Qasimia Tower (Hammad Hassan Al-Harazeen Building)

Notes

This building is a “nine-story, mixed used tower in Sharjah's Al Soor district, completed in 1977
(. …) Upon its completion, the tower rose defiantly among other sand-covered plots, waiting for the arrival of neighbors. Today, its renovated appearance can be dismissed as non-descript among other residential towers that went up in response to Sharjah's building boom. Photographs of its original state are rare, but they make clear that Tukan's design was a restrained and sophisticated answer to the ongoing profit-driven housing boom. The architect produced a design that folded the apartments inward, with compressed window openings and articulated concrete columns that expressed the apartments' configurations. The ground floor and mezzanine level were programmed for commercial use and offices, with apartments above. Upper floor fenestration was covered during the day with delicate metal louvers, no longer present. Originally proposed as a fifteen-story building, Sharjah Municipality approved only nine stories, which today accommodate offices.
The tower was once an elegant, earth toned deployment of solids and voids. Its front facade has been cladded in the tinted glass and aluminum paneling that plagues many of Sharjah's original reinforced concrete buildings. The result is a powerful example of market-driven overhaul vanquishing potential modern architectural heritage” (Al Qassemi & Reisz, 2021).

Sources

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi & Todd Reisz, Building Sharjah, Basel: Birkhauser, 2021, p. 146-147.

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