Through dozens of maps, drawings, and archival and modern photos, the Manual for the Rehabilitation of the Historic Centre of Ramallah documents, analyzes, and evaluates Ramallah’s historic center, which lost approximately 50% of its historic buildings and spaces since the 1930s.  

The manual presents a detailed analysis of the morphology of the historic fabric comprised of neighborhoods (harat), buildings, and public and private spaces, and explores the social, economic, and political changes of the area from the beginning of the nineteenth century through today. It also provides a classification of the building typologies and architectural elements of its historic buildings, and introduces the principles of conservation, restoration and construction inside the historic center.

The publication is a primary outcome of a project entitled “Development Instrument: Capacity Building for the Protection and Management of Historic Cities,” which was implemented by the Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation in Bethlehem (CCHP), in partnership with Rehabimed, RIWAQ, and Cultech, in cooperation with the municipal councils of Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Greater As-Salt.

Size: 29.7 x 22.5 cm
Soft Cover
No. of pages: 231
Publication date: 2014
Languages: Arabic
ISBN: 978-9950-303-16-4

Palestine, being the bridge between Asia and Africa, was a treading ground for the armies of the Nile and Mesopotamian Empires, and for merchants from North Africa to China trading in dried and cooked foods as well as salt, grains, and perfumes. Caravanserais were inns where caravans and convoys rested and filled up with needed supplies such as water and food to continue their journey. The Caravanserais of Palestine deals with about 160 caravanserais (khanat) in Palestine, the ancient form of today’s gas stations, and illustrates a network of more than ten historic routes.

This book is divided into three sections: the first is a general overview of khanat history, typologies, and architecture; the second is a discussion of urban khanat; and the third is about road caravanserais. The study covers the historical and architectural aspects of these structures through the inclusion of layouts, sketches, and recent and historical photos.

Size: 25.5 x 30 cm 
Soft and Hard Cover 
No. of pages: 215
Publication date: 2013 
Languages: Arabic (with English introduction)

ISBN: 978-9950-303-13-3
Soft Cover:  100 NIS
Hard Cover: 120 NIS

The first part of the works demonstrates the diversity of RIWAQ’s intervention in the historic centers of Palestine. It also showcases the creativity of its architects, called upon to dynamically preserve their heritage and affirm their cultural identity. The second part is dedicated to developing and promoting the project to save Hosh el Etem (al Etem courtyard house), and to the onsite training workshops, organized by the Paix-Dieu Centre for Heritage Professionals. Generously illustrated, the training workshops – for metro-photography surveys, infra-red lasers, traditional ironwork and mural painting and decorations– have allowed Palestinian craftsmen to be retaught important, but vanishing traditional techniques, and have paved the way for the appreciation of traditional competencies among artisans across the field in their quest to reclaim their roots.

Size: 25 x 19 cm 
Soft Cover 
No. of pages: 143
Publication date: 2013 
Languages: English/French

ISBN: 978-2-87522-104-9
Price:  50 NIS

Rural Houses in Palestine focuses on the architectural heritage in rural Palestine, and presents many types and shapes of peasants’ houses and simple dwellings. The book relies heavily on history books as well as on-site surveys of numerous forms of rural architecture. The book is an illustrated book that contains high quality images and illustrations.

Size: 27 x 25 cm 
Soft and Hard Cover 
No. of pages: 109
Publication date: 2012 
Languages: Arabic 

ISBN: 978-9950-303-12-6 
 

PRICE

Soft Cover:  60 NIS
Hard Cover: 80 NIS

This guide was produced as part of the Mutual Heritage project, an initiative that examines and promotes recent heritage in the Euro-Mediterranean region: France, Italy, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia. The objective of this component was to set up a number of tourist walking trails highlighting 19th and 20th century architectural heritage, surrounding cultural landscape, archaeological sites, and cultural activities.  The selected trail is known as the Ramallah Highlands Trail, and represents the mutual heritage of ten towns, villages and refugee camps over an area of approximately 100 square kilometers, and within the larger scheme of the 50 most architecturally significant villages selected by RIWAQ.

Size: 18 x 13 cm
Soft Cover 
No. of pages: 150
Date: 2012-2013 
Languages: English / Arabic
ISBN (English version): 978-9950-303-11-9

ISBN (Arabic version): 978-9950-303-15-7

PRICE: 20 NIS

This book provides a detailed account of approximately 65 projects carried out by RIWAQ between 2001 and 2011 within the SIDA funded project of the same name. The book includes plans and images for each of the projects, as well as a detailed analysis of budgets. In addition, it contains beneficiary and stakeholder evaluations of the project.  

Size: 25 x 25 cm
Soft Cover 
No. of pages: 174
Publication date: 2011 
Languages: English 
ISBN: 978-9950-303-10-2
PRICE: 50 NIS

A book that gives a fresh and new look at Palestinian history through the amazing walls and ceiling paintings in Palestinian houses in the late Ottoman period. Filled with photographs by Issa Freij, the book analyzes paintings and traces painters while detailing the techniques used.

Size: 25 x 30 cm
Hard Cover
No. of pages: 300
Publication date: 2008
Languages: Arabic (with English introduction)
ISBN: 9950-303-00-1 

PRICE: 80 NIS

The book describes the development of Gaza City as an urban center. Detailing the architectural composition of the old city, it describes public buildings in Gaza and gives detailed examples of prominent Gazan homes.

Size: 25 x 25 cm
Soft or Hard Cover
No. of pages: 220
Publication date: 2007
Languages: Arabic
ISBN: 9950-303-03-6 

PRICE 
Soft Cover:  60 NIS
Hard Cover: 80 NIS

This encyclopedia of three volumes includes architectural information on 50,320 historic buildings in 422 Palestinian localities.

The first volume explains the idea of the project and includes a Technical Introduction that breaks down the project into its different stages. It explains the questionnaire; the registration process; the database; the photo archive; the maps; the technical and bureaucratic difficulties encountered during the course of this project; and the general results of the registry.

The second volume includes a detailed account of the survey results for all historic buildings in each governorate, their location, and the number of localities within each, and is followed by a report on each population center (town or village), which includes a brief history, its location, and the number of historic buildings.

The third volume is a photographic narration of architectural heritage in Palestine.

Volume 1: 
Size: 30 x 28 cm
Hard Cover
No. of pages: 160
Publication date: 2006
Languages: Arabic, English
ISBN: 9950-303-04-4

Volume 2: 
Size: 30 x 28 cm
Hard Cover
No. of pages: 528
Maps, black & white photos
Publication date: 2006
Languages: Arabic
ISBN: 9950-303-05-2

Volume 3:
Size: 30 x 28 cm
Hard Cover
No. of pages: 192
Photos
Publication date: 2006
Languages: Arabic, English
ISBN: 9950-303-06-0

PRICES:
3 Volumes: 240 NIS

The illustrated colorful booklet is one of the rare publications in Arabic dealing with restoration and maintenance techniques. It combines theory and practice, and builds on local traditional techniques and domestic materials, in addition to traditional tricks that enhance the quality of restoration. Systematically, the booklet illustrates and discusses in accessible language— using photography and sketches—the process of major restoration work. RIWAQ’s aim through publishing this guide is to improve the quality of restoration of the built cultural heritage in Palestine. RIWAQ’s Guidelines for Restoration and Maintenance of Historic Buildings in Palestine, is a practical guide that makes traditional techniques threatened by modernity available to practitioners in the field as well as homeowners.

Size: 15 x 15 cm
Soft Cover
No. of pages: 105
Publication date: 2004
Languages: Arabic
ISBN: 9950-303-02-8 

PRICE: 20 NIS

Manateer focuses on the agricultural watch towers in the central mountains of Palestine, and presents many types and shapes of watch towers, which were used in traditional agricultural seasons such as fig and grape seasons.

Size: 27 x 25 cm
Soft or Hard Cover
No. of pages: 118
Publication date: 2003
Languages: Arabic 

ISBN: 
Cloth-0-88728-288-1
Paper-0-88728-288-X 

PRICE 
Soft Cover:  40 NIS
Hard Cover: 60 NIS

This book includes an overview of feudal mansions and castles from eleven throne villages which were built in the late Ottoman period (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). The criteria for their choice were based on their architectural and aesthetic values, as well as the physical conditions of their structures.

Size: 27 x 25 cm
Soft or Hard Cover
No. of pages: 240
Publication date: 2003
Languages: Arabic (with English introduction)
ISBN:

Cloth-0-88728-292-X
Paper-0-88728-293-8 

PRICE
Soft Cover:  60 NIS
Hard Cover: 80 NIS

Ramallah, Architecture and History focuses on the history and architecture of Ramallah in significant historical phases and social transformations. This book presents many architectural photos, plans, and details.

Size: 27 x 25 cm
Soft or Hard Cover
No. of pages: 278
Publication date: 2001
Languages: Arabic
ISBN:

Cloth-0-88728-284-9
Paper-0-88728-285-7 

PRICE 
Soft Cover:  60 NIS
Hard Cover: 80 NIS

Earthquake in April addresses the loss of significant cultural heritage properties as part of the widespread damage and destruction caused by the Israeli Army in its re-occupation of Palestinian towns that began on March 29, 2002.

Size: 23.5 x 31 cm
Hard Cover
No. of pages: 208
Publication date: 2002
Languages: Arabic, English
ISBN: 0-88728-287-3 

Out of print (RIWAQ’s library)

The first two decades of the British Mandate (1920s and 1930s) were characterized by rapid urban growth and the first urban sprawl as important residential areas formed away from historic urban centers. Palestinian Urban Mansions focuses on this important era in the history of Palestinian towns and architecture.

Size: 27 x 25 cm
Soft or Hard Cover
No. of pages: 158
Publication date: 2001
Languages: English
ISBN: 0-88728-279-2

PRICE 
Soft Cover:  60 NIS
Hard Cover: 80 NIS

Edited by Nazmi Al Jubeh

The Cultural Landscape in Artas documents Artas village, Solomon Pools, and the water supply system of Jerusalem from the Roman period through today.

Size: 22 x 27.5 cm
Soft Cover
No. of pages: 112
Publication date: 2001
Languages: Arabic
ISBN: 9950-303-01-X

PRICE: 60 NIS

Traditional Floor Tiles in Palestine documents the traditional colored floor tiles in Palestine with the manual process of manufacturing and materials. These tiles were common in most Mediterranean countries, and were introduced to Palestine at the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century. 

Size: 23 x 29.5 cm
Soft Cover

Hard Cover
No. of pages: 106
66 Patterns
Publication date: 2000
Languages: Arabic, English 

Soft Cover: 80 NIS

Hard Cover: 100 NIS

The daily life of the Palestinian highlands has changed a great deal since the turn of the century. This book describes traditional village architecture and furnishings, agricultural activities and food production, and the rural crafts and activities of basketry, pottery, and weaving. Based on field work in the West Bank, and illustrated with archival and contemporary photographs and nineteenth-century watercolors, this book provides a picture of a way of life that is now part of Palestinian history.

Size: 19 x 24.5 cm
Soft Cover
No. of pages: 48
2nd Edition by RIWAQ: 2003
Languages: English
ISBN: 0-7141-1599-1 

Out of print (RIWAQ’s library)

This illustrated book covers the socio-cultural-architectural phenomenon of public buildings in Palestinian urban centers during the Ottoman era known as al Saraya. These are spaces of power and manifistation of centralization. The architectural style shows also the modernization attempts of the Ottoman Empire.

Size: 25.5 x 30 cm
Soft and Hard Cover
No. of pages: 200
Publication date: 2016
Languages: Arabic (with English introduction)

ISBN: 978-9950-303-18-8
Soft Cover: 60 NIS
Hard Cover: 80 NIS

This heavily illustrated book describes RIWAQ’s experiences in the village rehabilitation in Palestine. The publication is the collective effort of fourteen scholars and practitioners and comprises two parts: The Regeneration of Rural Palestine consists of six essays addressing the conceptual and theoretical aspects of rehabilitation; and Village Generation: Selected Case Studies describes and analyzes six different case studies of rehabilitation implemented by RIWAQ in the 50 Village Rehabilitation Project. Reclaiming Spaces also reflects how the specificity of each village imposed itself on the nature of interventions and the end result of the rehabilitation project.

Size:  30 x 28 cm
Soft and Hard Cover
No. of pages: 236
Publication date: 2015
Languages: English

ISBN: 978-9950-303-17-1
Soft Cover: 100 NIS
Hard Cover: 120 NIS

This book builds on Suad Amiry 1987 thesis addressing the spatial organization of the different environmental levels in late 19th century rural Palestine. A descending spatial order of analysis from the settlement level to that of the furniture level is adopted. The built space of Deir Ghassaneh, a Palestinian village located in the central highlands–the West Bank today–is the focus of the book. In order to understand the close correspondence between this built space and the social organisation of the peasant community that produced it, the book reconstructs life in Deir Ghassaneh at the turn of 20th century, at a time when space and society together constituted a single socio‑spatial whole, and when the village was a relatively autarkic, subsistence‑based agrarian community in which traditional modes, including architecture, still prevailed. Then, the book examines the nature of change that took place in the built space of Deir Ghassaneh in light of the dramatic social transformations of the seven decades (1916‑1986).

Size:  25.5 x 30 cm
Soft and Hard Cover
No. of pages: 246
Publication date: 2018
Languages: English

ISBN: 978-9950-303-19-5(soft cover), 978-9950-303-20-1(hard cover)
Soft Cover: 80 NIS
Hard Cover: 100 NIS