Eleventh International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Despite wide attention to preservation and adaptive re-use in developed countries, such practice in developing regions and countries like Kurdistan Region and Iraq, where many locally and internationally significant monuments are located, are very limited and in poor quality. The restored historic Sarai building, located in the historic city center of Sulaimani in Kurdistan Region of Iraq serves as an example that effective historic preservation and management need to see and plan beyond structural restoration and consider the need of the twenty-first century visitors for “edutainment”, inclusiveness, and interactivity. Since its expensive structural restoration to host a museum, the building has become a ghost house in the vibrant old city center. In this paper, we first discuss traditional and contemporary approaches for historic building preservation and revitalization. We then present and discuss a number of historic building restoration and management case studies from different countries and context that can inform restoration of other significant historic buildings like Sarai building into effective museums and cultural centers in developing countries. We also discuss the challenges facing restoring Sarai building into a museum. In doing so, we highlight historic building restoration process and challenges in similar context to those of developing regions and countries like Kurdistan Region and Iraq. Finally, by synthesizing the findings from the literature and the cases studies with the context of Sarai building we make some key recommendations for overcoming and moving beyond those challenges to transform the locally and internationally important buildings like Sarai into vibrant museums.