About the Author

Fahd Abdullah holds a B.Architecture from the University of Dhamar and an M.Architecture from Sana'a' University. He has worked for Yemen's Department of Urban Planning, conducting architectural studies and preparing designs for the conservation of historic cities. He is currently employed by the Social Development Fund (SFD) as a consultant for the cultural heritage unit and he is a member of the photogrammetric team.Sabina Antonini is the Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Yemen for Monumenta Orientalia (Rome). From 1984 to 2013, she was archaeologist and Principal Art Historian for the Italian Mission's excavations in Yemen. Since 2012, she has also contributed to CNRS (Paris) archaeological campaigns in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. She is the author of nine monographs and over fifty articles on South Arabian Archaeology and Art History. Dr Antonini obtained a BA in Classical Archaeology at the University of Perugia and a PhD in Archaeology and Art History of the Near East at the University of Naples L'Orientale.Deborah Dorman was born in 1959. She grew up in a number of different countries, but the place she loved most was Ethiopia, where she lived from age 9 to 14. After attending the University of East Anglia (History), she worked in the Palestinian Occupied Territories for three years, teaching English at the University of Bir Zeit. In the 1990s she did a masters degree in Development Policy and Economics at SOAS, London University and worked with a variety of NGOs while in Yemen. Since leaving Yemen she and her family have lived in Graz, Austria.Barbara Finster received a PhD from the University of Tubingen for her study of Die Moschee von Damaskus. She conducted post-doctoral research on the Fruhe Islamische Moscheen in Iran at the University of Erlangen, where she also taught Islamic Art. She has carried out field research in Iran and Afghanistan; conducted surveys and excavations in Iraq (DAI); conducted surveys of Islamic architecture in Yemen (DAI), and carried out research in 'Anjar (Lebanon). Finster was a Professor of Islamic Art at the University of Bamberg from 1996 to 2003, and has been an Emeritus Professor since 2003.Ingrid Hehmeyer is Associate Professor of History of Science and Technology at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. She received a doctorate in Agriculture (1988) and a Master of Science (equiv.) in Pharmacy (1990), both from the University of Bonn, Germany. She specializes in human-environmental relationships in the arid regions of ancient and medieval Arabia. Her current research focuses on the history of water technology in medieval Yemen, where she investigates technical innovations in hydraulic engineering and strategies for water management that allowed people to live under harsh environmental conditions.Pamela Jerome, AIA, LEEDTM AP is a preservation architect with over 35 years' experience and President of Architectural Preservation Studio, PC, a New York City-based architecture and preservation firm. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Ms. Jerome is immediate past vice president of ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Earthen Architectural Heritage (ISCEAH), and now serves on the international ICOMOS Board. Her expertise is in masonry conservation, waterproofing, and site management; she has consulted on cultural-property conservation in the US, Mediterranean, Black Sea, Middle East and Far East.Tom Leiermann did an apprenticeship in agriculture and then studied architecture at the Technical University in Berlin (1989). As an architect in Bremen, he managed various public projects in the surrounding region. In 2003, he joined the Shibam Urban Development Project in Yemen, a joint Yemeni-German enterprise managed by GIZ. Under the umbrella of various international and Yemeni institutions, he also managed conservation activities in Yemen's three World Heritage Sites: Shibam, San'a' and Zabid. He continues to work as a consultant for preservation and humanitarian initiatives in the country. Leiermann is author of Shibam: Living in Mud Towers (2009) and a number of journal articles.Ronald Lewcock is an architect, conservator and scholar. He was Aga Khan Professor of Architecture at MIT (1984-91) and Chairman of the Aga Khan Program at Harvard and MIT (1985-7); Fellow of Clare Hall Cambridge University (1970-85); consultant on conservation to UNESCO (1978-97); Technical Coordinator of three UNESCO International Campaigns (San'a', Shibam. Uzbekistan), and Professor of History and Theory in the Doctoral Program in Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology (1991-2008). In 1999 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Architecture by the University of KWZ-Natal, and in 2005 he was made Honorary Professor of Architecture at the University of Queensland.Tim Mackintosh-Smith's first book, Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Land, won the 1998 Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award and is now regarded as a classic of Arabian description. Since then he has travelled, written and filmed in the footsteps of the fourteenth-century Moroccan world-wanderer Ibn Battutah. Tim has also translated several works on the history of Yemen and, most recently, edited and translated the earliest known Arabic travel book, Accounts of China and India. His insider's knowledge of San'ani building comes from long acquaintance, and has been enriched by hands-on experience with traditional materials.Nabil al-Makaleh received a B.Architecture from Sana'a' University (1990). He was Deputy General Manager at the General Organization for the Preservation of Historic Cities in Yemen (GOPHCY) from 1991 to 2002, and later established a new body within that organisation that took Charge of Architectural Training and Studies (CATS). He became a member of the Higher Technical Committee of GOPHCY and the General Manager of CATS. In 2002, Al-Makaleh was made Projects Manager at the Social Fund for Development (SFD), and became the Head of its Cultural Heritage Unit in 2014. He has participated in numerous programmes organised by ATHAR/UNESCO and attended conferences worldwide.Trevor H.J. Marchand is Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and received the Royal Anthropological Institute's Rivers Memorial Medal (2014). He was trained as an architect (McGill), received a PhD in anthropology (SOAS), and qualified as a fine woodworker at London's Building Crafts College. During the past 25 years, Marchand has conducted fieldwork with craftspeople around the world. His list of books include Craftwork as Problem Solving, The Masons of Djenne, and Minaret Building and Apprenticeship in Yemen. Marchand's recent documentary films include The Art of Andrew Omoding, The Intelligent Hand, and Masons of Djenne. He has curated exhibitions on the mud architecture of Mali for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the Royal Institute of British Architects, and on Yemen's diverse architectural heritage for the Brunei Gallery in London (2017).Anne Meneley graduated with a PhD in Anthropology from New York University. She is a Professor of Anthropology at Trent University in Canada. Her dissertation research focused on competitive hospitality in Yemen, resulting in a book, Tournaments of Value: Sociability and Hierarchy in a Yemeni town (1996); this book has just been released in its 20th Anniversary Edition (2016). She has served as a board member of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association. Her recent work deals with the production, circulation and consumption of olive oil in Italy and Palestine. She has published articles in American Anthropologist, Anthropologica, Cultural Anthropology, Ethnos, Food, Culture & Society, Food and Foodways, Gastronomica, Religion and Society, and Social Analysis. Cristina Muradore works as cultural advisor and project manager at the Istituto Veneto per i Beni Culturali. She holds a BA in Middle Eastern studies, a MA in Cultural Mediation and a second MA in International Cooperation, Protection of Human Rights and Cultural Properties. She promotes the importance of culture and heritage as a tool for building resilience, empowering populations and strengthening nations. She is the co-author of various scholarly essays and she has lectured on Yemeni heritage at Ca Foscari University in Venice.Venetia Porter is a curator (Assistant Keeper) at the British Museum, responsible for the collection of Islamic art (in particular, of the Arab World and Turkey) and modern Middle East art. She holds a degree in Arabic and Persian and an M.Phil in Islamic Art from the University of Oxford, and her PhD on The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517 was awarded by the University of Durham. She has curated numerous exhibitions including Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East (2006) and Hajj: Journey to the heart of Islam (2012). Her publications include Islamic Tiles (1995) and Arabic and Persian Seals and Amulets in the British Museum (2011). She is currently Lead Curator for the Albukhary Foundation Galleries of the Islamic World, which will open at the British Museum in October 2018.Renzo Ravagnan, architect, supervised many construction and restoration sites, both private and public, and he complemented his profession practice with research and writing and editing a variety of scientific and historic essays. In 1995 he founded the Istituto Veneto per i Beni Culturali, a center addressed to the training of professionals in the field of restoration. In 2005 he was invited by the Social Fund for Development to take up service in Yemen, where he contributed to the conservation of the Great Mosque in San'a'and the al-Ashrafiyya mosque and madrasa in Ta'izz. Architect Ravagnan was also the curator of the National Pavilion of Yemen at the 15th Biennale in Venice. Noha Sadek is an independent scholar of Islamic art based in Paris. She earned her Ph.D. degree in Middle East and Islamic Studies from the University of Toronto (1990) with a thesis on Rasulid architectural patronage. She directed the American Institute for Yemeni Studies in San'a', Yemen (1995-97). Her on-going research focuses on the art and architecture of Yemen on which she has published in English and French, and has edited two works in Arabic: North American Contributions to the Archaeology of Yemen (2002) and Studies on Medieval Yemen (2003). She is co-editor of the forthcoming book Taizz: Capital of Yemen (13th-15th Century) with Eric Vallet (Sorbonne University) (to be published by Archeopress, Oxford).St John Simpson (PhD) is a senior curator in the British Museum where his responsibilities include the collections from ancient Arabia and Iran: he led the development of the permanent gallery displays for Ancient South Arabia and the Rahim Irvani Gallery for Ancient Iran (2007), and has curated major special exhibitions, Queen of Sheba: Treasures from ancient Yemen (2002), Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World (2011) and The Scythians (2017). He has excavated and travelled extensively in the Middle East and Central Asia and one of his current projects is looking at the history of the Middle East through the medium of printed postcards.Nancy Um is associate professor in the department of art history at Binghamton University. Her research explores the Islamic world from the perspective of the coast, with a focus on material, visual, and built cultures on the Arabian Peninsula and around the rims of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. She is the author of The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port (Seattle 2009) and Shipped but Not Sold: Material Culture and the Social Protocols of Trade during Yemen's Age of Coffee (Honolulu 2017, forthcoming).Fernando Varanda is a Portuguese architect and urban designer living and working in Lisbon, where he also taught at the Universidade Lusofona, from 1996 to 2014. Early in his career (1973), when he first travelled to Yemen as a UNDP volunteer, he developed a lifelong interest in the relationship between building practices and natural settings and consequently conducted research in this field in Yemen, West Africa, Pakistan and Portugal. His best-known book is Art of Building in Yemen (1981, 2nd edition 2009). Similar surveys conducted by him in Portugal resulted in the books Mertola no Alengarve (2002), and Terra e Casas no Oeste (2009).Gabriele vom Bruck received her doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science where she subsequently taught. She currently lectures in the Anthropology of the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Her publications include articles on elites, religious movements, consumption, gender and photography in Yemen. She is the author of Islam, Memory and Morality in Yemen (2005) and co-editor of The Anthropology of Names and Naming (2006) and Precarious Belongings: Being Shi'i in non-Shi'i Worlds (in press). Her forthcoming book Mirrored Loss: A Yemeni woman's life story will be published by Hurst & Company. Shelagh Weir was formerly Curator for Middle East Ethnography at the British Museum, and is now an independent researcher and writer. She has published two books on her field research on Jabal Razih between 1977 and 1993: Qat in Yemen: Consumption and Social Change, British Museum, 1985, and A Tribal Order: Politics and Law in the Mountains of Yemen, British Museum and University of Texas Press, 2007.

Reviews

'This timely book shows how in Yemen mud technology has been stretched to its limits to produce buildings perceived as staggeringly beautiful by outsiders, and which are highly satisfying places in which to live and work, finely tuned to their environment, and with a strong sense of identity. But it also stresses just how vulnerable this architecture has become to changing social structures and, even more so, to the devastating impacts of recent conflicts. If this is all to survive, there needs to be a strong, shared understanding of its enormous value to humanity and of the skills and social structures needed to sustain it: this collection of essays offers a very substantial contribution to that task.' -Susan Denyer, World Heritage Adviser, ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites);'Architectural heritage of Yemen: Buildings that fill my Eye is an absolute must for anyone interested in the marvels of Yemeni architectural design. It offers a remarkable insight into the varied history, use and meaning of the country's many domestic and public places, ranging from the famous tower houses and the many citadels, minarets, mausoleums and mosques, to the narrow streets and alleyways that connect as well as divide them. Sadly, because of the impact of intense and prolonged conflict, this remarkable, rich and distinctive architectural heritage is now under serious threat of being damaged, abandoned or lost. Architectural heritage of Yemen is an excellent and timely reminder of the need to document and preserve, in Marchand's words, 'one of the world's finest treasure-troves of architecture', and to raise awareness of the need to protect not just the buildings, but also the people who have created, lived in and cared for it.'-Dr Marcel Vellinga, Reader in Anthropology of Architecture; Research Lead, School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University; 'Yemen's rich and diverse cultural heritage has shown all its fragility in recent times and it is more than ever in need to be valued, protected and brought to the attention of the world. The richness and quality of scholarly contributions in this publication helps us to see beyond the beauty of the architectural expressions of different regions of the country. It helps us to appreciate the human creativity and ability to craft complex structures at times in very harsh environments, using a variety of locally available materials to adapt to climatic conditions and yet maintain a high quality in the design and in the diversity of the decorations. An intangible "savoir faire' that has been transmitted verbally for centuries though generations of local craftsmen and that is still present but also at risk of disappearing under the present circumstances. Prof. Trevor H.J. Marchand is taking us on an architectural journey around the country but he also reminds us very eloquently how much architectural heritage and the knowledge which made it possible, is at risk of disappearance and the first thing to do is to remind ourselves of our responsibility of citizens of the world to respect it and defend its values.'-Anna Paolini, Director of the UNESCO Office in Doha