Living Under the Crescent Moon

Domestic Culture in the Arab World

A Vitra Design Museum Travelling Exhibition

Living Under the Crescent Moon is an exhibition about domestic culture and private life in the Arab world, from both traditional and present-day perspectives. With an unprecedented, rich selection of objects, architectural models, photographs, films and other media, the exhibition depicts fascinating interiors ranging from nomadic tents in the Sahara to rural housing such as the Moroccan casbah or Yemeni dwellings to splendid urban courtyard houses in Marrakech, Cairo or Damascus. Such diverse ethnic groups as the Berbers, Bedouins and others are represented. The exhibition conveys the importance of colours, patterns and symbols in Arab domestic culture, but also discovers a striking modernity in its use of space and objects, and in the way it integrates influences from other cultures.

Living Under the Crescent Moon

Domestic Culture in the Arab World

Under the High Patronage of the German Foreign Ministry

Partner Institutions Fondation Arabe pour lImage, Beirut, Lebanon cole Nationale dArchitecture, Rabat, Morocco Kunsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno IVAM, Valencia, Spain Muse de lHomme, Paris, France Lindenmuseum, Stuttgart, Germany The Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Geneva, Switzerland

A Vitra Design Museum Travelling Exhibition

Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Concept Exhibition outline Curators Consultants Objects / Installation Catalogue Accompanying sales products Contacts

1 Concept
The territory of Arabic-speaking cultures extends from Morocco in northwestern Africa to the Middle East, and from Syria to the southern point of the Arabian peninsula. The inhabitants of this part of the world live in fascinating domestic environments, ranging from nomadic tents in the Sahara to Yemeni earthen architecture to splendid urban palaces in Marrakech or Damascus. The diversity of domestic life in Arab cultures today reflects a major transformation of social values and the influence of Western societies. The exhibition Living Under the Crescent Moon presents various types of dwellings in the Arab world from both traditional and present-day perspectives. This project conveys the experiences of a large segment of humankind by portraying aspects of life that are most familiar to us and, therefore, most comparable: the domestic setting and daily activities. Of primary interest are the basic topics of design: What solutions have people found for their personal, everyday lives sleeping, eating, dwelling, housework? What roles do decoration, form and function play in buildings and objects? What influence do cultural and religious values particularly the pervasive influence of Islam have upon the objects of daily life? As a design museum, we have consciously approached this topic from an emphatically modern vantage point, in contrast to the Western tendency to romanticise Arab domesticity. While the exhibition assimilates the historical enthusiasm for the fabled Arabian Nights, it also enlarges and completes this view with a detailed look at the reality concealed behind the myth. It becomes evident that domestic life in Arab cultures is not only fascinating from an aesthetic standpoint, but also offers myriad functional solutions for the general problems of everyday life. Components of the exhibition include an extensive array of objects, architectural models, full-size domestic settings that can be entered by the visitor, movie alcoves, information terminals and photo galleries.

A comprehensive view of private life in the Arab world as depicted by the exhibition has remained largely unfamiliar to outsiders because the private realm is regarded as an intimate and sacred refuge. Yet it is the everyday life of people in Arab societies which expresses and best explains their cultural and religious views, values and social environments. In addition, it reflects a vast cultural diversity, ranging from the Berbers of the Maghreb to the Tuareg of the Sahara, from the Bedouins of the deserts to the urban inhabitants of Arab descent on the Arabian subcontinent. By conveying the everyday life, domestic objects and diversity of Arab peoples, the exhibition Living Under the Crescent Moon advances the understanding of a cultural group that has made significant historical contributions to Western culture, yet in many ways remains an enigma.

In the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco

2 Exhibition outline
The exhibition installation is based on three exemplary dwellings in the form of walk-in, semi-abstract domestic settings: a riad (courtyard house), a rural house and a nomadic tent. The riad is the typical type of dwelling in traditional Arab cities. The exhibition shows details of the interior courtyard, the representative salon and other private rooms, as well as numerous household objects. This intimate dwelling complex, with its extremely sheltered private areas, represents the quintessence of the Arabian Nights. However, the exhibition also demonstrates that the fascinating atmosphere of an Arab riad possesses distinctly functional qualities. For example, the courtyard and rich ornamentation in wood or stucco play an important role with regard to climate control, acoustics and water supply. Among the objects on display are precious rugs, ceramics, glassware, mashrabeyas and other household items. Architectural models in this section show basic types of riads from Damascus, Cairo and Marrakech. Rural housing has reached its most remarkable forms of expression in the inhabited fortresses of Yemen, or in the casbahs of southern Morocco. Partial reconstructions of these types of habitations are also displayed in the exhibition, such as an inner courtyard and a room interior. The corresponding household objects differ considerably from those of Arab-influenced urban cultures. For example, the striking simplicity of Berber objects from the Maghreb has affinities with the aesthetic forms of subSaharan Africa. The most important type of furnishing is the rug, which is one of the primary media of artistic expression in the entire Arab world. In this section of the exhibition, architectural models illustrate the examples of a southern Moroccan casbah, a multi-storey Yemenite dwelling and a typical Syrian farmstead. Nomadic dwellings are still found today among the Berbers in the central Atlas Mountains of Morocco, among the Tuareg in the Sahara and the Bedouins on the Arabian peninsula. The exhibition shows a nomadic tent that is typical for the entire Arab region, with a complete inventory of interior objects. Both the material

and utilitarian qualities of these dwellings and objects are perfectly adapted to geographical and climatic conditions. They are lightweight, portable and protected from sand, and often have leather hinges or straps, whose flexibility corresponds optimally to the requirements of frequent travel. The tent, as well, meets diverse demands in terms of versatility and climate control. The interior settings, architectural models and household objects of these three traditional types of dwellings are complemented in the exhibition by large-scale photographs, high-resolution projections and information terminals. Music, scents and light effects recreate sensory impressions of the cultures portrayed. Excursions into present-day living situations are interspersed throughout the exhibition. These include not only a movie alcove, but also the documentary work of contemporary photographers showing individual portraits and domestic interiors. Deidi von Schaewen, who documented several trips to Arab countries for the exhibition, has contributed a comprehensive photographic series. The objects in the exhibition, which have been selected according to formal and functional criteria, will be photographed for the catalogue and scenically installed by a renowned design photographer. Visual impressions of modern-day living environments are augmented by information terminals with sociological statistics on the family and living conditions from UNESCO and the Aga Kahn Foundation.

Urban Housing

Courtyard house, Marrakech

Shibam, Yemen As examples of urban housing, the exhibition shows interiors from Marrakech and Fez, Tunis, Cairo, Damascus and Aleppo, the Gulf States, Sanaa, Shibam and other cities.

House in Bahrein

Interior courtyard of a residence in Fez, Morocco

Rural Housing

Milk jug, Rif Mountains, Morocco

As examples of rural housing, the exhibition shows interiors of clay houses in Mauretania, the casbahs of Southern Morocco, houses of the High Atlas and the Rif Mountains, rural houses in the Near East, painted houses in Saudi Arabia, straw huts in Syria and Yemen, Yemeni mountain villages and more.

Casbah in Skoura, Morocco

Earthen building technique in the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco

In the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco

Clay house, Qahtan, Saudi Arabia

House in the Yemeni mountains

Living room, Tihama, Saudi Arabia

Nomadic Housing

Nomads in Mauretania

Nomads in Mauretania

Nomads in Saudi Arabia

Nomadic tent, Syria

Leather container, Libya/Chad

As examples of nomadic housing, the exhibition depicts the material culture of the saharian nomads like Touareg and Moors, the Bedouins between Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Stand for leather bags, Mauretania

3 Curators
Alexander von Vegesack Executive Director of the Vitra Design Museums In 1978-79, von Vegesack organised tours of Morocco and travelled through the country on horseback at the invitation of the Moroccan Princess Lalla Amina, sister of Hassan II. From 1985 he conducted extensive research on the geographical dissemination of the Arabian riding saddle throughout Spain and to the American continent. Upon the basis of his extensive furniture collection, he contributed to the establishment of design departments at the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Muse dOrsay in Paris, and at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. Since 1989, Alexander von Vegesack has served as founding Director of the Vitra Design Museum. Mateo Kries Director of the Vitra Design Museum Berlin Kries worked at the Museum of Rural Culture in Marrakech in 1994-95. He joined the Vitra Design Museum as a curator in 1995 and has served as Director of the Vitra Design Museum Berlin since 2000. Exhibitions and publications include the topics: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Issey Miyake, Bamboo Architecture, Individual Mobility. He also writes and lectures on subjects pertaining to exhibition management.

4 Consultants
Ariana Ahmad Architect. Expert of urban architecture in Syria. As a research assistant, Ahmed has created a database for the Vitra Design Museum including all of the necessary information to construct architectural models of houses from Morocco, Syria, Egypt and Yemen that will be shown in the exhibition. Zeina Arida Director of the Fondation Arabe pour lImage in Beirut. Expert on photography in the Arab countries. Herwig Bartels Collector. Former German ambassador to Morocco. Stefano Bianca Architect. Director of the Historic Cities Support Programme of the Aga Kahn Trust for Culture in Geneva. Bianca has supervised several major urban planning and restoration projects in Fez, Aleppo, Baghdad and Riyadh. Sbastien Boulay Ethnologist. Research associate at the Muse de lHomme since 1997. Boulay has initiated numerous field studies in Mauritania, as well as exhibitions and comparative studies on Berber nomadic cultures of the Maghreb. Faisal Cherradi Architect. Member of the City Council for Culture in Marrakech. Expert on Moroccan rural architecture and founder of the Centre de Conservation et Rehabilitation du Patrimoine Architectural Atlasique et Subatlasique (CERKAS) in Ouarzazate.

Bert Flint Collector. Flint has resided in Marrakech since 1957 and owns a collection of Berber objects. Director of the Museum Maison Tiskiwin in Marrakech. Oleg Grabar Historian, art historian and Islamic expert. Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University, previously at Michigan and Harvard. Grabar lectures extensively and has published a number of standard textbooks on Islamic art history. Peter Claus Haase Expert for Islamic studies. Director of the Museum of Islamic Art SMPK in Berlin since December 2001. Haase was previously Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute, University of Copenhagen. Pascal and Maria Marchaux Architects. Extensive research studies in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Numerous publications and exhibitions on Yemeni architecture and domestic life, including Sanaa, Parcours dune cit dArabie at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Elie Mouyal Architect. Born in Fez in Morocco. Studied architecture in Paris. Mouyal is one of the worlds most renowned exponents of clay architecture. Located predominately in Morocco, Mouyals buildings follow in the tradition of Egyptian architect Hassan Fathi. Annegret Nippa Ethnologist and Islamic expert. Director of the Staatliches Museum fr Vlkerkunde Dresden since 1997. Docent for ethnological studies in Berlin, Bern, Zurich; docent for architecture and urban planning in non-European cultures at the Hochschule der Knste Berlin. Nippa also teaches at Leipzig University. Sakina Raghib Director of the Muse de la Ville de Marrakech.

5 Objects / Installation (status September 2002)

approx. 10 walk-in or view-in room settings 6 architectural models approx. 10 architectural elements such as doors, windows etc. 1 nomadic tent approx. 100 objects (furniture, rugs/pillows, household items out of ceramic, metal, glass, wood) approx. 8 films incl. AV-equipment approx. 4 interactive info-terminals incl. hardware large-format photographs and numerous historical and modern photographs (prospective) all installation display elements (platforms, shelving, etc.)

Exhibition floor space: approx. 600-1000 square metres Transport volume: approx. three 40-feet high-cube containers (prospective estimate)

6 Catalogue
A catalogue of approximately 280 pages is being published in conjunction with the exhibition. It contains essays by Stefano Bianca, Oleg Grabar, Annegret Nippa, Mateo Kries and others, and includes photographs by Deidi von Schaewen and others.

7 Accompanying sales products

The Vitra Design Museum will offer an assortment of exhibition-related retail products to partner venues.

8 Contacts
For booking arrangements or questions regarding the exhibition itinerary, please contact: Vitra Design Museum Reiner Packeiser Head of Exhibition Department Charles-Eames-Str. 1 D-79576 Weil am Rhein reiner.packeiser@design-museum.de Tel. +49 (0)7621 702 3729, Fax +49 (0)7621 702 4729 Questions about the exhibition concept or content should be directed to: Vitra Design Museum Berlin Mateo Kries Director Kopenhagener Str. 58 D-10437 Berlin mateo.kries@design-museum.de Tel. +49 (0)30 47 37 77 10, Fax +49 (0)30 47 37 77 20 Vitra Design Museum Berlin Tanja Thiele Curatorial assistant Kopenhagener Str. 58 D-10437 Berlin tanja.thiele@design-museum.de Tel. +49 (0)30 47 37 77 15, Fax +49 (0)30 47 37 77 20