The city of Tarim, in the Hadhramawt, is known for its
elaborate early twentieth-century mud-brick palaces. The
Tarim Documentation Project, has successfully proposed that these
palaces be listed on the World Monuments Fund's 100 Most
Endangered Sites (2000-01 and 2002-03). The project plans a long-term campaign to document
27 of them in the hope that eventually several of them may be restored for
adaptive reuse. The work involves professional architects, students in
architectural preservation from Columbia University, staff members of the Museum of the Hadhramawt and
Yemen's General Organization of Antiquities and Monuments, and
architecture students from the University of Mukalla (Yemen). In
addition to long-term documentation and conservation, James Conlon of the
Columbia University's Media Center for
Art History, Archaeology, and Historic Preservation has developed an impressive array of
online pedagogical resources.
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Online resources: The Tarim Project's
website is maintained by James Conlon of the Columbia University Media Center for Art
History, Archaeology, and Historic Preservation. This teaching site also contains
brief
reports on the field seasons.
Project funding: The initial feasibility study was funded by the Samuel H. Kress
Foundation and a fellowship to Pamela Jerome funded by AIYS' program grant from the State
Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). Field seasons of documentation
beginning in December 2002 - January 2003 have been supported by funds from successive AIYS
program grants from ECA, the Kress Foundation (in support of student participation), the Social
Fund for Development (Sana'a), and Columbia University. The Social Fund for Development and
the US Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation have provided funds for emergency restoration of
the Ishshah Palace (pictured above), now in use as a house museum operated by the Tarim Historical
Society.
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