Palace of Fachr ad-Dīn II.

Main facade

Interior view from 2007.

The palace of Fachr ad-Dīn II. ( Arabic قصر فخر الدين, DMG Qaṣr Faḫr ad-Dīn ) is a historical palace (seraglio) in Dair al-Qamar , Lebanon . It was built for the Emir Fachr ad-Dīn II in the years after 1600.

architecture

The fortified and massive looking palace is influenced by the style of the Egyptian Mamluks . It consists of a ground floor with large entrance vaults and an upper floor, which is arranged around an inner courtyard. The entrance area is a vaulted guardroom, from which one reaches a second chamber at a 90 ° angle, through which there is access to the main room. This construction made defense easier in the event of an attack, as the guards only had to defend one point in this way. At that time, this was a common construction method for Arab palaces.

The building also houses a separate sector for the harem , where the emir's wives lived and where each individual woman had her own area. There is an ornate octagonal fountain in the courtyard.

use

Today the palace houses the Marie Baz wax museum . The Baz family, in collaboration with the Musée Grévin (Paris), has set up a small museum with 70 wax figures depicting historical figures from Lebanon.

literature

Rosangela Cuffaro: Fakhr ad-Din II alla corte dei Medici (1613–1615): Collezionismo, architettura e ars topiaria tra Firenze e Beirut. In: Marburg Yearbook for Art History . Vol. 37, 2010, pp. 209-217 JSTOR 41445826 .

Web links

Information about the seraglio on deirelqamar.com (English)

Individual evidence

^ Elie Haddad: Between Myth and Reality: The 'Tuscan Influence' on the Architecture of Mount Lebanon in the Emirate Period. In: Zeynep Aygen (Ed.): Design and polity under and after the Ottoman Empire (= Journal of Design History. Vol. 20, No. 2, ISSN 0952-4649 ). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, pp. 161-171, here p. 163, JSTOR 4540351 .

33.697886 35.565497Coordinates: 33 ° 41 '52.4 " N , 35 ° 33' 55.8" E

[1] Elie Haddad: Between Myth and Reality: The 'Tuscan Influence' on the Architecture of Mount Lebanon in the Emirate Period. In: Zeynep Aygen (Ed.): Design and polity under and after the Ottoman Empire (= Journal of Design History. Vol. 20, No. 2, ISSN 0952-4649 ). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, pp. 161-171, here p. 163, JSTOR 4540351 .