living under the crescent moon
TRANSCRIPT
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A Vitra Design Museum Travelling Exhibition
Living Under the Crescent Moon
Domestic Culture in the Arab World
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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.
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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
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Contents
1 Concept
2 Exhibition outline
3 Curators
4 Consultants
5 Objects / Installation
6 Catalogue7 Accompanying sales products
8 Contacts
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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 domesticenvironments, 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 thepervasive 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 Arabcultures 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.
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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
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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 orna-
mentation 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 inhabitedfortresses 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 consider-
ably 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 sub-
Saharan 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 ofthe 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
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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 contemporaryphotographers 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 photo-
graphed for the catalogue and scenically installed by a renowned design photo-
grapher. Visual impressions of modern-day living environments are augmented by
information terminals with sociological statistics on the family and living conditionsfrom UNESCO and the Aga Kahn Foundation.
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Courtyard house, Marrakech
Urban Housing
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Interior courtyard of a residence in Fez, Morocco
Shibam, Yemen
House in Bahrein
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.
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Earthen building technique in the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco In the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
Casbah in Skoura, Morocco
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 mountainvillages and more.
Rural Housing
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House in the Yemeni mountains
Clay house, Qahtan, Saudi Arabia
Living room, Tihama, Saudi Arabia
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Nomads in Mauretania Nomads in Saudi Arabia
Nomads in Mauretania
Nomadic Housing
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Nomadic tent, Syria
Stand for leather bags, Mauretania
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.
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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 theVitra 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.
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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 necessaryinformation 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 andrestoration 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.
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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 Archaeologyat 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 NippaEthnologist 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.
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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.
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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
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
DirectorKopenhagener Str. 58
D-10437 Berlin
Tel. +49 (0)30 47 37 77 10, Fax +49 (0)30 47 37 77 20
Vitra Design Museum Berlin
Tanja ThieleCuratorial assistant
Kopenhagener Str. 58
D-10437 Berlin
Tel. +49 (0)30 47 37 77 15, Fax +49 (0)30 47 37 77 20