When the Balfour Declaration was signed on November 2, 1917, its promises echoed across the globe, ultimately shaping the world we have inherited today. These echoes resonated more loudly in one particular room than in any other, bouncing across its arches of black basalt quarried from the surrounding volcanic landscapes. For this was no ordinary room, but the military headquarters of Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, the future Lawrence of Arabia, during his mission to arm Arab Forces against the Ottoman Empire. His promise of Arab independence, of course, would later prove short-lived. Lawrence’s chamber was situated within the ancient al-Azraq fortress, originally built by the Romans in the third century, and later expanded by the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, in the seventh century. The al-Azraq fortress is among the many desert castles either constructed or modified by the Umayyads across Greater Syria. And our focus in this studio will be on a tight cluster of seven castles located in present-day Jordan.

These castles, known as qusur in Arabic, are connected today by a multi-lane highway originally designed to unite them. But it has, paradoxically underscored their isolation, effectively severing them from the broader history of the Arabian desert. This sense of isolation has been further deepened by the architectural typologies employed to engage with them—a combination of parking lot and an air-conditioned visitor center, deployed either in the middle of the desert or awkwardly adjacent to other towns or large-scale infrastructures. Amidst increasing global temperatures, these visitor centers have become customary, enabling the occasional tourist to comfortably capture images of the qusur. But while this inability to imagine alternative forms of engagement with the qusur has been worsened by the highway and the effects of climate change, its underlying cause is different. Although we are well-informed about the events surrounding the castles in the last century or so, the original motivations behind their construction and operation remain mysterious.

As you will see below, scholars have put forward several theories about the origin of the qusur. Some have argued that they served as hunting retreats for the Umayyad aristocracy, private havens where princes could indulge in the pleasures of intimacy, music and wine amidst the arid wilderness. Others suggest that the qusur are best understood as part of a network, particularly serving as waystations to facilitate desert travel, with locations on major lines of communication that existed between Syria and Arabia. Other interpretations propose that the qusur served as fortified residential settlements, with a typology reminiscent of earlier Roman fort plans or villas. This typology features a portico surrounded by apartments, all part of a larger complex for individual leaders and their extended families, militaries, and employees. Others have positioned the qusur as extensions of pre-Islamic buildings and economies, or as temporary residences to control tribes in the Syrian and Jordanian deserts. Others have even declared them as prosperous centers for agricultural exploitation, with evidence of extensive irrigation systems, canals, and aqueducts, as well as storage and distribution cisterns, all aimed at generating a surplus of marketable crops. The conflict among these theories is substantial, yet it is also remarkably rich with potential, especially for architecture and its allied fields.

Our studio is organized into three main parts. In the first part, our goal is to test the various theories concerning the function of the Umayyad qusur. This will involve employing methods such as drawing and model-making, as well as combining archival research with building simulations to construct a compelling argument. Moving on to the second part, we will embark on a journey to Jordan to collaborate with Dr. Aya Musmar at the University of Petra. During this visit, we will have the opportunity to explore the different castles firsthand and work towards identifying commonalities and intersections among their seemingly conflicting origins. Finally, in the third and central section of the studio, our focus will shift towards imagining alternative futures for the qusur, integrating both technical and historical arguments into the design proposals.