An Aleppo Memoir

Lina Sergie Attar is founder and CEO of Karam Foundation. She is a Syrian-American architect and writer from Aleppo. The following project is an annotated version of a February 2011 pre-war essay written by Attar about Aleppo. It was published in a book called “My Aleppo” and was annotated in September 2018. Attar will speak at Johns Hopkins SAIS on October 24. Stay tuned here for more information.

Inside the glass cabinet of antiques, mementos, and treasures

Nana’s favorite blue velvet chair

Floor plan of the dining room

The side balcony with all the ferns and the plants

Nana’s 1950s apartment building in the Sabeel neighborhood in Aleppo

The narrow front balcony that ran across the front of the building

Nana cooked meals on this gas stove for over six decades

Nana’s little street tucked between King Faisal Boulevard and Franciscan Avenue

The “twin” building across the courtyard – except it does not have an elevator

Portrait of my grandfather, Judge Mohammed Aly Serjieh. A photo of his father, my great-grandfather, Haj Aly Serjieh, is tucked in the frame

Floor plan of Nana’s bedroom

Photo credits and copyright: Lina Sergie Attar