Aga Khan Award Winner AR NOURA AL SAYEH

Noura Al Sayeh has worked as an architect in Amsterdam, New York, Jerusalem, Bahrain and Paris. She was also co-curator of Reclaim, Bahrain’s first participation at the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, which was awarded the Golden Lion for best national pavilion. An architect par excellence, who recently won the Aga Khan Award 2019, Noura shares her thoughts with #SurfacesReporter on the Winning Project: Revitalisation of Muharraq, Bahrain.

What made you think of revitalising Muharraq?

The idea behind the revitalisation of Muharraq started with the vision of Sh Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa to rebuild her grandfather’s majlis that had been demolished. The idea behind the rebuilding of the majlis was two-fold, on the one hand to revive the role of the majlis as a cultural centre, and on the other to revive the old historic neighborhoods of Muharraq that had been somewhat neglected and were at the periphery of cultural life. The majlis was rebuilt in 2006 and served as a cultural centre that hosts a weekly programe of lectures, musical concerts and theatre plays, reviving the cultural role that her grandfather’s majlis had played in the region. From that first project, the Shaikh Ebrahim Centre for Culture & Research (SEC) was born which today has renovated more than 15 traditional houses in Muharraq along with the rehabilitation and the upgrade of the surrounding neighborhood.

How and why did the project evolve into a comprehensive programme entitled Pearling Path? At what stage did this happen?

From the initiative of the SEC, the idea evolved in early 2008 to include all of the rehabilitation of the old city of Muharraq through the project of the Pearling Path. The idea was to expand the rehabilitation efforts that were carried out by the SEC at the governmental level to include a more comprehensive vision for the whole of the city of Muharraq spearheaded by Shaikh Mai through her role as the

President of the Bahrain Authority for Culture & Antiquities. The preparation of the nomination folder of the Pearling Path was headed by Dr. Britta Rudolff.