Heritage Villages

Across the Arab world, whole towns were built from the ground they stand on — mud brick in the valleys, dressed stone in the mountains, coral and gypsum along the coast. The result is settlement that reads as part of the landscape rather than an interruption of it.

The kasbahs and ksour of southern Morocco, at Ait Ben Haddou, Ouarzazate and along the Draa, are among the most complete examples: fortified earthen villages with corner towers, decorated facades and a single defensible entrance, surrounded by palm groves fed by hand-dug channels.

The same logic appears elsewhere in different materials. Diriyah's At-Turaif in Saudi Arabia is built in Najdi mud brick; Al Hamra and Misfat al Abriyeen in Oman rise in stone above their date terraces; Rijal Almaa in Asir stacks stone towers striped with white quartz; Shibam in Yemen builds eight storeys upward in mud.

Many emptied during the twentieth century as roads and cities drew people away, and earthen architecture decays quickly once it stops being maintained. Restoration programmes across the region have brought a number of them back as museums, guesthouses and inhabited quarters — which is the only form of preservation that actually works for a mud-brick town.