Maintenance of the traditional cabinet of old houses in (In the city of Hebron)

During the days of the Ottoman rule, the housing movement witnessed great prosperity, due to the relative stability in the Ottoman rule. Houses during that period have had very similar characteristics, especially in the Levant region. The houses were equipped with woodwork supplementing the needs of the house; including wooden doors and wall cupboards. Wall cupboards were used as an integral part of the house in Palestine, as in other places in the Levant. These cupboards have varied by name depending on the region; they were used in various forms and had many uses. These cupboards however had a massive decline in manufacturing due to the developments in the recent woodwork industry. Their maintenance, damage preservation and ruin have also been neglected, with some bad practices in restoration and preservation of these works. This paper approaches wooden cupboards through three aspects: First aspect is the types of cupboards found in Palestinian households in terms of shapes and places of origin, different names and components used in these cupboards, and the cupboards that were documented by our team of photographers as well as traditional Palestinian books describing the Palestinian households. Second aspect are factors causing falling and damage of wooden cupboards, where we focus on a number of houses that we studied the status of wooden cupboards and most their important problems and referring to restoration experts to know the natural reasons that lead to the damaging of woodwork such as humidity, bugs as well as other causes like deliberate and unintentional sabotage or arson. The third aspect deals with restoration techniques and maintenance of wooden cabinets and important methods and theories of restoration and preservation of woodwork. This is highly dependent on the historical importance of wooden cupboards, the type of damage, and the history of part replacements and repairs that were made. It also discusses other maintenance methods like insulation and paint. This paper follows a descriptive and analytical approach through conducting and analyzing questionnaires, interviewing experts and specialists in the field of restoration to come up with a few recommendations regarding maintenance and restoration of woodworks.

Keywords

Wooden Wall Cabinets, Othman Rule, Maintenance and Restoration, Hebron, Documentation