Image note
Three original interpretations of earthen tower-houses & dense streets, informed by Old City of Sana'a. These images explore material and spatial ideas; they are not documentary views or measured reconstructions of the reference. The palette is drawn from the material portrait.
Publication credit: The Chromologium.
Image credits and reuseThe colour strip is the entry’s study palette. Artwork sources and image credits and reuse terms are recorded in the archive.
Artwork recordThree views of one material idea.
Sana’a’s old city is known for its many-storeyed tower-houses and long history as a religious and political centre. Repeated vertical dwellings form a dense urban fabric within a mountain valley.
Read the material study01 / Reading the material
A house in the skyline
Sana’a’s tower-houses connect stacked openings with a dense collective roofscape. A single dwelling has a vertical rhythm, while several together establish a larger urban field. The material reading moves between those scales rather than treating the skyline as one decorative silhouette.
02 / From surface to space
Read the whole.
Then the edge.
Compare the repeated openings high on a facade with the narrow street below. The change in viewpoint makes the building’s height tangible. Shared proportions and repeated verticals can hold the ensemble together while individual houses retain their differences.
Compare a tower-house’s stacked openings with the narrow street below. How does vertical repetition create both an individual house and a collective skyline?
03 / Colour in context
A palette you can work with.
Five tones drawn from the material portrait. Select a colour, compare it on paper and ink, or copy its value into your own study.
Surface
#6a482a
Colour values & paper / ink comparison
oklch(0.433 0.064 61.278) · primary
The colour stays fixed as its surroundings change.
Try the bench exercise
04 / At the bench
Make the observation tangible.
Compose several original narrow fronts with a consistent vertical rhythm and modest variations in height. Test the group from near and far. Keep particular ornamental motifs and historical claims attached to documented buildings rather than inventing them.
Keep a view of the whole beside a close detail. Note the material, lighting and the one variable you changed.
Source & orientation
Keep the reference close.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre. (n.d.). Old City of Sana'a. Retrieved October 10, 2026.
The material readings and bench exercise are editorial studies of this particular reference. The artwork explores its material ideas; the linked source documents the place.
Artwork & cartographic records
Artwork record · Geographic plate record. Map geometry: Natural Earth, public domain. The archive follows its map’s place names, including territories and disputed areas.
A closer look
Questions about this study
What does this study of Yemen focus on?
Sana’a’s old city is known for its many-storeyed tower-houses and long history as a religious and political centre. Repeated vertical dwellings form a dense urban fabric within a mountain valley.
Where can I find the original reference?
Old City of Sana'a, published by UNESCO World Heritage Centre. The artwork explores the reference’s material ideas; the linked source documents the place.
What could I try at the bench?
Compose several original narrow fronts with a consistent vertical rhythm and modest variations in height. Test the group from near and far. Keep particular ornamental motifs and historical claims attached to documented buildings rather than inventing them.
Continue by material
