Architectural and urban identity of Homs city

Abstract

Introduction. The article aims to determine the architectural and urban planning elements that give buildings and residential neighborhoods their identity in Homs city in Syria. During the last century, environmental and social problems have accumulated. The city’s parts have subjected to many violations in the construction processes and the weak construction laws. Within the past ten years, the war crisis in Syria caused massive destruction in the old city too. Together, all these factors contributed to losing an important and essential part of the city’s structure. Materials and methods. Throughout retrospective and comparative analysis, in addition to observations and photographic recordings, the basic architectural and planning features in the city of Homs have been identified. These features distinguish Homs from the rest of the Syrian cities. The merging process of social and environmental characteristics and their interconnectedness shaped the so-called “Homsi” identity. Results. The research concluded that Homs’ city possesses unique planning and architectural characteristics that distinguish it from other Syrian towns despite the historical connection between the Syrian cities. Thus, the character and the city’s architectural and urban identity have developed, so architects and urban planners should not ignore this identity in the next stage of recovery and reconstruction. Conclusions. This lost identity of Homs must be reintroduced creatively in the next stage of reconstruction because it carries the meanings of environmental sustainability in addition to being a historical and cultural legacy that cannot be neglected in the future if we ignored it now, all the attempts to revive only the visual image of the city will not save the identity and will generate a fake and weak personality of the city.