ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN IN UAE

The geografical location of the UAE , helped in the easy transportation of craftsmen from neighbour countries especially Iran, India and Pakistan. They were professionals in building mosques, malls,neighbourhoods and palaces. We can see from the clear prints they’ve left in Dubai, Sharjah and some other contries in the UAE.

The craftsmen used vases and plenty of plant patterns in their buildings , and till now there are several plant ornament buildings stood in Dubai.

If we focus and look at the architectural habits which was very clear in the anchient buildings of the UAE we find that they were of great numbers & variations . So that we can find in a building different and plenty of architectural habits in different regions .

We will list one example to illustrate those points .

(Al BASTIKIA Neighbuorhood in Dubai)

Al BASTIKIA was built in the 1930s by group of people who migrated from Iran from the BASTAK region, for several social and political influences. Due to the increase of migrates and the telecommunication of the Emirates citizens the humanitanian thinking pattern and skillfull art , transferred to those groups with all what it have of the architecture , patterns and different arts . With the over look at the country and with the comparison , we can see that it looks like both YAZAD and KASHAN countries in iran.

In the BASTIKIA lots of special factors can attract the person’s eye .One of these factors are the wind catchers(البراجيل . There were different variations of wind catchers in this neighbourhood due to the different uses and diffirent tasks . For example , wind catchers differs in the master bedroom than of the livingrooms or the other bedrooms , and this diffirentiation can be in the form , hight or orientation quality in it . We find wind catchers in the master bedroom of the father is much higher and have special patterns .But the others are much less in hight and in patterns .

The planning of BASTIKIA naighbourhood was designed carefully to satisfy people’s needs . Thus the size of the building and the number of rooms depended on the number of members in each family (e.g. either big or small) ,and due to the changeable social matters , the house can also be enlarged ,all depends on the residentes needs .

The house walls of the BASTIKIA are so thick and which varies between 40- 60 cm . Thickening the walls to that extint is for :

1 To stand a new building of 2 or 3 more flats

2 To stand the hard climate of the gulf .So that cold air is kept inside the house due to its penetration fromm the wind catchers , and keeping the hot air out of the house by means of openings in the building walls .

The masons used Jepsium and coral stones in building walls , so that Jepsium fills the holes inbetween the coral stones and works on the final finishings of the in and out walls .

The masons who built the BASTIKIA neighbourhood were professionals in designs and ornaments . But those masons did not have enough knowhow to highlite the suitable general figure of a building . The general study of the plan of a building , was hard on them . Therefore they did not consider the right propotions horizontal plans.

The circomstances was inforced on the plan’s study

Because they tried to show the ornaments of the opennings and walls , forcing the building upwards which made the propotion of the building look clear with the highering of the wind catchers .So the propotion became suitable and comfortable with the general view of the building.

Before they used to care about the inward designs rather than the outside . We can see this clearly in the plan. Large courtyards with garden , lobbies, storage rooms, majlis , water well…….

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