A School Beyond the Street

In the neighborhood where I grew up, the idea of architecture did not yet exist as a profession in my mind. Buildings were simply buildings. Streets were paths between homes. The city was a collection of places where life unfolded, not something someone had designed.

Our school, Shams School, stood in a narrow alley. It was a modest building, made of brick, a single story, and surrounded by small houses whose walls were almost touching each other. The classrooms were simple and the yard was small, but for us it was the center of the world. We played there, fought there, made friendships there.

One winter morning, our class was taken on a school excursion. A bus arrived and we were told we were going to another school to watch a film. None of us knew where we were going. For children who had rarely left their neighborhood, even a bus ride felt like a journey.

The bus stopped in front of a place that looked nothing like our school. There was a gate, a garden, a stone building with two floors, wide stairs, and tall windows. The trees were arranged in rows and the courtyard seemed enormous. It was Saadi School.

Inside, the building had a balcony that overlooked a large hall. From there we watched a film about the Second World War. I remember the images of soldiers, destruction, and cities in ruins. But strangely, what remained in my memory was not the film. It was the building itself.

Standing there, looking at the structure of the school, the symmetry of its stairs, the light coming through the windows, I realized for the first time that buildings could have character. They could express something beyond their function.

When we returned home that day, I told my father that I wanted to study at Saadi School.