Overview

'Everyone in Syria has lived his war. Every day people have fought for their lives, every day has brought a bid for survival, but it is not only bodies that suffer; souls, too, go through these battles, dying a thousand times in anticipation, only to rise up wearily to face another day.' So begins the eyewitness account of Marwa al-Sabouni, a young architect based in war-torn Homs, on Syria's bitter conflict. Seen through the revealing lens of architecture and depicted with clarity, conviction and deep intelligence, she shares her personal experience of how the built environment directly affects the community that inhabits it, how the stage for civil war has long been set in her country, and how architecture might play a role in reversing the damage. The Battle for Home reveals uncomfortable truths and asks important questions, but ultimately offers hope for rebuilding both a proud country and a much-needed sense of identity.

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9780500292938

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Reviews

'Incisive ... speaks with that particular mix of solicitude and sharp criticism born of true belonging married to broadness of perspective' - Art Review Asia 'A visionary memoir. . . extraordinary' - Observer 'An angry and personal memoir' - Daily Telegraph 'An understated gem of a book . . . gripping' - The Spectator

An architectural memoir about the devastating civil war raging in Syria for the past six years, The Battle for Home argues passionately for architecture's pivotal role in shaping social realities. Marwa al-Sabouni, a young and ambitious architect still defiantly living in her severely destroyed city of Homs with her husband and two children, uses her own autobiography and architectural sensibility to tell a selective history of her native city, and of Syria more generally, down to the excruciating present. The book is divided into six chapters, each cast as a battle with one of several facets of what is in the end the same enemy: predatory change motivated by greed, bad taste, and misguided Modernism. That detrimental change--which left huge swaths of economic inequality, urban underdevelopment, and ethical privation--directly contributed to the breakdown of Syrian society. Al-Sabouni's ink sketches in freestyle both illustrate her arguments and subtly push them further. For instance, she uses thick lines in depicting an urban redevelopment proposed by the authorities after the destruction of Baba Amr, which emphasizes the brutality of the intervention. Her own clever project for the same reconstruction, inspired by an organicist reading of traditional architecture, is rendered with various thicknesses that enhance its spatial complexity. A softer touch is reserved for the historical and vernacular examples that al-Sabouni favors.

Author Information

Marwa al-Sabouni has a PhD in Islamic Architecture and runs a private architectural studio in Homs, Syria. She is co-owner of the first and only online media site dedicated to architectural news in Arabic: www.arch-news.net.

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