Michel Charriere (on the left) and Joseph Ashkar (on the right) in the side lounge of the palace. (Credit: Karam al-Masri/L'Orient-Le Jour)
A young man jumps on his moped at the sight of two well-dressed strangers entering a narrow alley in Bab Qinnasrin, a historic quarter of Aleppo’s old city, partly scarred by war. He is 16 — nearly the same number of years since Michel Charriere and Joseph Ashkar last set foot on their property.Wearing Panama hats, the celebrated architects — Charriere, a Frenchman, and Ashkar, Franco-Lebanese — greet the manager of the neighborhood soap factory like old neighbors, as curious onlookers glance their way. After 15 years away, they have returned from Paris to see their medieval palace, a jewel built between the 12th and 14th centuries. The couple discovered it in the early 2000s, then spent nearly a decade restoring it before Syria’s civil war forced them out."A quick vacuum and it’s practically livable," Charriere jokes, looking...
A young man jumps on his moped at the sight of two well-dressed strangers entering a narrow alley in Bab Qinnasrin, a historic quarter of Aleppo’s old city, partly scarred by war. He is 16 — nearly the same number of years since Michel Charriere and Joseph Ashkar last set foot on their property.Wearing Panama hats, the celebrated architects — Charriere, a Frenchman, and Ashkar, Franco-Lebanese — greet the manager of the neighborhood soap factory like old neighbors, as curious onlookers glance their way. After 15 years away, they have returned from Paris to see their medieval palace, a jewel built between the 12th and 14th centuries. The couple discovered it in the early 2000s, then spent nearly a decade restoring it before Syria’s civil war forced them out."A quick vacuum and it’s practically livable," Charriere...