Out of Antiquity


Site: MIT Maihaugen Gallery
City/State: Cambridge, MA
Country: USA
Year: 2024


The “Dead Cities”, a romantic Orientalist name given to a group of over 820 settlements in northwestern Syria, present the most complete classical rural setting in the world. Masterfully carved out of gray limestone and built without cement, many stood in pristine condition until the early 20th century.
This exhibit features detailed drawings by Francesca Liuni for a book by Nasser Rabbat, models by Elshareef Kabbashi, academic books and photographs, showcasing the widespread influence of the Dead Cities architecture on later Islamic structures.
The architectural drawings were previously published in a Nasser Rabbat book of 2018.
All drawings are printed on Kozu Japanese paper to retain their ‘hand-drawing’ quality. All drawings are realized by mixing both digital, hand drawing techniques and textures.
The exhibit starts outside the gallery space where visitors can see on the maroon wall the title of the exhibit, a drawing of one of its most prominent architectures - which became the icon of the show - and see-through line drawings on the small windows approaching the entrance of the gallery (on the left). Upon entering the gallery visitors can see 6 large panels with architectural drawings (made by Francesca Liuni) and text (written by Nasser Rabbat): A small topography of the area of interest, two large horizontal panels and 4 large-scale vertical panels all including both drawings and text. All panels were printed on Kozu Japanese paper in order to retain the ‘hand-drawing’ quality of them. The other 3 large-scale drawings were included in 48”x48” vitrines located in the back wall of the gallery together with rare books and a physical model of the Aleppo mosque minaret.
In the center of the gallery, a low vitrine encases the 2018 publication where some of the drawings and research first appeared to the public and physical models of the area of interest.
The drawings are all architectural reconstructions of places that we could not visit at the time or places that are now lost because of years of war.
The architectural reconstructions are based on former archeological surveys, book descriptions, historical photos and contemporary photos (often of ruins). The reconstruction does not claim to be precise and, as with all preservation processes, they embed a degree of subjectivity in the choice of the layer of history to preserve and how to represent them. The use of a for of representation and printing that reminds old archaeological drawings and hand-drawings has been chosen to reinforce this idea and remind the viewer that those are approximations and reinterpretations of a past that is no longer there and we cannot really access. The sharp light, the textures, and the color are aimed to recreate a sense of place and in no way have the claim to be scientifically accurate.
Graphic design, and printing were done by Francesca Liuni.
Co-curated with: Nasser Rabbat











