Thesis on Aleppo successfully defended

The dissertation entitled “Reclaiming the Architectural Heritage of Aleppo after the Syrian War” received magna cum laude. It discussed different aspects of Aleppo’s history and its built heritage to clarify the issues that the city is facing today. The dissertation focused on four intertwined topics. The first topic was categorizing the architectural styles and spaces in Aleppo and relating these styles and their areas to time periods and historic events. Furthermore, a map was created to clarify the distribution of these different styles over the city. The second topic revolved around the changes and urban deterioration that occurred in Aleppo from the Syrian independence until the present time, in addition to the war-time division of the city to east and west. The third topic was examining the shift from the traditional open courtyard houses to historicist style housing in the late 19th century and examining the roots of the city’s division, in addition to discussing the neglect of the historicist style in Aleppo. Finally, the fourth topic was the rehabilitation attempt led by (DOCA), the old directorate of Aleppo and (GTZ), the German organization for technical cooperation, which ran between 1994 and 2010 and ended shortly before the war started. The preparation of Zeido Zeido’s thesis was kindly supported by a grant from Gerda Henkel Stiftung – together with Noura Ibold whose dissertation focuses on the recent history of Aleppo as well. Both have published on the division of Aleppo with Routledge/London in 2019.