Umm Qais Museum (Bait Rusan Restoration)

The site of Umm Qais is about 400 m. above sea level. it overlooks Wadi al Arab to the south, Yarmouk Valley to the North, and Lake Tiberies to the North-west. 

The conservation of Umm Qais Museum represents one of the first attempts to save late -19th-century architecture in Jordan. Situated in archaeological site - Gadara of Decapolis-the late Ottoma n part of the village was bought by Jordanian Gov. as an archaeological site.By 1987 most inhabitants the old village moved away , leaving behind one of the most complete traditional architectural fabrics of last century in Jordan.

 

This project was made to set several examples; the ability to turn deserted and neglected buildings into functional and needed facilities, the fact that renovating an old building could be less expensive than constructing new building of the same size, labor intensive construction methods to be used in rural areas of hight un-employment, and that renovation when done simply, guaranties better aesthetics than Jordan's mostly insensate modern architecture.

   

Most important aspect of this project was that when it started, in 1988, it went against the normal trend of demolishing structures of its period to excavate earlier remains. Demolishing of such structures was and still is done by private owners for they are not old enough and thus not protected by Jordanian Antiquity law. It was important to give attention to structure of this period, solid attention backed with budget coming from an outsider source and to offer a precedence to Jordan public and private sectors.

During project activities the site became a learning place that older master masons could remember their traditions of construction, which in recent years became out of use. The site offered a chance for young men from the village to learn from older skilled ones and showed to them that traditional building techniques are still in demand. To the modern village this project did convince some to use stone from the surrounding to construct "modern" walls and in this way it helped to correct a psychological behavior that considers concrete as status symbol.

 

 

Copyright (c) 2002 Ammar Khammash Architects. All rights reserved.