The Architecture of the Soul: Dr. Imad Al-Masri, From the Arab House of Homs to Hiroshima

This is the story of the Syrian architect and planner Imad Al-Masri, told as a journey that began before an Arab house in Homs and led him face to face with the memory of Hiroshima. His graduation project was the replanning of the center of Homs, and in Damascus he learned from a house that understood climate before air conditioning and shade before the word sustainability. At Ain Shams University in Cairo the city itself became his subject, and back in Syria he worked on planning and heritage in places such as Al-Waer, Al-Rastan, Al-Mushrifa, Hassia, Damascus and Maaloula, holding that no land is ever truly empty. Later chapters follow the professor, the dean of architecture and the public official facing Syrian cities after destruction, and set Damascus beside Hiroshima. The book ends with the questions that outlast every house: how to build the person who will live in it, and how a city can rise from ashes while remembering what happened.