Union of Mediterranean Architects celebrates 13th birthday

On July 14, 1994, representatives of architects' associations from around the Mediterranean convened in Reythmenion, Greece, to sign the charter formally setting up the Union of Mediterranean Architects (UMAR), thus implementing the decision taken at the founding assembly held in Rabat, Morocco, in January of the same year.

This year, UMAR is celebrating its 13th anniversary, an anniversary which finds its representing over 250,000 architects from 18 of the 23 countries bordering the Mediterranean basin. Malta's Kamra tal-Periti (Chamber of Architects), as the official body representing the profession locally, is a founder member, having participated in the Rabat Assembly in 1994.

Being UMAR's 13th birthday it would be pertinent to state the 13 objectives for which it exists.

1. To promote the 'Mediterranean' concept as the basis for a debate on architecture.

2. To proclaim architecture to be of public interest.

3. To ensure that architecture is practised with total independence and respect for professional ethics.

4. To promote top quality architecture as an expression of culture serving people's needs.

5. To contribute to the protection of architectural heritage and instigate actions enabling its preservation and revalorisation.

6. To conduct any actions apt to preserve and improve quality in building, to maintain and protect the natural environment with a view to ensuring a living environment worthy of Mediterranean populations.

7. To promote an alliance between all architects in a spirit of confraternity and mutual respect, without discrimination on the basis of nationality, race or religion.

8. To encourage relations between architects with a view to developing the exchange of information relative to architectural practices in technical, social and cultural fields.

9. To ensure the co-ordination of Mediterranean architects' organisations with a view to supporting them in their joint actions.

10. To create a dynamic aimed at introducing a spirit of co-operation and solidarity between Mediterranean architects and their organisations.

11. To encourage and promote all research in the field of architecture (technical, historical, etc.).

12. To support all actions aimed at contributing to the redevelopment of destroyed housing, thus the material improvement of living conditions for its inhabitants.

13. To consolidate the ties between UMAR and other international architects' organisations.

UMAR is administered by an executive bureau elected for a three-year term from among member institutes, which term may be renewed once. Assemblies are held yearly, normally around the beginning of the year. It may sound far-fetched to have an organisation bringing together such a cultural and social diversity, as exists around the Mediterranean, in a workable manner.

But UMAR has been particularly successful in managing to create a harmonius relationship among the members and between the members and the bureau. This is reflected in the cosmopolitan composition of the bureau, with a French president, a Lebanese vice-president, myself as secretary-general, an Italian treasurer, and a Palestinian member.

This relationship is evident even outside the formal sessions of the assembly and other meetings UMAR organises, and a genuine spirit of 'camaraderie' prevails, even between members whose countries are politically at loggerheads with one another.

UMAR's relatively modest size, in terms of membership, when compared to the International Union of Architects (UIA), for example, gives it a flexible but strong structure, where communication is often on a personal basis, since delegates and participants to assemblies know each other very well.

This network is now being recognised as a valid contributor to transfer of technology and building up of contacts and relationships between professionals in the northern half of the Mediterranean, and their counterparts in the south.

As a matter of fact, UMAR is now focusing its activities on projects, which reinforce this collaboration. In fact, only this year, it has become involved in two EU-funded projects, SD-Med and Solarbuild, both based on solar-energy research.

The latter, in fact, sees the pairing up of representatives of Medener, the Mediterranean energy research organisations, and the UMAR member institute of that country, to collect information on the situation of research and implementation of solar energy technology. The findings of all national teams will be brought together in two concluding conferences early next year.

UMAR has not neglected the aspect of heritage and conservation however. It has a work group specifically working on those topics, and it is participating in at least two EU-funded projects dealing with these matters.

Furthermore, a project on the Khans or Caravanserails, a typology so commonly found along the caravan routes, mainly along the southern Mediterranean shores, has just been successfully concluded with an exhibition in Montpellier, and a conference scheduled for November in Antalya, Turkey. It attracted a widespread participation from the membership.

Malta even managed to contribute an interesting entry on its own caravanserails in Rabat! The next project on similar lines will be dealing with fortress-building techniques, and promises to be just as interesting.

Students too have a place in UMAR with the work group dealing with Schools of Architecture, the Students' Summer Workshops, and the setting up of Syamed, a sister association for students and young architects.

Perhaps on a more philosophical level, a work group has been set up to draw up a North/South Charter on ethical conduct, as a counterbalance to the threat of 'invasion' by northern Mediterranean technology and architectural expression into the traditional systems and concepts of the southern regions.

UMAR retains a dynamic and constantly evolving character, where the individual can find a place and contribute to the enrichment of the progress of dialogue among architects and between architects and society in general.