The ongoing Jeddah Ghair (Jeddah is Different) Summer Festival has as one of its main venues the city's historic area in Al-Balad where there is a tourist trail starting from the roundabout going past well-known mosques, the Naseef House and other important landmarks in Old Jeddah. Sami Nawar, general director of culture and tourism, Jeddah Municipality, said that Jeddah Ghair not only looks with pride at the city's architectural, cultural and folklore heritage, but also with confidence to the future – creating a bridge based on the strong time-tested foundations. Nawar, who was earlier director of Jeddah Municipality's Historic Areas Preservation Department, said that the Kingdom's architecture, culture and heritage were being preserved in accordance with the instructions of the government. The authorities have long been engaged in preserving the unique architecture of Old Jeddah. Just about a fortnight ago, Prince Sultan Bin Salman, president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), reviewed the project for the rehabilitation of the historic center of Jeddah, which is to be carried out by the City Center Development Company (CCDC). Restoration of the historic buildings with their unique architectural features, forms a key part of plans to preserve Jeddah's heritage. “Jidda is supposed to be one of the oldest cities in the world. It is a very picturesque place, especially as seen from the sea,” writes Arthur J. B. Wavell, who at 25 was the first pilgrim author to describe the Damascus-Madina railway. Writing about Jeddah in the early 1900s, Wavell adds, “… It is in a very dilapidated condition. The high narrow houses seem tottering on their foundations – the minarets of its mosques are all yards out of the plumb. A slight earthquake shock would reduce both places to a heap of rubble.” He describes the streets and markets as dirty, and says, “Here at Jidda the sea breezes keep the air moving and help to carry away the miasmas arising from the unsanitary condition of the streets and habitations.” From just over half a square mile of land in the walled area, Jeddah has burgeoned more than a thousand times that size to become one of the Arab world's most important commercial centers. In 1947, the population of the city was less than 30,000 people; by 1970 the number of residents was still considerably less than 100,000. By 2005 the population grew to over 1.25 million, and today it is estimated at about 2.5 to 3 million people. Architecture in Jeddah was very much influenced by the fact of the extended family – the father, the grandfather, the grandsons and the sons, sometimes exceeding 50 persons – living in the same house, resulting in houses as tall as five to six stories . Swiss traveler, J.L. Burckhardt, who visited Jeddah in July 1814, noted that every house in Jeddah was two stories high with small windows and wooden shutters, but some houses had bow-windows “exhibiting a great display of carpenter's work.” Burckhardt wrote in his book ‘Travels in Arabia' that in general, the entrance consisted of a spacious hall, where visitors and strangers were received and which was cooler than any other part of the house during the heat of the day. The merchant families of Jeddah have left their mark on the city – such as Beit Naseef (Naseef House), and Qabil Street. Built in the 1870s by the Naseef family, one of Jeddah's oldest and most respected merchant families, Beit Naseef still stands majestically along the old city's main street, Suq Al-Alawi in downtown Jeddah, popularly known as the Balad area. The house was home to 100 members of the family and their staff. The building has four stories at the front and seven at the back, and until the 1970s it was the tallest building in Jeddah dwarfing all the buildings around it. The founder of present-day Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz Ibn Abdul Rahman Al-Saud, is said to have lived in this house during his visits to Jeddah. Qabil Street, one of the oldest business streets in Jeddah, named after the Qabil family that owned the land originally, dates back to the early days of 20th century. Located in the heart of Jeddah's historic center, Qabil is a favorite, especially among people patronizing the area's many gold and currency-exchange shops. On any given day, one will find a sea of people, especially engaged in shopping for goods ranging from the elementary, like small tea kettles, to hi-fi electronic items, from glassware to gold ornaments. As they move around buying or tasting a wide variety of food and drink ‘dishes', every step they take brings them face to face with history – the hundreds-of-years-old buildings sentinels of traditional Jeddah architecture. Qabil Street was the first street in the city to be electrified as all the leading businessmen wanted to do business in the street. Some of the old commercial buildings of Qabil Street are still standing as a monument of the historical character of the city. Most of the buildings carry the Hijazi architectural features with a marked stamp of the Islamic architecture of the Egyptian Arabesque and Andalusian style. The indigenous architecture of Jeddah strove to emphasize two basic features – simplicity and serenity. It was a homologous type of architecture – seeking aesthetics and beauty in simple but vigorous form, in well-balanced relationships of void to solid and in application of simple geometry. There were neither pretensions nor fakery in the architectural forms, yet they were masterpieces of local craftsmanship and artistry. Even in the use of building materials, the builders demonstrated ingenuity as well as respect to the locale of their creations. All construction materials (except for wood, which used to be imported), were derived from local sources, with the dominant building material being coral reef (hajar mangaby or kashur) taken from the area where the sea has receded or has been reclaimed. Walls and partitions were usually heavy, ranging in thickness between two and three feet. They were built of coral limestone. To protect the vulnerable limestone, the walls were coated with a thick layer of lime based plaster locally called nurah. The lime was obtained by burning crushed limestone in special underground furnaces for four or five days. The resulting powder was then mixed with clay in the proportion of one to four, and with a certain amount of water. The mixture was left in containers for one night, after which it could be used for plastering purposes. Finally, the plastered wall surfaces were whitewashed by lime water, obtained by dissolving calcium hydroxide powder (slaked lime) in water, and later adding to it a bluish substance (bleach) to preserve the white color of the paint. Jeddah architecture is very much dominated by the orientation of the building, which is generally towards the sea, the wind coming from the northern part and the sea, northwest (sham or Syria) or facing the sea. The exterior load-bearing walls of the multistory houses were normally reinforced by a series of wooden beams set horizontally in the walls about every five courses of stone blocks. These wooden beams were left inside the wall in their natural colors, conspicuous on the exterior wall surfaces, thus creating a pleasant appearance of clear horizontal lines breaking the expansive smooth wall surface. A cheaper quality wood was used for doors, windows and balconies. The stairs were also constructed of coral blocks. Every single step was built of stone, plastered, and protected at the front edge by a five by five centimeters wooden log (farshah), laid on top of three, long wooden sticks (nagl). Roofs were flat as they were frequently used for sleeping, laundry and often also as children's playgrounds. They were constructed mainly of wooden beams and joists, about 15cms in diameter, sometimes carved and painted. The flat roofs were always surrounded by high parapets for privacy, pierced by a series of openings with wooden grilles to allow the circulation of the cool sea breeze and to permit a view of the horizon. The roof was also used to collect rainwater. It was usually constructed with a slight slope leading to a hole at one side, into which rainwater was led and then guided to an underground cistern via a canvas gutter. The ground level consisted of a dahleez, a spacious entrance hall providing a reception area for guests. On both sides of the dahleez, were the office and business suite of the patriarch, called al-maqad, as well as the servants' and aides' quarters. A kitchenette and bathrooms also formed part of the ground floor. The upper three or four floors provided the living quarters for the master of the house and the rest of the extended family. Each floor included a family room (suffah), with a kitchen and a bathroom. Another large room, al-majlis, adjoining the suffah, served as a sleeping quarter for a whole nuclear family. The majlis, usually located towards the main facade, was airier and cooler than the rest of the house. It was furnished with several large sleeping alcoves with latticed balconies (rawshans) projecting over the street. Opposite the majlis and towards the rear of the house, another living and sleeping quarter was provided, called al-mu'akhir. This consisted of a medium size room, a kitchen and a bathroom. Wooden balconies called rawshan were used. Artisans really took their time to turn these into beautiful, delicate, pleasing works of art. Since everybody could not afford the expensive rawshan, the carpenters developed a relatively simpler alternative known as the sheesh, a small wooden balcony with lattice screens serving the same function as the rawshan. Unlike the rawshan, the sheesh balcony was only attached to the facade from the exterior and did not provide the interior alcove. Rawshan and the sheesh were used for various purposes – to filter the daylight nicely, keep the glare out, and also get filtered, fresh and clean air into the room. It provided privacy in the house, residents could see outside, but nobody could see from outside.
