Rehabilitation of Souk al-Saqatiyya in old Aleppo wins ICCROM-Sharjah Award

The rehabilitation of Souk al-Saqatiyya in the Old City of Aleppo won the ICCROM-Sharjah Award for Best Experiment in Cultural Heritage Conservation and Management in the Arab region.

ICCROM-Sharjah is one of the most important contests that takes place every two years and is concerned in cultural heritage in the Arab region. It aims at honoring and rewarding outstanding works that contribute to the protection and vitality of tangible cultural heritage in the Arab world.

The project of rehabilitating Souk al-Saqatiyya, which was submitted by the Agha Khan Institution for Cultural services-Syria, ranked first among 14 other Arab cultural projects.

The project is considered as a leading example of reconstruction in Syria that demonstrates the competence of the Syrian national expertise in rehabilitating historical sites that were massively damaged because of the war in the country.

 The restoration of Souk al-Saqatiyya took about 8 months of hard work by a national Syrian team in cooperation with the Agha Khan Fund for Culture as a donor and a supervisor in cooperation with  several local partners, including Aleppo city Council, the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums and the Syrian Trust for Development. The project was completed in July 2019 and the souk reopened in October of the same year.

The project had the necessary qualifications needed to win the award, including surveys and scientific studies on this historical site, preparations for the launching of  the restoration works, methods of rehabilitation, joint mechanism for cooperation between concerned parties in order to fulfill the work at the specified time, reviewing the historical eras of each building and focusing on the buildings in the vicinity of the Umayyad Mosque.

The restoration studies were characterized by documenting and registering the various ornamental elements all over the market, so that the shops inside it will have a unified shape that contains the beauty and originality of the historical buildings and provides the best conditions for modern infrastructure without interfering with the unique identity of the Syrian architectural heritage.

Souk al-Saqatiyya, located south of the Great Umayyad Mosque, is one of the 37 famous large markets of Aleppo, the oldest of which dates back to the 4th century BC.

The Souk links all markets in the old city. It extends from the door of Antioch in the western side of the old Aleppo to al- Zarb souk in the opposite side of the Citadel of Aleppo.

Re-opening this market has proved Aleppo as the capital of national economy and sent a message of love, peace and tolerance from the city of culture and heritage, stressing that Aleppo has regained its humanitarian and economic role and that with hope and work, the Syrians will continue to rebuild their homeland.

Hamda Mustafa