Lamprakos...
might ease the transition, is very young in Yemen and lacks a culture of internal critique.
The ustas, too, recognize the problem: “The experience of 1,500 years — even in
the quality of the brick — has been lost,” one usta told me. “If there is no shepherd,
the goat gets lost. We builders are goats without a shepherd: each works the way
he wants.” Another usta points out that he does the best he can, given constraints
beyond his control. The tower house, which has become an icon of the city, is be-
ing transformed dramatically from the inside out. The house type was designed for
collective living, with different activities occurring on each floor. It grew vertically
over time; the size and rhythm of windows were carefully modulated in a way that
reminded one author of Yemeni poetry (Figure 2). Today, the tower house has in
many cases become a kind of apartment house, with nuclear units of an extended
family living on separate floors. When new floors are added, windows are the
same on each floor, since floors no longer vary in use (Figure 3). The regulations of
the conservation office, enforced by well meaning but underpaid and often insuf-
ficiently trained inspectors, do not help. As in other parts of the world, they focus
on conformity to a generalized “style.” This only contributes to the impoverishment
of the buildings’ façade.In the old houses, the proportions of the façade derived from interior requirements, specifically, the height of a person
seated on floor cushions. This set the height of the window sill and the ceiling — and thus the placement of decorative
brick coursing, which occurs at the floor framing. Now, the ustas say, everyone wants furniture, so the window sill and
the ceiling must be higher. They also want large windows, which changes the characteristic window shape. Old-style
windows are narrow rectangles; atop the rectangles are two short verticals or “necks” on which the arch sits, giving the
arch an elongated proportion. If the window is very wide, the arch would run into
the floor — so the neck is eliminated. “It looks squat,” says one usta, “like a man
without a neck.”
Moreover, the constructive system itself has changed. The decorative brickwork
characteristic of Sana’ani architecture is related to the load-bearing brick wall. Now,
most clients want concrete houses, although the ustas try to persuade them that
concrete is unsuited to the cool climate. The concrete frame or block wall may be
erected by a contractor, and an usta called in later to “decorate” it with brickwork.
The brickwork thus bears no functional relationship to the underlying structure
(Figure 4).
It seems clear that new turath will continue to evolve, but how? In the old city, the
Figure 4: Brick arches and detailing ap-
plied as veneer on a concrete block wall.Figure 3: A recent addition to a house
in the old city, by an usta who specializes
in turath.