, this safe and
happy haven, via the long corridor
back to the world and the light and
the city buzz. By surrendering to the
slow rhythm of the installation, I ab-
sorb the magic of Rain Room. It has
touched me and added a new experi-
ence to my life. —Peter Scheres
Hours: Saturday to Thursday, 9:00 am
to 9:00 pm. Friday, 4:00 pm to 11:00
pm. Prices: Adults, 25AED. Students
and concessions, 15AED. Children up to
5 years, free. Book in advance at https://
rainroom.sharjahart.org/getTicket.htm
Sheltered by the rain:
A magical desert downpour
The
experience
is defined and
amplified by
its location.
The contrast
between the
installation
and the
surrounding
climate is
greatest in
Sharjah.
SHANAVASJAMALUDDIN/SHARJAHARTFOUNDATION
Culture
@Shjigcc igcc.ae
The research-based platform aims
to be the official centre for developing
government communication skills in
Sharjah and UAE, presenting itself as
a vital reference in the field locally,
regionally, and internationally.
FROM SHARJAH
TO THE WORLD

LOOKING
AHEAD
TOAN
AUTUMN
OFART
The autumn season at Sharjah Art
Foundation ranges from film and
photography to sculpture as well as
plotting the region’s art history.
By Anna Seaman
Culture
In recent years, the Sharjah Art Foundation’s programme has en-
compassed the most important names in the regional art world.
The foundation’s multiple venues—in particular the sleek, white
cubes of the Al Mureijah spaces—combined with its curating ex-
pertise, means the programme is consistently strong. It also seems
to be planned with a prescient intuition that charts the region’s
history as it unfolds. The impressive 2017/8 retrospective for Has-
san Sharif, for example, was in the making long before he passed
away in September 2016, and this November a survey show ded-
icated to Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian will be staged as a
well-timed tribute to the powerhouse artist who died in April.
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
Sunset, Sunrise
October 12 – December 28
Sunset, Sunrise, first appeared in Dublin’s Irish Museum of Mod-
ern Art in 2018. Co-curated by Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, presi-
dent of Sharjah Art Foundation, the show features over 70 pieces
including paintings, sculpture, tapestry, and collages, alongside
jewellery, mirror mosaics, and drawings from her Iranian stu-
dio. The show poignantly charts the personal and professional
journey of Farmanfarmaian who began her career in the 1940s
when she moved to New York with her first husband. There she
associated with influential artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark
Rothko, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol. She spent her life in both
Tehran and New York, her interest in mirror mosaics and geom-
etry became trademarks of her long and illustrious career. Many
pieces in this exhibition sparkle and shine—much like this char-
ismatic artist herself who will be fondly remembered by many
in the UAE—and provide a dazzling experience for those just
discovering her work.
Monir, a 2016 film by Bahman Kiarostami, an Iranian director,
is also part of the exhibition and reveals biographical detail about
Farmanfarmaian’s time in America as well as a pivotal moment
when she first saw the Shah Cheragh, a mosque in Shiraz with a
domed hall covered in hexagonal mirrors. She describes it in her
memoir as a “universe unto itself,” full of fluid light and fractured
solids. It was from then that Farmanfarmaian incorporated the an-
cient Persian tradition of aineh-kari (using shards of mirror to cre-
ate mosaics) into her practice. While mesmerising, the mirrored
works also have a spiritual, transcendental quality that combine a
reverence for the holy places in which she saw them with an irrev-
erence, captured in the playful nature of the works.
It is the dichotomy that characterised Farmanfarmaian’s life
and work. As she lived between east and west her practice embod-
ied both influences, as well as the ancient and the contemporary.
The curatorial drive in this show underlines this. This exhibition
is bookended by two mosaic works from 2015. The exhibition title
pieces, Sunset and Sunrise, combine mirrors and sacred geometry
and an innate movement caused by the reflections of light, which
is a strand of thought that the artist pursued to the end of her ca-
reer. Indeed, in her last solo show in September 2018 at her Dubai
gallery, The Third Line, she exhibited a new collection of kinetic
works, with which she was just beginning to experiment.
MONIR
SHAHROUDY
FARMANFARMAIAN
in her salon in Tehran,
1975. Right: Hexagon
(Fourth Family), 2013, mirror
and reversed glass painting
on plaster and wood,
COURTESYOFTHEARTISTANDTHETHIRDLINE,DUBAIVIASHARJAHARTFOUNDATION

and the Arab diaspora. However, this exhibition is not a historical
account of the AIF, nor is it presented as a documentation of its
activities over the past 20 years. Instead, it is an artistic exploration
into the medium of photography as well as the role of an institution.
The exhibition includes Zaatari’s expansive work on photogra-
phy within which he directs the viewer to the practice of collect-
ing as well as interrogating the photograph itself, posing questions
about the persuasive power of a framed image as well as historical
accuracy and, of course, aesthetics. He probes what it means when
a group of individual artists come together to form an institution
and the balance of maintaining a neutral authority and at the same
time one’s own artistic voice.
Marwan Rechmaoui Slanted Squares
November 2 – February 2
Another Lebanese artist, Marwan Rechmaoui, is on the roster this
coming season. Rechmaoui, who takes inspiration from the geog-
raphy and complex multicultural history of Beirut, is the 2019 win-
ner of the bi-annual Bonnefanten Award for Contemporary Art
(BACA). Rechmaoui’s solo exhibition, Slanted Squares, runs from
May to September in the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, The
Netherlands, and will open in Sharjah early in November.
The exhibition affords a glimpse of the range of Rechmaoui’s
practice from the last two decades showing his preoccupation with
the physical layers of urban experience as well as the political and
social mapping that plays out in Beirut and affects the wider region
as a whole. Rechmaoui’s influence on contemporary artists in the
Arab region spans three decades and this exhibition is an acknowl-
edgement of his artistic trajectory. His playful and intimate sculp-
tural work offers an accessible reflection on history and its forma-
tion as well as documenting and deconstructing Beirut through the
city’s habits and behaviours. The exhibition is curated by Zeynep
Öz, the guest curator of this BACA, the presentation will underline
Rechmaoui’s mastery of form, volume and materiality.
Bani Abidi
October 12 – January 12
Originally a winner of Sharjah Art Foundation’s Production Pro-
gramme grant—which gives US$200,000 (AED734,500) every
two years to support the making of artworks—Pakistani visual
artist Bani Abidi will present a solo exhibition in Sharjah in Oc-
tober. Abidi won the grant in 2011 and produced a video project,
Death at a 30 Degree Angle. Shot on the outskirts of New Delhi,
India, the 10-minute film is a fictional vignette shot in the atelier of
Ram Sutar, an octogenarian sculptor who is renowned in India for
monumental statues of politicians and national heroes. Investigat-
ing the notion of portraiture in sculpture in a world where statues
of erstwhile leaders, rulers and heroes lie scattered in graveyards
and public squares all over the world, the work was presented
at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany. Since then Abidi
appeared in the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative in
a touring exhibition called No Country: Contemporary Art for South
and Southeast Asia curated by June Yap. This will be her first solo
exhibition in the UAE.
Also running this autumn in the SAF spaces is the second edi-
tion of Sharjapan, a three-year curatorial project with Japanese
curator Yuko Hasegawa, as well as Focal Point, SAF’s annual art
book fair, and the Air Arabia Curator in Residence programme.
Adam Henein
September 19 – December 19
Also opening this autumn is a survey show of one of Egypt’s most
prominent sculptors. Adam Henein is celebrated for his sculptural
work in bronze, wood, clay, and granite, his style characterised by
his use of simple lines. A nonagenarian (Henein turned 90 this
year), his oeuvre spans the past century moving through abstract
and representational paintings into sculpture and a full embrace
of the modernist aesthetic. His subject matter includes symbolo-
gy from ancient Egypt—pyramids, obelisks, Pharaohs and hiero-
glyphs—and contemporary icons, such as Egyptian singer Umm
Kulthum. He also addresses universal themes such as mother-
hood, birds, boats, and prayer.
He has achieved legendary status in the region and has con-
tributed greatly to the cultural history of Egypt. Between 1989 and
1998 he led the restoration of the Great Sphinx in Giza, drawing
on his skills as a sculptor to determine how the monument was
originally carved. In 1996 he established the International Sculp-
ture Symposium in Aswan, and in 2014 the Adam Henein Muse-
um in the grounds of his home in Cairo’s Haraniyya district.
With several of his works owned by the Barjeel Art Foundation,
Henein’s work has been displayed in Sharjah before but never on
the scale of a large retrospective. This exhibition will be staged in
the Sharjah Art Museum. It is certainly the right time to pay hom-
age to this visionary talent.
Akram Zaatari Against Photography.
An Annotated History of the Arab Image
Foundation
September 27 – January 10
Running almost concurrently to Henein’s exhibition will be the
third iteration of Akram Zaatari: Against Photography. An Annotated
History of the Arab Image Foundation. This show appeared at the
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art from April to Sep-
tember 2017 and travelled to Dusseldorf’s Kunstsammlung Nor-
drhein-Westfalen after that. The exhibition asks what an image
represents and how the seemingly simple act of capturing a photo-
graph can wield power far beyond its frame.
Zaatari, from Lebanon, is one of the founders of the Arab Image
Foundation which began in Beirut in 1997. It was established to pre-
serve and share images from across the Middle East, North Africa
AKRAM ZAATARI The Landing, 2019. Film, interviews, installation, single photograph. This installation was part of Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber.
Culture
ADAM HENEIN
Cat (undated) and Mirror, Pietrasanta, 1988
MARWAN RECHMAOUI
Blue Building, 2015. Concrete, iron, nylon, soil, Styrofoam.
BANI ABIDI
...and they died laughing, 2016. Water colour on paper.
(From the exhibition They Died Laughing)
Zaatari directs the viewer to the practice
of collecting as well as interrogating
the photograph itself, posing questions
about the persuasive power of a framed
image as well as historical accuracy
and, of course, aesthetics.
ADAMHENEINMUSEUM;MIDDLEANDBOTTOMCOURTESYOFTHEARTISTS;OPPOSITECOURTESYOFTHEARTISTANDSFEIR-SEMLERGALLERY,HAMBURG/BEIRUT.COURTESYOFSHARJAHARTFOUNDATION

Man of the
mountains
Spotlight
O
nly a visit to Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim’s
studio in Khorfakkan truly puts his prolific
practice into perspective. Although he carries
the label of the UAE’s foremost land artist, the
term, which connotes an inextricable relation-
ship between the environment and art, might
not be immediately obvious when viewing his oddly bulbous and
curiously formed sculptures, or indeed his somewhat obsessive
series of paintings depicting only the torso and legs of a sitting
man. In several other works, Ibrahim creates small, doodle-like
characters repeated, often over large surfaces. Continually, his
draughtsmanship returns to the simplest form of mark-making:
the humble line.
But witnessing the artist in his home studio, nestled in a horse-
shoe-shaped alcove of the imposing Hajar Mountains, is to see just
how much the environment influences him.
“Place is very important to humanity,” he says. “Your person-
ality is built by your environment.” Khorfakkan is a small enclave
of Sharjah, on the UAE’s east coast where Ibrahim was born and
raised. His life and his art all stem from his relationship to this
town and the mountains, which surround the town on three sides;
the fourth opens out to the Gulf of Oman. His art is invariably a
direct response to this environment, from the installations made
from foraged rocks wrapped in copper wire to the sculptures, fash-
ioned from a papier-mâché mix of leaves, clay and soil and fused
with natural pigments to create bright, almost garish colours.
“I never saw sunset throughout my childhood,” he says, ex-
plaining his use of colour. “It used to fall behind the mountain so
that the final hour of the day was cast in a grey shadow. I felt that
I had been robbed of the colours of sunset, so later I reclaimed
them in my work.”
Even the shapes he uses are linked to his surroundings, wheth-
er external or internal. “What do they mean?” I ask. “If I knew
the answer to that question, my dear,” says Ibrahim with a gentle
smile, “then I would never make another piece of art again.”
Of course, I wasn’t really expecting an answer. Any artist who
trots out a formulated response to these kinds of questions risks
sounding prosaic, and Ibrahim is certainly not that. When probed,
he recounts childhood memories. He tells me stories about his use
of lines as coming from a time in his early youth when the man who
delivered water to his house would mark up his visits in charcoal
on the wall. Ibrahim would emulate the marks, sometimes caus-
ing confusion with the weekly billing system. He also remembers
finding ancient cave drawings inside his beloved mountain range,
which sparked an interest in pre-history and the desire to draw.
However, as an almost constant producer—he works up to 12
hours a day in the studio—Ibrahim does not spare much thought
for his audience. Shying away from prescriptive interpretations, he
says the best kind of viewer is one who doesn’t ask questions, only
experiences the art at a subconscious level.
MOHAMMED AHMED IBRAHIM IS ONE OF
THE FIVE—THE UAE’S FOREMOST GROUP
OF PIONEERING CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS.
FROM HIS HOME IN KHORFAKKAN,
HE PRODUCES INSTINCTUAL ART THAT
SPEAKS OF HIS PERSONAL HISTORY.
BY ANNA SEAMAN
Left: Mixed Media Installation,
Sharjah Art Foundation, 2018.
Above: Mohammed Ahmed
Ibrahim presents The Space
Between the Eyelid and
the Eyeball.
COURTESYOFSHARJAHARTFOUNDATION;IBRAHIM:LAWRIESHABIBIGALLERY

It is perhaps for this reason that he has had such
an impact on the UAE’s contemporary art scene.
Whilst working against the grain of the expected
norms, Ibrahim and his contemporaries—Hassan
and Hussein Sharif, Abdullah Al Saadi and Moham-
med Kazem—were producing art for art’s sake, not
for pleasing the crowds.
And indeed, they practiced in relative obscurity
until just after the turn of the century when, in 2002,
the Ludwig Forum for International Art in Aachen,
Germany staged an exhibition titled The Art of the
Five from the United Arab Emirates, bringing contem-
porary practices in Emirati art to the attention of a
wider international audience. It also brought them
their collective name—The Five.
It was a turning point and from then on all five
raised their profiles. Ibrahim’s most notable recent
shows were Elements, a career-long survey of his
practice hosted by Sharjah Art Foundation, and
The Space Between the Eyelid and the Eyeball, which
ran from March 5 – May 9, 2019. The title refers
to the meditative state that Ibrahim enters when
making his art and is a nod to his exploration into
the subconscious mind, a subject which has always
fascinated him and which contributes to his uni-
versal appeal.
“I am interested in repetition and what happens
to our minds when we do the same small thing over
and over,” he says. “I purposely distract my thoughts
when I am making art so that my hands are free to
create. In that way, my art is as much a discovery to
me as it is to those who encounter it.”
Spotlight
1. The Space Between the
Eyelid and the Eyeball at the
Lawrie Shabibi Gallery
2. Foreground: Mineral Water,
2013. On wall: six paintings all
entitled Sitting Man, 2013.
3. Bait Al Hurma, 2018.
Commissioned by Sharjah
Art Foundation.
4. Sapling, 2018
1
2 3
4
1,2AND4COURTESYOFLAWRIESHABIBIGALLERY;3COURTESYOFSHARJAHARTFOUNDATION
43ADRIAN LAHOUD
Dean of the School of
Architecture at the
Royal College of Art in
London is curator of
the inaugural Sharjah
Architecture Triennial.
Design
WORKING WITH HISTORY, THE UNIQUE AL BAIT SHARJAH OFFERS GUESTS A HOME / ALJOUD
LOOTAH’S GLORIOUS GEOMETRIC FURNITURE / CERAMICIST MICHAEL RICE / SHARJAH’S ARCHITECTURE
TRIENNIAL / PRESERVING BEIRUT’S HERITAGE BUILDINGS / AL MUREIJAH ART SPACES
RABEEYOUNES

Arabian splendour
Design
In a region with ever-taller and flashier hotels, Al Bait Sharjah
is unique: an extremely luxurious boutique hotel that
lives up to its name, The Home. At least for a lucky few.
By Catherine Bolgar

E
nter a dream from 1,001
Arabian Nights: Thick
coral walls muffle the
bustle of the city out-
side. In the courtyards,
birds warble in the shade of trees.
You navigate a warren of narrow al-
leyways, now private, that respect
the same footprint from hundreds of
years before. The cool interiors offer
respite from the blinding Gulf sun,
their harmonious furnishings made
by local artisans’ hands.
Al Bait Sharjah feels like a lux-
urious home rather than a hotel. In
fact, its name, Al Bait, means the
home. At the heart of the 53-key,
five-star boutique hotel are four his-
toric houses that have been given a
new lease on life.
Sharjah is less than half an hour’s
drive from the modern skyscrapers
of Dubai, but it’s a world away. It is
a modern city of 1.4 million, but it
has also chosen to preserve its proud
heritage. The Heart of Sharjah is the
largest historical preservation and
restoration project in the Gulf region
aimed at restoring and revitalising
the city’s heritage district. Al Bait is a
major block in the project’s founda-
tion. It is unusual for the region—not
only is Al Bait a small, intimate hotel
but it also is a jewel of history.
At Al Bait, “you feel like you’re
stepping into Sharjah of the old
days,” says Jacinda Raniolo, lead
creative designer at Godwin Austen
Johnson, a UK-based architecture
and design firm with offices in the
United Arab Emirates. “Visitors have
a feel for the history of the place.”
The traditional Emirati home was
private and sacred, centred on a de-
sire for intimacy, she explains. Thick
walls protect the private living spaces
where the family gather to eat, sleep
and relax.
“From the external souk, a pass-
er-by would not know what lay in-
side,” Raniolo says. Indeed, right
next door is the Souk Al Arsah,
one of the oldest marketplaces in
the UAE, which connects to one of
the two public entrances to Al Bait.
“Through the labyrinth of passage-
ways, doors are rarely opposite each
other or side by side to maintain
privacy. And although the house
may serve to isolate, the social ideal
remains one of community that cele-
brates its hospitable culture.”
Raniolo created a narrative for Al
Bait based on stories of journeys, mi-
grations, families and sacred spaces
in Emirati lifestyle. The Sharjah area
developed from land and sea—the
Bedouin nomads of the desert and
the pearl diving communities of the
Jacinda Raniolo,
lead creative
designer at Godwin
Austen Johnson,
developed the inte-
rior design around
stories of journeys.
THE TRADITIONAL EMIRATI HOME WAS PRIVATE AND SACRED, CENTRED ON A DESIRE FOR
INTIMACY. FROM THE EXTERNAL SOUK, A PASSER-BY WOULD NOT KNOW WHAT LAY INSIDE.
Design
PHOTOSCOURTESYOFGODWINAUSTENJOHNSONANDALBAITHOTEL

coast—and each play roles in the ho-
tel’s interiors, inspiring two schemes
for the rooms’ designs.
“The Bedouins carried their be-
longings in trunks. They also had
rugs that they rolled up,” she says.
Some rooms give a nod to the Bed-
ouins with black and natural colours,
stripes and vibrant deep reds that
were common in the rugs. Accesso-
ries are made of handcrafted silver.
The sea influences others, with
more natural colours, bronze detail-
ing, and stripes and patterns that
were found on surrounding shores.
This is not international modern ho-
tel décor, seen from Tokyo to Tash-
kent. Al Bait is the essence of Shar-
jah itself, on the most luxurious level.
“The original exterior walls had
very small openings high up to help
with ventilation and to ensure pri-
vacy. This also ensured the interior
was shielded from the harsh sunlight
which, in combination with the thick
walls, helped create a cool, dark liv-
ing space,” she says.
Inside and outside connect
nonetheless. Especially in the cool
of the evening, people would relax
together in their courtyards. The
guest rooms in the heritage building
open to a central courtyard as they
did in the past. Bedrooms in the
new buildings open onto individual
courtyards, to maintain guests’ pri-
vacy. The guest-room blocks all have
a majlis seating element, whether in-
ternal or external.
“Courtyards were key to the de-
sign and we drew upon the Islam-
ic culture of privacy where living
quarters opened into interior court-
yards,” Raniolo says. “They are
quite intimate.”
Even in the desert, trees grow
in the courtyards—pomegranate,
neem, ziziphus, all bearing fruits.
They offer dappled shade and home
for birds whose songs vie with the
call to prayer resounding from near-
by mosques, almost the only sounds
from the outside world to penetrate
the Al Bait oasis.
Mosque minarets aren’t alone in
peeking above the flat rooftops of the
historic city centre. Barjeels, or wind
towers, were an ancient form of air
conditioning. The barjeel caught
the prevailing wind and funnelled it
down to the heart of the building,
where it would travel over a pool of
water that would cool the air fur-
ther. Al Bait’s barjeel—original to
the property—is unusual because it
is round and decorated with pillars
and lacey edges. It’s the only round
wind tower in the UAE, says Keith
Gavin, the project’s architect, also
with Godwin Austen Johnson.
The hotel comprises 10 buildings
covering 10,000 square metres. Four
of the buildings were homes of the
prominent Al Midfa family, restored
from near-ruin. Six new buildings
were designed to blend in, using the
historic footprint of homes that had
occupied the site, based on a satellite
photo from the 1950s and photo-
graphs from the same period of other
parts of what was then but a village,
Gavin says.
Protecting the fragile coral walls
and respecting the historic footprint
created challenges for installing
modern conveniences. Services such
as electrical wiring and plumbing ran
through trenches below the narrow
alleyways, but ancient building tech-
niques used piles of rocks as much as
three times the thickness of the walls
they supported, leaving little room
for the trenches, Gavin says.
The local geography offered few
building materials for inhabitants
of yesteryear: coral for walls, a lo-
cal lime-based mortar called djuss,
mangrove and palm trees for beams,
palm leaves woven into mats or into
thatch for roofs. In a nod to this,
FOUR OF THE HOTEL’S 10 BUILDINGS WERE
HOMES OF THE PROMINENT AL MIDFA FAMILY,
RESTORED FROM NEAR-RUIN.
Timeless
traditional Arab
design cohabits
comfortably
with modern
elements in the
guest rooms.
The spa’s design
incorporates
astrolabes.
Design

the ceilings of all the guest rooms
are areesh, made of stems of palm
leaves, soaked and tied side by side
using palm-fibre rope.
The old walls themselves were
fragile. Coral is brittle and needs to
breathe, but air conditioning makes
that difficult because it creates a
large difference between indoor and
outdoor temperatures, increasing
humidity. In addition, coral is no
longer a sustainable material, so any
coral was strictly reclaimed from ru-
ins impossible to restore and used
only to repair the heritage buildings.
The all-day-dining restaurant
continues the link with the sea. Fish-
ing baskets were the inspiration for
decorative screens, pendant lights
and wall sconces. The washed tim-
ber furniture includes subtle moth-
er-of-pearl inlay details, a nod to the
pearl-diving history, Raniolo says. At
the same time, the feel is contempo-
rary, as is the cuisine.
By contrast, the Arabic restau-
rant, which features Emirati and
Levantine cuisine, emphasises the
kinds of goods the nomads would
have traded: thick rugs, sumptuous
silk drapes, carved timber beams and
rich tiled skirting.
The spa looks to the desert, with
its calmly undulating dunes of sand
and vast sea of stars above. Astro-
labes—complex and elegant scientif-
ic equipment used by ancient Arab
astronomers—hang in the spa’s re-
ception, and the floor features astro-
labe detailing in metal.
A library and a museum are other
clues that Al Bait is no ordinary ho-
tel. The museum includes artefacts
from Ibrahim Al Midfa, the prom-
inent businessman who once lived
there. Al Midfa’s accomplishments
include founding a newspaper as
well as one of the first libraries in the
Gulf. Active in pearl trading, public
administration and philanthropy, the
Al Midfa family held majlis, where
cultural, political and intellectual is-
sues would be discussed in the calm
of the interior courtyards.
The same courtyards are abuzz
again, keeping alive the internation-
al connections that made Sharjah a
trading crossroads.
Al Bait’s barjeel,
or wind tower, is
a local landmark,
unusual for its
round shape.
Design

The team that makes a hotel feel like home
Al Bait Sharjah isn’t a typical hotel. It isn’t run
typically, either. “I love my team,” says General
Manager Patrick Moukarzel. “I give them a lot of
empowerment.” Moukarzel interviewed 17 people
for the front-office job. “You can teach people how
to do a job but you can’t teach attitude. A good
attitude was most important,” he says. The 187
staff—for just 53 rooms—include 32 nationalities,
and guests are paired with staff who speak their
language. All the better to pick up on personal
preferences, to constantly customise the experience.
“You can’t do that with 400 rooms,” he says.
Al Bait’s heart is a heritage family home, some-
thing that presented challenges in the transfor-
mation into a super-luxury hotel. The mattresses,
at 210-by-200 centimetres, couldn’t fit through
the doors of the heritage buildings. Since the
historically significant doors couldn’t be changed,
experts from the mattress maker flew in to dis-
semble and reassemble the mattresses. Moukarzel
takes a moment to introduce us to his team.
Chevy Lapuz Office Manager
Chevy is a star. I don’t know how
she can stand me daily. I can’t
cope without her.
Ashish Deva Executive Chef
I worked with Chef in my previous
property. He plates a million times
until it’s perfect.
Sari Widyaningrum Spa Manager
Tiny, yet mighty, and incredibly
experienced. She is an oasis of
calm and always efficient.
Eapen Mathew IT Manager
When asked about IT, he will put
the same question to Siri. Thanks
to Siri he set up our systems.
Ahmed Ben Zaied Front Office
Manager He ensures guests have all
the luxuries they can imagine.
Aura Chavez Assistant F&B
Manager It isn’t love that’s in the
air, it’s liquid nitrogen. Guest
service is her top priority.
Joseph Louis Director of Finance
He has more headaches than hair
calculating the revenue.
Patrick Moukarzel General
Manager and leader of the team
Tetyana Polunina Director of Sales
& Marketing Our storyteller, she
can tell Al Bait’s history as if it
happened yesterday.
Agnieszka Kurzawa Marketing
and Communication Manager The
Voice, The Promoter, The Queen
of Social Media.
Eduardo Calixto Security and
Safety Manager He fist bumps with
everyone, everywhere.
Nezha Memarian Executive House-
keeper I call her Her Highness. Her
focus is singular: cleanliness.
Ganga Yadav Revenue Manager He
prefers to hide in his cubicle and
monitor the advanced bookings.
Azhar Uddin Chief Engineer Mr.
Cool Guy. A jack of all trades.
Always on top of things whether
to make it or break it.
Anjali Masih Director of HR and
Training Al Bait’s mother superior,
not a storyteller but a listener.
Siraj Peerukannu Purchasing Man-
ager He’s all about costs. He asks
for three quotes and a discount at
the supermarket (not pictured).
AL BAIT SHARJAH
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6 7 8
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10.
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8.
Taking inspiration from the coun-
try’s rich historical and cultural her-
itage and translating it into modern
and sophisticated works of art. This
is how one could best describe the
creations of Dubai-based multidis-
ciplinary designer, Aljoud Lootah.
Her works, which explore the realm
of product design, are one of a kind.
Created from marble, leather or
wood, each design tells a story.
Lootah’s background in graphic
design has greatly influenced her use
of intricate, complex, and geomet-
ric shapes. While now established
as a product designer of regional
renown, this was almost not the
case. It was in 2012, while enrolled
in the Design Road Profession-
al Programme at Tashkeel—the
Dubai-based art and design incu-
bator—that Lootah decided she
wanted to change direction, from a
freelance graphic designer to a fully
committed product designer.
Patterns and folds are central to
Lootah’s work, which is notable for
its experimental approach to mate-
rials and techniques and her passion
for detail.
Her first product, the “Unfold-
ing Unity Stool,” was launched at
the end of the Tashkeel programme
and showcased at Dubai Design
Days 2013. The stool, part of the
Double Square collection, explores
traditional Arab geometric patterns
and motifs. Two squares, one placed
at a 45-degree rotation to the oth-
er, produce the Islamic eight-point
star when viewed from above. Each
piece in the collection was made
from Carrara marble. “I was fasci-
nated by turning 2D design into 3D
objects, and it’s interesting to see
how people react and relate to the
story of each design,” Lootah says.
Technology has changed her
design process immensely, digital
sketches are now made on her iPad.
“I start sketching preliminary ideas.
The sketches are filtered to what I
believe works best in terms of func-
tionality and aesthetic appeal,” she
says. Lootah then creates prototypes
using 3D renders before undergoing
final production.
Lootah has been involved in
a number of projects that seek to
interpret Emirati culture, fusing
traditional craftsmanship with con-
temporary design. She commem-
orated the UAE’s founding father,
the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan
Al Nahyan, last year with a product
that people could interact with on a
daily basis, an agenda. She called it
“The Zayed Planner.”
“At our studio, we are all con-
nected to our roots, we saw how the
country developed over the years due
to his wisdom. This was our inspira-
tion and continues to be so with ev-
ery product we design,” she says.
The Ministry of Culture and
Knowledge Development asked
her to create a welcome gift for
Pope Francis’ visit in February. She
produced the Mandoos collection.
“The idea of the gift was to
translate how traditional mandoos
chests were used in the past. They
would always hold the most cher-
ished belongings,” Lootah says. The
exterior of the mandoos was made
of woven camel leather that mim-
ics the pattern of traditional khoos
(palm) weaving.
A remarkable product Loot-
ah designed this year was a fan for
the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Ju-
meirah, Dubai. Here, she sought to
blend the luxury brand’s signature
logo with the mahaffa, a hand-held
square fan used for cooling in the
heat of the Emirati desert. Like the
mandoos, the fan’s geometric pat-
tern was inspired by khoos weaving.
A twist of modernity was assured by
the use of leather and brass. The fan
now hangs in the lobby of the hotel.
“It takes inspiration from land
and sea, the two historical sources
of livelihood for the people of the
UAE,” Lootah says.
Fatma Al Mahmoud is head of the 1971
Design Space in Sharjah
Taking Shape: Aljoud Lootah’s
Glorious Geometric Furniture
ALJOUD LOOTAH
A progressive Dubai-
based designer whose
ideas are resonating
far beyond the con-
fines of her country’s
borders.
Spotlight
THE UNFOLDING
UNITY STOOL
was Lootah’s first
product.
FAISALKHATIB
IMAGESCOURTESYALJOUDLOOTAH

The urban landscape across the Gulf
region is changing rapidly. Even as
it focuses on the future, the region
increasingly wants to preserve the
architectural past. Sharjah, with its
history as a multi-ethnic port on
Indian Ocean trade routes, where
modern and older buildings sit side
by side, is a fitting location to assess
architectural trends and issues in
the region.
Sharjah is building on its rep-
utation as the cultural heart of the
UAE with the launch of a new in-
ternational event focused on archi-
tecture. The Sharjah Architecture
Triennial will begin in November
and is the first of its kind in the Ar-
abic-speaking world. It will explore
ideas and raise public awareness
about architecture and urbanism in
the Middle East, North and East Af-
rica, and South and South East Asia
(MENASA).
The Triennial, which will be held
every three years, will explore how
to create more humane and socially
responsible cities. “This is a crucial
moment in the understanding and
A new
focus on
the urban
landscape
SHARJAH TRIENNIAL AIMS TO RAISE
AWARENESS ABOUT ARCHITECTURE
AND URBANISM IN THE REGION AND
HOW THEY IMPACT THE WAY WE LIVE
BY HELEN JONES
development of architecture and
urban planning of the MENASA
region,” says Sheikh Khalid bin
Sultan Al Qasimi, chairman of the
Sharjah Urban Planning Council
and the event’s founder. The Trien-
nial “will offer an accessible plat-
form for critical reflection on the so-
cial and cultural issues that we face
at both regional and international
levels.” Bringing together architects,
academics, urban designers, govern-
ment bodies, artists, students and
the general public can lead to “new
ways of designing cities,” he adds.
Over the course of three months,
the Triennial will host an exhibition
and a series of public events, talks,
panels, film and music performanc-
es at multiple sites across the emir-
ate. It is curated by the highly re-
garded architect, urban designer and
researcher, Adrian Lahoud, dean of
the School of Architecture at the
Royal College of Art in London. La-
houd has written extensively about
environmental change with a focus
on the Arab world and Africa and is
involved in an experimental research
Bank Street in Sharjah
offers an example of iconic
architecture from the 1970s
IEVASAUDARGAITĖ
Design
Inspiredbynature
CERAMICIST MICHAEL RICE IS PART OF THE RE-EMERGENCE OF THE UAE’S CRAFT TRADITION.
HIS WORK IS SHOWCASED AT SHARJAH’S 1971 DESIGN SPACE.
Until August 10th, Sharjah’s 1971 Design Space pres-
ents the first institutional solo exhibition by the Irish
ceramicist Michael Rice. “GEO” seeks to address the
materiality of the earth and sees the Dubai-based artist
experimenting with light for the first time. Rice is exhib-
iting newly created works based on porcelain—Parian,
bone china and white porcelain—and, with some strik-
ing pieces, emphasising their translucence with light.
With these new materials he engages with the themes of
beauty, form, texture, harmony, symmetry, pattern and
tessellation, as well as the critical balance between cha-
os and order. The exhibition includes a specially com-
missioned work inspired by a visit to the archaeological
centre at Mleiha. The three pieces explore how ceramics
have changed over time. The UAE has thriving craft tra-
ditions, particularly in ceramics. With his bold, contem-
porary interpretation, Rice is part of its re-emergence.
When: the exhibition runs until 20:30, Saturday August 10,
2019. Venue: 1971 Design Space, Flag Island, Sharjah, UAE,
http://1971design.ae
PARIAN
PORCELAIN
A wall work
from the Geo
exhibition
1971DESIGNSPACE

“This is a crucial
moment in the
understanding
and development
of architecture
and urban
planning of the
MENASA region”
project bringing together scientists,
artists, architects, activists and
scholars across a wide variety of
fields to explore the practical and
philosophical implications of cli-
mate change.
Lahoud says the Triennial “seeks
to engage both established as well
as emerging architecture and urban
practitioners, artists, and thinkers
by commissioning work for the exhi-
bition opening on November 9th, as
well as initiating research and public
forums around specific social and
environmental conditions in Shar-
jah, the UAE, and internationally.”
The Triennial aims to question
what architecture means in the Mid-
dle East, Africa and Asia and its im-
pact on societies and ways of living.
It will also challenge clichéd Western
views of architecture in the region.
“ThisissomethingthatIfeelhasbeen
addressed in other disciplines such as
contemporary art and anthropology.
However, it feels yet to be seriously
addressed in architecture,” Lahoud
says. “The clichés are prevalent in
various ways —in the major architec-
ture biennials and exhibitions, where
emphasis on the traditional and the
local denies non-Western practices
any contemporaneity—as well as in
academia, practice and the theory of
architecture.”
The Triennial will also address
the particular difficulties faced by
architects, scholars, planners and
artists in the Middle East, Afri-
ca and Asia. These range “from
non-existent or fragmented archives
to restrictions on travel, or the ab-
sence of institutional support and
access to funding,” Lahoud says.
The Triennial “aims to respond to
this situation by initiating an archive
of social and spatial experimenta-
tion, laying the groundwork of a
lasting resource for generations of
architects, scholars, planners and
artists to come,” he adds.
The inaugural Triennial’s theme
is “Rights of Future Generations.”
While rights have expanded mas-
sively across the globe, “this expan-
sion has failed to materially address
long-standing challenges around
environmental change and inequali-
ty,” Lahoud says. “A focus on access
to health, education, and housing as
individual rights has obscured col-
lective claims such as rights of na-
ture and environmental rights.”
Climate change is especially per-
tinent to the MENASA region and
to architectural projects, but, as La-
houd explains, “Sites, regions and
populations which climate change
will affect and already affects most
immediately and irreversibly are the
same ones that face regimes of glob-
al socio-economic exploitation. It is
therefore fundamental for the field of
architecture to address these condi-
tions in making visible and therefore
complicit the relation of the built en-
vironment to land grab and resource
extraction.” He sees a need to chal-
lenge the Western view that the envi-
ronment is “a threat that needs to be
contained and consumed rather than
interacted and lived with.”
In the run-up to the Triennial,
several panel discussions have al-
ready been held, featuring distin-
guished speakers from around the
world. The first one focused on
housing and domesticity, the second
looked at the design of educational
spaces and their impact on the as-
pirations of young people and the
third debated environmental and
ecological issues. Within these dis-
cussions the Triennial explored new
concepts of buildings, cities and
landscapes.
Within its wider theme the Trien-
nial will question how inheritance,
legacy and the state of the environ-
ment are passed from one genera-
tion to the next and how decisions
taken now will have long-term inter-
generational consequences. “We
are connected to future generations
through present decisions, but how
do we negotiate with a generation
that is yet to exist?” Lahoud asks.
“What does it mean to articulate
this intergenerational relationship
in terms of rights to cities, to envi-
ronments, to memories, to tradi-
tions, and histories?”
With these questions in mind, the
Triennial has invited Ambassador
Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese
diplomat who represented devel-
oping countries as chairman of the
G77+China at the 2009 Copenhagen
ClimateChangeConference,tobring
together United Nations representa-
tives, government officials, interna-
tional rights groups, and members of
relevant civil society organisations to
form a Rights of Future Generations
Working Group. Members of the
Working Group will be announced
in September. Its mission is “to ad-
vance the protection of future gener-
ations’ fundamental rights in a world
where climate change is dramatically
shifting along socio-economic, legal,
gender, racial and political dimen-
sions.” The Working Group will
produce The Sharjah Charter to be
presented at The Sharjah Summit at
the Triennial.
The Triennial’s organisers are
keen to get young people involved in
the event. “The idea is not only to
invite young people to take part but
also to find ways in which the Tri-
ennial can support already existing
networks and practices of students
and emerging architects, designers
and thinkers,” Lahoud says. By en-
gaging the public and young people
in various discussions and events,
the Triennial is expected to continue
to have an impact in the future. “We
hope these initiatives will continue
and grow beyond the timeframe of
the exhibition,” Lahoud says. This
could manifest through the publica-
tions programme, the commissions
which will develop and continue be-
yond their manifestation in the ex-
hibition and the research instigated
that will support future projects.
King Faisal Mosque
in Sharjah was
inaugurated in
1987 and is one of
the emirate’s most
iconic structures.
Design
MOSQUE:CHRISTINADIMITROVAPHOTOGRAPHY
LAHOUD:RICHARDHOUGHTON

Saving
Beirut’s
history
BATTLING THE BULLDOZERS:
ACTIVISTS UNITE TO WAGE A CAMPAIGN
TO PRESERVE THE ANCIENT CITY’S
HERITAGE AND ICONIC STRUCTURES
BY ABBY SEWELL
Design
Despite the ravages it has
faced, the Grand Sofar Hotel
remains elegant, and is finding
a new life thanks to art
F
rom the outside, Beirut’s Heneine Palace
looks like a ruin. The wooden shutters on
the windows—and the windows them-
selves—are broken, the walls riddled with
bullet holes. The once-imposing mansion
is now dwarfed by a high-rise apartment building un-
der construction next to it. Its own fate is uncertain.
But the inside of the Ottoman-era palace, original-
ly built for a Russian nobleman, retains much of its
former glory: the crenellated arches, the ceiling dec-
orated with elaborate geometric motifs designed in a
Moorish-inspired style unusual for Beirut.
Preservation activists from groups like Save Beirut
Heritage have held public events to call attention to
the threatened site.
Last year, Maya Chams Ibrahimchah, a philan-
thropist and preservation activist who is not one of
the building’s owners, took a different approach. She
undertook a partial restoration of the space with her
own money to throw an elaborate party for her hus-
Design
ANWARAMRO/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

band’s birthday—and to prove that the space was
worth saving.
Like many Lebanese, Ibrahimchah has been dis-
mayed to see historic buildings bulldozed to make
way for high-rises in the little-regulated post-war de-
velopment boom.
“The destruction of the entire heritage of Leba-
non is happening now as we live,” she says. “It’s very
hard to deal with this, and I found that the only way
of being able to preserve something or anything is to
transform these palaces or homes into something that
is lucrative.”
In the absence of a national preservation policy,
individual initiatives like hers sometimes seem to be
the only way to protect the historical buildings that
have survived the wars and the privatised redevelop-
ment of Beirut.
Gregory Buchakjian has spent the past decade
photographing Beirut’s abandoned buildings in an
attempt to create a sort of historical archive. He has
photographed and inventoried some 760 abandoned
sites, producing a PhD dissertation and an exhibition
at Beirut’s Sursock Museum.
Buchakjian says that even before the civil war,
which began in 1975, Beirut was not a city that took
measures to preserve its historic buildings.
“This city is not a city like Rome that is a museum
city,” he says. “It is a city that is completely chaotic.
Beirut is a city where old
and new live side by side.
Bottom left: Arthaus
Gemmayze, a new design-
led boutique hotel from
Nabil and Zoe Debs.
Centre: the yellow house,
or Barakat Building.
Design
It’s a city that eats itself like some kind of monster,
and though people are nostalgic, nostalgia is not
enough to save heritage.”
But in recent years, preservation activists have
succeeded in stopping the destruction of some his-
toric sites. The most high-profile of these, formerly
known as the “Yellow House” or Barakat Building, is
an elegant four-story home located on the Green Line
that divided east and west Beirut during the Lebanese
civil war. Taken over as a snipers’ post during the war,
it was slated to be demolished afterwards.
The building was saved, largely through the ef-
forts of architect and preservation activist Mona
Hallak, who has pushed for it to be turned into a
“museum of memory of the city.” After undergoing
renovation, the site is now run by the Beirut muni-
cipality and occasionally opened to the public for
exhibitions and events.
“To me, it’s not the right way. This building has
to be a museum, it’s not a gallery,” Hallak says. “But
some people argue that at least it’s open to the public
for some exhibitions.”
At other sites, property owners have undertaken
their own renovations. One high-profile recent exam-
ple is the Grand Sofar Hotel, a once-luxurious hotel
and casino in the mountains above Beirut. In its hey-
day, it hosted luminaries and famous entertainers like
the singers Sabah and Um Kalthoum and was the site
of political intrigues. After the civil war began, it was
abandoned, looted, and occupied by the Syrian Army.
Last year, at the initiative of owner Roderick Sur-
sock Cochrane, the historic hotel was renovated. It
hosted an exhibition of works by Lebanon-based
British painter Tom Young detailing the site’s history,
along with music and storytelling nights. Though it no
longer functions as a hotel, it now serves once again as
the site of elaborate weddings and events.
In the Gemmayze neighbourhood, home of a bus-
tling nightlife and some of the best-preserved old resi-
dential quarters remaining in the city, Nabil Debs and
his wife, Zoe, are renovating a complex of old family
homes surrounding a garden into a boutique hotel.
Debs says the project was possible because his
family owned the land and the properties. For those
interested in buying and renovating heritage proper-
ties, however, the cost of land in Beirut is a barrier.
“Where we have our hotel, we could have a
20-story building, so if we were to buy the land,
we would be buying for the right to build those 20
stories plus the potential profit,” he says. “What is
difficult is that the economy is based on real estate,
banks and developers, and it is unfortunate that they
each feed into each other.”
Some preservation activists, including Hallak,
have pushed for a national law that would create “her-
itage clusters” in which historical buildings would be
preserved, while giving the owners rights to build
instead on empty lots in non-historic areas. Different
versions of a draft law have made their way to Parlia-
ment over the years but have never been actively taken
up for discussion.
In the meantime, some smaller steps have been
taken: a government committee must now review ev-
ery request for a demolition permit in Beirut, a mea-
sure that Hallak says was “instrumental in stopping
the demolition of hundreds of buildings.”
But, Hallak says, a national law is the best way to
preserve Beirut’s heritage while also being fair to the
owners of old buildings.
“By law, they can have a 14-floor building instead
of a three-floor old house, so how do you compensate
these people whose money is in their land? We are in
a very small city, so land is gold.”
Joana Hammour, an organiser of the Save Beirut
Heritage campaign, says even preservation activists
don’t all agree on the best mechanism to protect her-
itage sites. But she says a national law is necessary.
“It’s not perfect, that’s for sure. There are some
gaps, there are some complications, but it’s way bet-
ter than the situation we’re in today,” she says. “We
can’t work building by building any more. It’s really
about the whole area, the neighbourhoods, the peo-
ple. The law would be the umbrella for preservation
of the heritage.”
“Beirut is a city
that eats itself
like some kind
of monster, and
though people
are nostalgic,
nostalgia is not
enough to save
heritage”
AERIAL:RAMZIHACHICHO/ISTOCKPHOTO;INTERIOR:GUILLAUMEDELAUBIER;
BARAKAT:MOHAMMEDMUDARRIS;TALLBUILDING:RORIZAHR/ISTOCKPHOTO

A dialogue with the past
AL MUREIJAH ART SPACES RESPECTS HISTORY WITHOUT REPEATING IT, ADDING
A VIBRANT CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL CENTRE IN THE HEART OF SHARJAH
Dimension
Since the first Sharjah Biennial in
1993, demand for exhibition space
in the culture-obsessed emirate has
exploded. Sharjah Art Founda-
tion, which organises the biennial,
tapped architect Mona El Mousfy
to design a new venue for contem-
porary art in the heart of Sharjah’s
heritage district. Al Mureijah Art
Spaces opened in 2013.
El Mousfy, founder of archi-
tecture studio SpaceContinuum,
knows SAF intimately, having con-
sulted on the biennials since 2005.
The land now occupied by the
art spaces held heritage houses in
disrepair, having last been inhab-
ited in the 1970s. El Mousfy used
only 65% of the site, preserving
three buildings and leaving others
as ruins. Traditional architec-
ture was limited by the length of
wooden beams, which didn’t ex-
ceed 3.5 metres. While respecting
the footprints of the homes and
the connecting alleyways that me-
ander between them, El Mousfy
opened up the interiors to provide
the space that contemporary
art needs.
“We wanted to keep the layers
of the past and consider this space
a new layer,” El Mousfy says. “We
view history as dynamic and didn’t
want to imitate the old layer. We
wanted to dialogue with the past.”
In other ways, the past is
present. Traditionally, rooftops
were social spaces, but with the
advent of air conditioning units
were routinely placed on the roof.
El Mousfy chose a chilled-water
system, with the main unit housed
in a separate building, to cool the
interiors and to “give back the
rooftop and its importance as a
social space,” she says.
Exterior walls, like the orig-
inals, are thick—niches could
be carved out, creating spots for
sitting. As in the past, when rooms
could change function based on
the family’s needs, Al Mureijah’s
spaces also are flexible and multi-
functional.
The tradition of courtyards also
continues, as outdoor exhibition
spaces. Two of the buildings are
literally courtyards—one has a
retractable canopy and the other
a skylight. The fluid links between
inside and out permits a variety
of lighting, from bright to diffuse,
which serve different kinds of art.
The modern buildings are easy
neighbours with the timeless, clean
lines of surrounding traditional
architecture. “There’s a balance
between how you transform the
morphology and topology of urban
spaces to more fluid spaces that
support the social and spatial re-
quirements around contemporary
art,” she says.
El Mousfy’s efforts have won
notice, earning a place on the
shortlist for the Aga Khan Award
for Architecture 2019. —CB
Architect Mona El
Mousfy has served as
the Architecture
Consultant for the
Sharjah Art Foundation
since 2005. She
founded her own studio,
SpaceContinuum,
in 2014.
The squares and
courtyards were
designed to connect
fluidly with the
interior galleries
AGAKHANTRUSTFORCULTURE/CEMALEMDEN
59SOLVA TECHNOLOGIES
Co-founders Mohammed and
Yousif Al Abd are pioneering
electric bikes in the UAE,
with the delivery market firmly
in their sights
Business
SHERAA WORKS TO CREATE A NEW GENERATION OF ENTREPRENEURS / TWO ENTERPRISING
BROTHERS DRIVE THE DEVELOPMENT OF ZERO-EMISSION VEHICLES / AIR ARABIA’S
ADEL ALI IS FLYING HIGH / A TECH HUB IS SUPPORTING START-UPS BEHIND THE BARRICADES
SOLVATECHNOLOGIES

Business
A
curved white back ending in an
upturned fin glides along the glass-like
surface of the Khalid Lagoon. It’s no
whale. It’s a BluePhin rubbish-eating
AI-driven robot. It’s also a shining
example of the vibrant start-up environment in Shar-
jah, whose skyscrapers bristle at the water’s edge.
BluePhin Technologies was founded in 2018 to
offer low-cost solutions for cleaning up waters, a
precious commodity in the United Arab Emirates.
BluePhin acts like a Roomba for bodies of water,
hoovering up some 370 water bottles at a time. The
goal is that it will collect up to 350kg of rubbish
in two hours and will prevent 500 million tons of
carbon dioxide from leaking into the atmosphere
every year by ensuring that plastics are recycled not
discarded. It will also track pollutants and monitor
water quality.
BluePhin’s made-in-Sharjah innovations attracted
the attention of Bee’ah, an environmental manage-
ment company that has zoomed from start-up itself
in 2007 to more than 6,000 employees today.
“Bee’ah is currently working with one of our
sustainability start-ups, BluePhin, helping with the
development of their autonomous water waste-col-
lection vehicle that will ultimately be part of
Bee’ah’s waste-management fleet,” says Najla Al
Midfa, CEO of Sharjah Entrepreneurship Cen-
tre. “It is a testament to the massive potential for
corporate innovation that comes with investing in
start-ups, and we are keen to encourage that mind-
Sheraa’s hub at
the American
University of
Sharjah is designed
to encourage an
exchange of ideas.
Sheraa is creating a new
generation of entrepreneurs.
By cultivating a pipeline
of positive changemakers
it is making Sharjah a vibrant
start-up hub.
By Tamara Pupic
COURTESYOFSHERAA
DREAM FACTORY

do not know what the next steps are. In response, we
developed our Pre-Seed programme to help fledg-
ling start-ups develop their prototypes, identify their
customers, and enter the market.”
This is how Sheraa has operated from day one, Al
Midfa says, “running lean experiments that help us
connect the dots and better understand the gaps in the
ecosystem. We have spent the past three years analys-
ing those gaps, taking in feedback from our stakehold-
ers, and developing our programmes accordingly.”
Today, Sheraa is a “full-stack” venture-building
experience that guides start-ups from napkin to mar-
ket. It provides equity-free grants to high-performing
start-ups, as well as connections to investors and
corporate and government entities. In particular, Al
Midfa says, Sheraa’s founding partners—Air Arabia,
Bee’ah, Crescent Enterprises, Sharjah Media City,
and Sandooq Al Watan—have been extremely help-
ful in forging closer relationships between start-ups
and corporates.
This is not without a legitimate reason, Sharjah
is a booming market. The emirate has launched
numerous free zones including Sharjah Publishing
City and Sharjah Media City, and soon the Sharjah
Research, Technology and Innovation Park, which
is expected to further strengthen industry-academia
partnerships. Last year, Sheraa opened its second
hub at the University of Sharjah campus.
Al Midfa adds that in addition to producing a
steady flow of skilled entrepreneurs, ensuring the
ecosystem thrives also requires instilling an entrepre-
neurial culture, entrepreneur-friendly policies, and
access to capital.
“It is interesting to note how an entrepreneur’s
profile shifts depending on their level of experi-
ence,” Al Midfa says. “Younger founders—fresh
graduates or students—tend to be more willing to
take risks and experiment because there are fewer
consequences if they fail. On the other hand, they
lack experience and are often easily discouraged by
failure because they are not as aware of the challeng-
es that come with entrepreneurship.” Founders in
this category, she says, are also most likely to struggle
with societal and familial pressures to “get a real
job,” especially as they often lack the capital needed
set across the private and public sector.”
Sharjah is home to 1.4 million people and 45,000
small and medium-size enterprises. “When it comes
to Sharjah, many are surprised that it has an entrepre-
neurship scene, though this misconception is being
rapidly debunked,” Al Midfa says. “Sharjah continu-
ously benchmarks itself against the best. It is this phi-
losophy and long-term focus that has made it a centre
for the arts, tourism, and quality education, and it is
what will cement its place as an entrepreneurial hub
as we invest in the economy of the future.”
Sharjah Entrepreneurship Centre, known as
Sheraa, or “sail” in Arabic, is a start-up acceler-
ator—or “ecosystem builder”—headquartered at
American University of Sharjah (AUS). “Since our
launch in 2016, the core of Sheraa’s mission has
been our founders,” Al Midfa explains. “We sought
to invest not in the latest technologies or trends, but
in people, because we believe people are the drivers
of positive change. Entrepreneurship is one way
to generate this change, and thus Sheraa serves as
a platform for start-ups to be built and grown into
ventures that will contribute to job creation and the
growth of the region’s economy.”
Business
In just three years, the accelerator’s four programmes have helped
validate over 150 ideas and graduated over 70 start-ups, which
have raised more than US$37 million in investment, created 500-plus
jobs and generated over $24 million in revenue
Najla Al Midfa, CEO of Sharjah
Entrepreneurship Centre, is no stranger
to start-ups herself, having co-founded
job platform Khayarat
Sheraa is planting the seeds of entrepreneurship
early. “The opportunities that the hub provides on
campus for an undergraduate like me played a large
role in me finding my passion for entrepreneurship,”
says Simran Chowdhry, who as a student at AUS
co-founded BluePhin Technologies with Irfan Vak-
kayil and Anand E.P. “Sheraa plays a pivotal role in
turning the student into an entrepreneur and found-
er, by bridging several gaps along their journey.”
In just three years, the accelerator’s four pro-
grammes (Idea Lab, Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A)
have helped validate over 150 ideas and graduated
over 70 start-ups, which have raised more than US$37
million in investment, created 500-plus jobs, and gen-
erated over US$24 million in cumulative revenue.
Sheraa’s model was initially envisaged as a three-
month accelerator where entrepreneurs would come
in with their ideas and graduate with fully grown start-
ups. “Through our first programme, we discovered a
gap between someone coming in with just an idea on
a napkin and a growing start-up ready to pitch to in-
vestors,” Al Midfa says. “This is also apparent among
pitch competition or hackathon winners, who despite
being granted the capital to develop their start-up,
Sharjah Entrepreneurship
Centre is working to create
a steady flow of skilled
entrepreneurs. The busi-
nesses they create will build
the economy of the future.
The opportunities the hub
provides help would-be
entrepreneurs find and
hone their passions.
LESSONS
LEARNT
BY NAJLA
AL MIDFA
“I realised early on that the
true measure of success is
the difference you have made
in people’s lives, and for much
of my life I have been driven
by the desire to cultivate that
positive change. Along the
way, I have learned:
1
If you want to lead change, you
must be willing to challenge
the status quo and see how
far you are able to push the
boundaries. No one is going to
give you permission.
2
As the saying goes, you are
the average of the five people
you spend the most time
with. It is therefore important
to ensure that you surround
yourself with people who are
as passionate, ambitious, and
eager to learn as you are. This
is why at Sheraa, building the
right team of dynamic talent
who believe in our mission has
been such a vital component
to our success.
3
Setbacks are inevitable, but
how you respond to them
is the difference between
failure and growth. You must
be willing to view challenges
as learning opportunities,
and continue to invest in
your own development.”
“Younger founders—
fresh graduates or
students—tend to be
more willing to take
risks and experiment
because there are
fewer consequences
if they fail”
COURTESYOFSHERAA

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