Khaldoun Fansa is an Aleppo native who was displaced by the Syrian Civil War. For many years he worked as an architect who managed restoration of Aleppo's Old City for private owners as well acting as a consultant for the Aga Khan Trust. Visit the Old City of Aleppo is Fansa's effort to keep Syrian culture alive in a difficult time and to prepare for the day when the cannons are silent and women and men of good will can begin to rebuild their city and their lives.
Visit the Old City of Aleppo is a book for children as well as a book for adults who may choose to read aloud to a child. The narrative follows young Tamim and his father on their explorations of the Old City, pre civil war.
Accent pages provide insights from 5,000 years of culture and history reflected in the houses, covered markets, and narrow alleyways. Aleppo was a major trading center built of Roman stone that continued to flourish in the time of Marco Polo and later served as the favored British trading route to India. Aleppo's Old city is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Given the damage done to Aleppo in recent years, writing a book to celebrate the city might be considered a grim undertaking. But Khaldoun Fansa—Aleppo native, architectural preservationist and fierce urban defender—knows just how to begin. His book is pitched to children, the generation charged with the city’s long-term repair. Written as a conversation between a boy and his father, who—like the author—knows the city from top to bottom, the book follows them as they visit the city’s landmark Citadel, the suqs, a walled city gate, the 15th-century adjacent neighborhood of al-Jdayde (the diminutive form of “new”) and the interior of a traditional house. The book’s sidebars on architectural history, its old and new site photos, and city maps and plans add value for adult readers. Fansa’s final words might serve as a defiant epigraph: “Before the identity is lost, before the insight is blurred, and despite the multiple afflictions today, this City, built with stone, remains.”
AramcoWorld
