The frame of reference
Two houses, two countries, two legal orders. The project is read within a few international texts that Morocco and Italy recognise; this page brings them together: what they say, what they bind, and how the houses put them into practice.
01The 2003 UNESCO Convention
The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage counts transmission among the safeguarding measures:
“[…] transmission, particularly through formal and non-formal education […]”
UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Paris, 17 October 2003, Art. 2(3)
The Convention binds both countries: Morocco ratified it on 6 July 2006, Italy on 30 October 2007. It is therefore the natural common frame for a project that applies the same rule on both shores.
The houses turn it into a material device: a permanent training site, where the craft passes through common life between master and apprentice, in the workshop and on the building itself. The chain of masters→, gathered from the first day, records where what the house teaches comes from.
The Convention also keeps a Register of Good Safeguarding Practices (Art. 18). Since 17 December 2020 it has included the European cathedral workshops, which Al-Warsha→ takes as its model. Nominations belong to the States Parties. When the houses have a history to show, their experience may be put forward: the project prepares the conditions by recording transmission from the start.
02The Faro Convention
The Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, signed at Faro in 2005 and ratified by Italy in 2020, understands heritage as a relationship between people rather than an object. The workshop community keeps what it has received and lives from it: this is what the Convention calls a heritage community.
Morocco is not a party to the Faro Convention: on the Moroccan side the reference remains the 2003 Convention. The houses’ pages quote it where it describes exactly what they do: the dwelling→, the workshop→, becoming a master→.
03The New European Bauhaus
The New European Bauhaus is the initiative through which the European Union, since 2021, links the green transition to the quality of the places where people live. It rests on three values: beautiful, sustainable, together. The houses practise them by their nature.
Beautiful. High craftsmanship, proportion and quality of execution: surfaces made by hand, to last, in the repertoire of the place.
Sustainable. The bioclimatic solutions of tradition, that is the courtyard, shade, thermal mass, natural ventilation and water; short-supply materials (earth, lime, wood, wrought iron, vegetable-tanned leather); mechanical systems kept to a minimum. See Air, water and shade→ and Natural cooling→.
Together. The workshop community, self-government under a rule, life shared between generations.
04Research and data
A stable community, living for years under a known rule, in two countries and two legal orders, is a rare condition for research. The data the houses can produce do not exist today, and their collection is set up from the first day.
The community. The pedagogy of work and self-government: how decisions are taken, how conflicts are settled, how responsibility is shared. The passage from apprenticeship to one’s own workshop, with the craft accounts, the interest-free revolving fund and the mutual aid chest. The path of those who, raised in Europe in a family of Arab origin, find the culture of their fathers again through a craft of excellence.
The building. The behaviour of the courtyard, the thermal mass, shade, ventilation and water, measured by sensors before, during and after restoration; in Ragusa, the yield of a buried duct that cools the air. What these solutions deliver must be measured, not presumed.
The safeguards. Every study of people involves volunteers only, under the guidance of a university and its ethics committee, with consent that can always be withdrawn and no bearing on admission. Data are published in aggregate form, including unfavourable results, and are never used for promotion. The Scientific Committee→ reviews them.
05The fondacos and the Mediterranean
In the medieval Mediterranean, the fondaco was the house that received those who came from the other shore. Al-Funduq as-Siqilli→ takes up that role: an open place of encounter and production, where Arab civilisation is known through its highest expression, mastery of making, refinement of form, the science of water and hospitality. What grows from it is direct knowledge, founded on material culture and on equal cooperation between masters and scholars of both shores.
06European programmes
With its scientific partners, the project is preparing to take part in the European programmes that support culture and research, notably Horizon Europe (Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society) and Creative Europe. Partnerships are announced once they are concluded.