Tradition and change in the built space of Yemen: the description of a process as observed in the former Yemen Arab republic between 1970 and 1990

Abstract

Built space In Yemen is observed through the forms taken from the earliest phases of the process of building and dwelling In an agricultural territory to the Increasingly complex expressions of settling and developing urban structures, before and after the Republican Revolution of 1962. The Revolution is seen as a turning point in building methods and attitudes; and the twenty years that followed the consolidation of the Republican regime in 1970 exuberantly illustrate the results of the country’s consequent exposure to an industrial culture hitherto unknown. The manifestations of pre-Revolution times and those taking shape in the subsequent twenty years are approached from parallel points of view. The later period, however, includes not only a study of built form but also the declared intentions for planning growth and conservation within the environment as a whole. Disruption appears as a consequence of cultural change and the mitigation of its effect as a government responsibility. Consolidated forms of domestic architecture are studied and a basic distribution pattern of regional variations is proposed. New approaches in the process of building may be creating original idioms and radicalising economic and stylistic differences between the urban and the rural contexts. An attempt is made to identify meaningful trends.