Saving Aleppo’s Heritage Stories from Local Graduate Architects

London Festival of Architecture in collaboration with Places of ARcture and with the support of the British Council have invited local graduate architects who practice in Aleppo, Syria, to curate a display at the Victoria & Albert Museum about the importance within their own practice of protecting cultural heritage in their home city of Aleppo.

This display is a chance to explore some of the surviving architectural heritage in the ancient part of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in a country devastated by 11 years of conflict. Visitors will explore the challenges of preserving and restoring a living heritage site, whilst respecting and incorporating the needs of the local people connected to the area. Visitors will discover the different ways that these architects are positioning the identity of the city, and its tangible and intangible heritage, as the cornerstones of its reconstruction.

Curators:
- Muhammad Achour, Director, and Founder of Places of ARcture
- Dania Al-Shelhawi, Graduate Architect, Projects & Events Coordinator at Places of ARcture
- Mohamad Al-Assali, Architect, PhD student majoring in Archaeology at the Higher Institute for The History of Arabic Science, Aleppo Syria.
This display is curated in collaboration with the V&A’s Culture in Crisis programme and was made possible with the support of the British Council.