Restoration of Pasha Kwera Castle in Dukan

Restoration and Renovation of  Pasha Kwera Citadel in Dukan

This restoration and renovation project takes place in Pasha Kwera Citadel, located on top of a hill in Dukan, Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. The aim is to serve, renovate, restore the area, and attract tourists. It also focuses on the UNSDG’s goal to call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that people enjoy peace and prosperity.

At first, when the renovation and restoration were about to take place, we noticed that the location’s atmosphere was abandoned and tranquil, aged and historical, almost far from the crowd of people and the contemporary world, this is because the citadel was located on top of a hill and the city’s activities were at the very bottom of the hill. Blending the atmosphere was a good idea to bring life back to the citadel. Connecting the bottom of the hill to its peak required a long duration, so working and designing on the project’s site was better to be vertically as it is on a hill of approximately 60m high. Combining the new generation of a populous contemporary world and their ancestors’ abandoned ancient historical remains became the notion for the project’s concept, which is Time Travel.

Soaring in the skies of history with the help of contemporary architecture and switching the technological context to a historical one, all to provide an exquisite experience. Astonishing the tourists and visitors with the beautiful and picturesque nature surrounding the citadel, and making them forget about the time and the duration of arriving at the citadel as they contemplate it. For this, we benefited from the technology and used two great and fast elevators.

Building this great structure and then covering it with glass was because of two factors; balancing the new and the old structures and harmonizing them with the surrounding. Providing an attractive view of The little Zab River, Mount Sara, and Qarasart through the glass’s transparency.

Constructivism, as the chosen artistic and architectural style for the project, is to achieve contrast as one of the main principles of design in the project. Using this style provides a sense of grandeur and dominance, and also helps designers to include exclusive features that are only related to their buildings, for that inspiration from Yakov Chernikhov’s drawings assisted to build a distinctive and inimitable building.

The glass usage had been taken into consideration while designing the project, as we know in a high temperatures weather, and atmosphere the usage of glass can’t be efficient enough, but the weather in this area the weather is moderate and mild, so the glass can be environmentally efficient and visually appealing.

A great massive structure was needed to deal with the height of the hill and to provide a better space for the tourists and visitors with taking into account preserving the citadel’s beautiful and tranquil view, for that we needed something with contrast and harmony. Contrast can be represented because of the variety of features such as form, texture, color, structure, etc. Designing an angular and rectilinear form in contrast with the curvy and tortuous hill, and steel in contrast with the stones and boulders around.

Another contrast was in red we featured in the design. the concept and reason why we selected red as a contrast color with the site were to indicate the history of the citadel which goes back to the Soran Emirate, in Kurdish Soran comes from Sor which means Swr (Red in Kurdish), and the historical reason why they used the word red in their emirate’s name was because of the attack during the reign of the first the Emir of the Emirate, Emir Essa, they used to resist and defend themselves with a type of red stone, then as they won the battle, they got inspired from the red stone and considered it as the cause for their success.

These new features are all covered with glass to harmonize the building with the surrounding. An additional component was a bridge to link the two sides that the river had separated, to provide urban service, ease of visiting and arriving at the citadel, and also presenting an external visual axis towards the citadel to make the site more lively.

The idea of distributing zones into two zones was based on the project’s functions, which were public and private zones. The public zones are transparent and apparent, covered with glass, on the other side, the private zones are non-transparent and opaque, this is because of two reasons: firstly, to hide the service paths and routes inside the project, and secondly the function of the zone.

The idea of using curved concrete walls as an additional detailed feature is to achieve the concept (of combining new and old together), help the citadel’s original walls carry the loads, and preserve them from collapsing.

Featuring a spiral staircase inside one of the citadel’s towers, to prevent deformation on the façade and exterior, and to provide an area for those who want to go upstairs to see the other parts of the citadel without distortion in the circulation paths inside the citadel and the museum.