Back to Earth

If you walk through Kuwait City with someone who lived there before the 1960s, you often get a tour of buildings that no longer exist.

“Someone from an older generation will pinpoint empty plots and say, ‘I used to live here, our neighbor used to live here, kids used to play here,’” says Zahra Ali Baba, a Kuwaiti architect and cultural heritage specialist. “They remember the earthen buildings that are no longer there.”

As she explains it, Kuwait’s capital city was originally built in the 18th century with earthen blocks. As the country’s oil industry grew, though, most of these earthen structures were replaced by buildings made of materials like concrete and steel, and new streets crisscrossed what used to be roads lined with mud-brick neighborhoods. Today, only a few earthen structures remain in Kuwait City, and among those, many have been “repaired” with concrete instead of earth.

Many earthen sites around the world face similar risks. Earthen buildings require maintenance to survive challenges like earthquakes, floods, and new development, but their caretakers may not want, or know how, to preserve them. To teach the next generation of earthen architecture conservators the skills they need to preserve earthen sites in their own communities, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) led a four-week training initiative last fall called the International Course on the Conservation of Earthen Architecture.

The course is a partnership between the GCI and the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi with the support of the Oman Ministry of Heritage and Tourism. Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE)—an oasis city that has been inscribed on the World Heritage List—was used as an open-air laboratory where participants learned practical, hands-on methods for preserving earthen buildings and archaeological sites. On a study trip to Oman, participants were assigned an exercise: develop conservation planning measures for urban settlements made of earth in Nizwa’s Al Aqr neighborhood, an ancient, fortified city built in mud brick.

20 students hailing from Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, India, Morocco, Nepal, Bangladesh, Spain, the US, and Ecuador received training they can take back to their communities and made connections with colleagues in the earthen conservation field they can consult for future projects. Participants emerged from the course armed with the tools to preserve precarious earthen heritage sites.

“In the long run, learning more about the craft of traditional architecture really contributes to the value of society and future generations,” Ali Baba says.

A Long History and an Uncertain Future

You can find buildings made from earth all over the world, from Latin America to the Middle East, Africa, and the American Southwest. Earthen buildings date as far back as the Neolithic era and as recently as the 21st century and have served as homes, places of worship, schools, hospitals, and palaces. Many feature detailed carvings, adornments, and other intricately designed decorative elements, though earthen architecture can vary dramatically. Structures from different places may use dissimilar types of soil and building techniques, so specialized knowledge is required to construct and preserve the architectural style in each area.

The advantages of earthen architecture are significant. It utilizes an already plentiful natural resource that can be right under our feet; remains cool in hot temperatures and warm in cold temperatures, reducing the need for air conditioning or heating; keeps indoor spaces naturally quiet; and features an architectural style developed by a region’s native residents, rather than colonizers or other outside influences.

That said, earthen buildings face several challenges. They’re vulnerable to earthquakes, heavy rains, and floods, and many earthen buildings need structural upgrades to withstand these catastrophic events. Knowledge about earthen building methods is not widespread—a building’s owner may not know how to properly make repairs or find experts who can help. Restoring earthen buildings authentically, without the use of modern additives like concrete, can also be expensive.

But the biggest challenge to conserving or building earthen structures, experts say, is the belief that earthen architecture represents the past and doesn’t have a place in a city’s future. Many people prefer modern building materials like concrete, glass, and steel, and view ultra-modern cities such as Dubai as aspirational. For them, putting in the effort required to save earthen buildings is just not worth it.

There’s good news, however. Naima Benkari, assistant professor in civil and architectural engineering at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman and an instructor for the GCI course, said she has noticed a shift recently among academics and local governments toward preserving earthen buildings. In Oman, for example, government officials hoping to increase tourism have begun to champion the preservation of the country’s traditional architecture. But many people still tell her they prefer newer construction.

“I showed one of my students a building that looks like a glass cylinder,” Benkari remembers. “She told me, ‘I like that. It is very pale, and it is very modern.’ And I told her, ‘What if it was made out of our local materials, the most sustainable materials, the least polluting, the least greenhouse-gas-emitting?’ ‘Oh, no, no, this is backward,’ she said. They are all focused on glass and steel structures, multistory buildings, even in the middle of 45 degrees Celsius [113 degrees Fahrenheit].”

Teaching the Next Generation

The GCI organized courses on conservation and management of earthen architecture and archaeological heritage in Latin America in the 1990s, but the idea for a series of courses set in the Middle East didn’t crystallize until 2015.

GCI project specialist Benjamin Marcus had worked in earthen architecture conservation in Abu Dhabi years earlier and knew that Al Ain and Oman would provide ample opportunity for the hands-on study of earthen architecture conservation in an area where education in earthen materials is limited and where conservation professionals may not have the resources to travel for additional training. The first course was held in 2018; the second, covering similar material, in 2022, and both took place in Al Ain and Oman.

Students spent the first three weeks in Al Ain. The lessons covered topics such as the history and theory of conservation, materials analysis and construction techniques, nondestructive testing, and decay mechanisms. Participants learned how to conserve an earthen building holistically, from documentation and assessment to repair of various types of structural damage and erosion, and finally adaptive reuse, to give life to abandoned earthen structures. The course also included modules on the conservation of decorated surfaces of earthen architecture and on management concerns for earthen archaeological sites. For the final week, the students journeyed to Nizwa, Oman, to examine the 17th-century earthen settlement of Harat Al Aqr, identify threats to the architecture, and develop proposals for its future conservation.