Views of the old buildings

Most of the photographs on this page are taken from the web site of the Qatar Embassy in Washington and appear here under my understanding of fair use. Permission has been requested for their use. Their site has many photos and I recommend it for those with an interest in the country. But the photographs of theirs shown on this page are the only old photos on their site. These supporting notes constitute a sort of essay based solely on them, hopefully tying them together in some way.

These first two aerial photographs are here because they are the earliest I have seen of Qatar. The first of them is of Doha taken from the south-west, the second of Rayyan, which I think was also taken from the south-west though at a steeper inclination. Both photographs were taken in 1937. Bear in mind this was only seventy years ago at the time of writing – two generations…

The photo of Doha clearly shows the three reefs off the old jetty and demonstrates that the jetty had not yet been constructed, the boats being pulled up close to or onto the land. I believe the structure in the foreground is the old fort, known as the Kut. The road to Rayyan leads out of the bottom towards the left hand corner of the photo and the wadi Sail from the bottom right. For comparison here is a photo of Doha taken in 1959.

Rayyan was a much smaller settlement in 1937, as it still is today, and was the main area in the peninsular which the al-Thani favoured for their settlements. Here you can see how the families dispersed around the arable land in that area, particularly grouping themselves next to the fort which can be seen as the main structure in the photograph. There appears to have been excavation in the area, but I have not idea what it might have been.

This photograph was taken about 1947, as it is dated, and was taken from the south-east of Doha. At that time the wadi from the hinterland brought water through the suq in winter but was also the main access route through the suq to the sea and jetty. This is a common system for the location of routes not only in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, but elsewhere in the world but has the disadvantage of creating difficulties in the rainy season.

I had thought this was also taken in 1947, but now believe it was taken in 1950. Taken from the north-west, the covered suq can be seen to the west – left – of the wadi with the main maqbara behind it. At the south side of the maqbara is the al Kut fort. On the sea front can be seen some of the compounds of the major merchants of Doha who had established themselves near to the shore where their goods were landed. There are more detailed photographs of this area on the Gulf architecture page.

The fifties saw the beginnings of development along Doha’s foreshore. This first photograph was taken in 1968 and shows that about one hundred metres has been added to the shoreline. You can guage the distance to some extent by comparing the relative positions of the graveyard – the large open space in the top right of the photograph above. At the end of the Wadi Sail you can see a large construction which was the offices of the Darwish family, one of the country’s major merchants. The jetty development can be seen starting at the foot of the photograph.

With the road infrastructure starting came the first major new building, Government House which was constructed on this newly reclaimed land, the old corniche running behind it. Behind the old corniche can be seen the Ministry of Education and the Courts building to its right. This photograph, looking from approximately the north-west, shows the shore a little to the east of the photo above it, as well as the end of the small jetty constructed to ease the moving of goods ashore from the dhows and straight into the suq behind it.

To contrast with the above photos, here is one that gives an indication of the amount of activity in the port in 2005. In the seventies the port was only able to take four ships at a time and, with the amount of materials being brought in to feed the escalating economy, there were always ships out in the roads waiting their turn to berth. Now the port has been enlarged but the same pressure is on the port authorities to bring materials in and have them dispersed rapidly.

Prior to the Diwan al Amiri of the sixties and seventies being constructed, there was a more traditional group of buildings on its site. This view of it, sitting on its prominent rocky outcrop west of the main suq, is from the north-east, looking from what is now referred to as the Ruler’s jetty. The photograph was taken in 1950 and shows a relatively traditional development, though one that was larger than anything else in the State at that time. You can see that, although there is a rock jetty perhaps intended to give access to slightly deeper water, boats were being drawn up onto the foreshore behind it.

To the west of the suq and its new jetty was constructed another, known as the Ruler’s jetty, opposite the new Diwan al Amiri, a development originally built for the Ruler and his family, though not completed nor used as such. For quite a time the jetty was utilised by the police as a base for their marine activities. This photo of it was taken from the tower of the Grand Mosque, completed in 1957, and shows at the bottom of the photograph, a part of the roundabout below the mosque incorporating the clock tower. Parking is set out for the Diwan al Amiri whose front porch can just be seen to the left of the photograph. The Diwan al Amiri was originally built for the ruler, Sheikh Ahmad, but not completed before the accession of his successor, Sheikh Khalifa. Incidentally, it can be seen that the traffic drives on the right, this change from the left having been accomplished in 1966.

This photograph shows the Grand Mosque with its green domes and the minaret from which the photograph above was taken. This view of it was taken looking at it from the west with the south wall of the Diwan al Amiri to the left. The Rayyan Road runs on the right, parallel to the wall on the left but not shown on this photograph and separated from the Diwan al Amiri wall by a small fenced garden area. This area provided some visual relief to the area but was generally closed and treated as a security area to the Diwan despite this photograph showing a pedestrian walking through it.

The clock tower was and, despite the considerable new development, is still a very distinctive feature of Doha. Constructed on a small promontory in 1956 it, together with the old Diwan al Amiri and Grand Mosque, formed an important focus for what were some of the first new developments constructed with the proceeds of the increasing oil revenue. The main masjid and Diwan al Amiri represented the secular and religious faces of the new Doha. This photograph of it shows it under construction but before the surrounding vaulted canopy was built, the pair of structures forming on plan, a representation of a star – the clock tower – and crescent moon – the vaulted canopy, one corner of which can be glimpsed in the photo of the entrance to the Diwan al Amiri and its car park above. With the construction of the first road along the north face of the suq, a number of merchants constructed the first modern offices in Doha, the Darwish family having an office immediately adjacent to the clock tower and on its south-east corner. This area has now been cleared but, at that time, it represented the strong link there was between the merchant and ruling families.

The road at the top of the photograph that shows the Ruler’s jetty was constructed along the shoreline and led west past Feriq al Bida and Feriq al Rumeillah to the new hospital and fort which were located at Rumeillah. It also ran past the Wadi Sail to the road which leads to the north of the country where Umm Salal Muhammad, the fishing towns of Khor and Ruweis were located as well as Zubara, the town where the al Thani – the ruling family – originally settled in the eighteenth century, and which was recorded as long ago as the first century. It should be noted that the history of Qatar can be taken back as long ago as the fourth millennium BC. A fort was built outside Zubara in 1938 as a Police post and is now a museum similar to al Kut in the centre of Doha.

In 1956, it was evident that there was quite a lot of the construction in Doha concentrated around the Diwan al Amiri in an attempt to consolidate this important development with the newly designed road system. Here you can see both the mosque under construction on the right with the Rayyan Road between it and the Diwan al Amiri on the left, the Rayyan Road leading left out of picture. This view looking north shows the Rayyan Road leading west and, straight ahead, turning east past the mosque and entering the Clock Tower roundabout, just out of sight behind the mosque.

Here is a photo of the road in front of the Ministry of Education. It is contemporaneous with the second photo on the page. The ministry was constructed as a two storey building immediately to the east of the centre of the suq with the Court of Justice between them. The road linked the Ruler’s jetty and the road to the north with Feriq al Salata – straight ahead in this photograph. The interest here is in the road itself and its relationship with the water. Vehicles are parked next to the sea and people were able to move to and from the shelter and operation of the suq to the water’s edge.

Well before this development, around 1901, Sheikh Ali bin Abdullah al Thani had constructed a development for himself and family in Feriq al Salata, the neighbourhood immediately to the east of Feriq al Jasrah, the area which included the suq and central housing area. It was an important development in social and physical terms. Sitting on a slight rise in the ground it established a link between the two bays of Doha, the larger bay to its west and the smaller one which was the location of fishing fleets and a boat construction industry.

The development was well established in the mid-fifties, as can be seen by the second and third of these three photographs but, by the end of the sixties it had fallen into severe disrepair and was a particularly sad sight as it incorporated some of the best traditional architecture in Qatar. It has, however, been rescued when, in the nineteen seventies funds were made available and a sensitive modern construction was integrated into the development and elements partially reconstructed – though not exactly to the same plan and design seen in these three photographs. It is now the Qatar National Museum.

This lowest photograph shows the jum’a masjid for Sheikh Ali being constructed. It is also interesting to see the numbers of people around, though I don’t know what it is they are doing.

In the centre of Doha there was – and still is – a very different form of architecture, al Kut, the Turkish fort constructed on rising ground south of the suq. My understanding is that it housed a small garrison and was never in the position of being attacked. The form is similar to desert developments in that a surrounding wall gave protection to an arrangement of rooms inside it. Inset in the walls and defensive towers there are fet’ha al murakaba, small holes in the walls which allow protected viewing and some ability to use small arms against attackers. You can also see on the photograph a number of mirzam designed to throw rain water away from the building, in this case also allowing some of the function of the fet’ha al murakaba.

It is interesting to compare this photograph of the development at Umm Salal Muhammad with the preceding photo of al Kut in Doha.

Umm Salal Muhammad is a town in the centre of the country and is different from most of the other urban developments in Qatar for that reason. Its climate is drier than the conurbations on the littoral, and it has a small gardened area of date palms with ground crops beneath them supported by a reservoir of water contained by a small dam. Around this resource a coalescence of residential development grew up as can be seen in the photograph. However, compared with Doha and Wakra to its south, Umm Salal Muhammad was relatively poor and, to some extent, this demonstrates one of the differences between the bedu, interior settlements, and the trading and fishing settlements on the coastline.

In the flat landscape of that part of the interior the development contains a tall tower which permitted anybody in it to see some distance and give warning in the event of attack. In addition to the residential development there is also a tower to the east of the town which, I believe, was constructed purely for this purpose.

The development of Umm Salal Muhammad can be compared with that at Khor, a much larger town and one based on pearling and fishing. The khor was a protected inlet of the Persian/Arabian Gulf and, on its sloping shores, the houses developed leaving room only for the fishing boats to be beached and nets spread out. The old town was demolished wholesale in the early seventies with the inhabitants being given ‘Public Houses’, a standard three-bedroomed house sitting centrally located in its enclosing, thirty-metre square surrounding wall. These houses were established on the periphery of the existing town and no plan was made for that part of the town when relocating the houses.

Here you can see a photograph of Medinat Khalifa, the new town which was developed two kilometres west of the existing edge of Doha. The housing was as described above and the character of the layout can be plainly seen. I have to say that, while there has been criticism of these layouts, to a large extent it was those who lived in the old housing who pressed for these new developments as they wanted to take advantage of the government’s generosity to obtain both land and a house. Of course they were not responsible for the form of the development which was considered, by its designer, to represent a rational form of housing. I have written more about this on the al-Salata page.

Here are two photographs of the old town of al Wakrah, south of Doha. The lower one you can see to be dated 1956, so it is evident that it had been abandoned by that date. However, I can recall people living there in the early seventies making a small living from fishing but believe that it used to be one of the main pearling centres for the peninsula.

I mentioned the town of Rayyan earlier as being one of the centres of the al Thani family. West of al Wakra was another important al Thani settlement of al Wukair. Regrettably I have no old photographs of Al Wukair though there is one of Rayyan at the top of the page. I remember Al Wukair as being a relatively quiet town and only entered for the access there was through it to the nearest accessible sand dunes to Doha.

In the third, coloured, photo of Al Wakrah you can see one of its important features, the sand bank which created a natural harbour but which, I understand, slowly restricted its use. In fact nowadays there is a long jetty to the right of this photograph enabling access to deeper water. I guess this photograph was taken in the nineteen seventies, though I am not sure. It certainly shows a dual carriageway road moving north-south and was the road connecting Doha with the industrial city and oil loading port of Umm Said.

From the evidence of what remains it appears that Wakrah was a relatively well-off town. Some of that wealth will have come from pearling. I don’t know why Khor should appear less well-off as I believe that pearling used to be its main industry. But the buildings at Wakrah, both in their arrangement and decoration, were some of the best in the country, though it is interesting to see that there is an arrish, a pitched roofed building which would have been roofed with palm fronds in the foreground.

In the first two photos you can see a little of the character of the buildings. There were many two-storeyed houses, most of them facing the sea and turning their backs on the west and its hot, afternoon sun and the shamal, protected by badgheer which allowed cooling winds to flow through the building and were capable of being closed in the event of rain or dust storms.

I’m sorry to say that I don’t know where this photograph was taken, but it is likely to have been an important structure having a basis of four bays by nine, a relatively large space. It is apparently a majlis, a formal meeting room in which the men of the family would meet, discuss and make decisions on a daily basis. It is the public face of the owner to the society in which he lives. It appears to me to be relatively low and I suspect that a row of panels is missing from the top including, of course, its roof and, possibly, parapet.

The form of the structure is plain to see and formed the basis of most buildings in Qatar. It is of trabeated, or column and beam construction, the columns being provided by hasa, desert stones set in a juss limestone mortar with horizontal timber beams between them. Elsewhere I have written about this in more detail. Decoration has introduced non-structural round-headed and ogee arches, but these are purely decorative and make no structural contribution.

Bearing the above structure in mind, for comparison here are two photographs of old houses in the centre of Doha which will have been constructed using that system. The rendered ground floor walls appear to be solid for the sake of privacy and security and, in the ground level walls where the render has come away, they can be seen to be solid masonry constructed of desert hasa or, perhaps, hasa bahri. But I think it’s more likely that the two storey houses have been built with the same column and beam construction, the outside wall finished flush without reflecting this. Note in the top photograph a small ventilation hole at the top of the ground floor to exhaust hot air.

Inside, the structure would have been expressed, creating alcoves which are used both decoratively as well as functionally for storage, shelves or hanging items. Note the rounded corners of the first floor which show that the result of using random-shaped stones for masonry means that you can’t have a bonded, right-angled construction as you would have with rectangular blocks.

You can see the badgheer system operating at first floor level both in providing air to the enclosed rooms while safeguarding privacy, and allowing air to sweep onto the roof surface in the open roof areas. Rainwater is shed from the roof with mirzam. Note how many are used in an effort to shed the water quickly and prevent its build-up and the associated risk of penetration.

In the lower photograph the poles providing the structural foundation of the first floor have been allowed to project to their different lengths. Only in the houses of the better off would the poles be cut to a common length. By projecting the poles through the walls they provide a more secure structural support.

It is notable that there is no naqsh work to be seen as would be anticipated in good quality buildings. These appear to be the houses of ordinary merchants living in a relatively tight urban situation despite the fact that there appear to be relatively wide roads in front of both buildings.

I don’t know whereabouts in Doha this was taken but I would guess it was in the central area as the buildings appear to be two, even three storeys high – and that the photograph would date from the nineteen fifties.

Maritime tradition in the Gulf produced, over a period of time, the zuli affording a degree of privacy and protection from the elements for the crew needing it. Here you can see three or, maybe, four similar systems constructed on the first floor of houses with vertical stacks connected to them. I assume this was a development of the marine zuli, rather than vice versa as I imagine there would have been a need for the marine variety well before multi-storey development suggested a need. But, as I suggested, it’s only a guess.

It’s not possible to tell if they are plumbed into a drainage system. I would have thought that, at the time, the stacks would lead to septic tanks, but the fact that they are in a line and look as if they were constructed as a single development suggests that they might, in fact, be part of a proper sewerage system. Interestingly, I don’t recall seeing such systems above ground floor level, nor do I know when a sewerage system was introduced to Doha.

This photograph was taken in 1956 and shows an early start to the problem of controlling the traffic. Oddly enough, the sun shade appears to be slanting the wrong way and can’t have been that much help to the policeman standing there on duty. I can recall policemen on traffic duty in the early nineteen seventies but can’t recall when the system stopped. Recently this has been reintroduced, but I think it has been related to decisions on tourism relating to the centre of Doha and the reconstruction of the suq.

This photograph, taken in the sixties by the look of the women’s style of dress, shows a part of the old suq in Doha on Wadi Sail and the character of the stalls facing the old street. It illustrates the relatively dilapidated character of the suq in those days. Incidentally, the women’s dress was, and is, quite improper but, regrettably, relatively common…

A little further down the street and, by contrast, this photograph of the Bismallah restaurant shows a new type of building to the country at that time. It appears to be one of the first of the concrete buildings being established in the country. The trabeated construction is evident, and the detailing has much to do with that of the Indian sub-continent. Open ventilation can be seen and the shaded verandah will also assist in keeping the building cool, something which is important as concrete buildings can be extremely uncomfortable. The introduction of electricity enabled restaurants such as this to install ceiling mounted fans which certainly helped cool the spaces.

This photograph is of the new hospital built at Rumeillah, on the slightly higher ground and western edge of Doha in the fifties. It is obviously a concrete frame construction and owes its origins to the development of British architecture in the Indian sub-continent with its reliance on shading and cross-ventilation to create rooms which were relatively cool. It differed from the traditional construction of the country and, of course, it uses different materials and is designed to encompass a new scale and number of spaces compared with traditional architecture.

This leaves two photographs. The first is of the Grand Mosque, completed in 1957. I have to admit that I can’t remember exactly where it was though I have the feeling it was in the western part of the old suq. That will have to be confirmed. As for its architecture, there is little relationship with traditional buildings, either the ordinary ones of the country or the traditional old musajid. One reason for this is, of course, scale, but that doesn’t apply to the decorative elements.

This last photograph is interesting as it shows something rarely seen – part of the operation of the centre of a household. A similar bi’r would have been a central part of every household’s operation. Unfortunately, the proximity to the sea, the rising salinity levels caused by both this and water abstraction as well as problems created by nearby septic tanks created increasing problems for this source of the household’s water. This led to the market in water transported around the town in tankers – both donkey and lorry based – and eventually to the piping of potable water along galvanised steel pipes into similar tanks resulting in the common sight and taste of rust.

Above the two doors to the left of the photo are permanent ventilation openings and the two windows are protected by iron bars as well as – in the case of that on the right – what appear to be internal shutters.

The final item to note are the pigeon boxes on the back wall. It was common to have these as well as seeing hens within the compound.

More to be written…