Building Arts & Crafts Intermediate Diploma – End of Year Exhibition

Our Building Arts and Crafts Intermediate Diploma Programme is designed by The School of Traditional Arts and delivered in partnership with The Royal Institute of Traditional Arts (TRITA) in Jeddah. It is a 2-year Diploma programme for students interested in mastering and practicing the traditional building crafts of Jeddah. We are presenting an end-of-year exhibition celebrating the work of the first cohort of graduating students, opening in Jeddah on 4th November 2023. The exhibition will take place at Beit Nassif, a historic mansion located in the Al Balad in Jeddah.

Students spend the two years working within the city’s historic and UNESCO-recognised Al Balad district, which is home to many iconic houses showcasing the rich heritage of the area through traditional architectural designs and craft techniques. The students analyse and draw inspiration from their surroundings to perfect their own skills, learning different crafts found throughout the Balad such as coral stone masonry, mangour screen-making, and decorative painting with natural pigments or egg tempera.

We are thrilled to announce that our very first cohort of students, who first embarked on their journey in 2021, are graduating this autumn with a stunning portfolio of work. To celebrate their meticulous effort and growth over two years, we present an exhibition showcasing their craft work across a wide range of mediums. From gypsum-carving and painting to wood carving and carpentry, their work draws from their research and on-site explorations of Al Balad.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a full-scale roshan standing tall at the entrance of the exhibition, which was built and designed collaboratively by the students in their second year as the culmination of the course. The project was set in collaboration with the Jeddah Historic District (JHD), who assigned one particular house – Beit Al Mal – for a study and the creation of designs and prototypes. A key part of the Diploma is to learn the traditional language of Al Balad in order to design and make contemporary building crafts that keep traditional heritage relevant and thriving, and this roshan as well as the exhibition as a whole expresses these goals perfectly.