Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage

Manama, Bahrain

Formerly a restaurant built in 1988 in an imitation of traditional style, the Centre’s entrance was shifted from a cut corner to a central entry, giving rise to a new facade and a sign of its new function. The linear fins of the façade are inspired by the linear shadows on the face of old heritage buildings created by the protruding timber beams (denchel). There are 140 vertical elements attached to the wall and cantilevered outwards on the roof level, completing a square layout. The spacing of the glass-fibre reinforced concrete fins is based on a pearling song, ‘Makhmus’, where the rhythmic structure is accented on the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th, 16th and 21st beat. Through a parametric translation the song’s audio spectrogram was transformed into a physical facade structure.

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture