ISLAMIC SCHOOL OF ARTS

The building is well recognisable on September 1 st, with its beautiful Ottoman style arcades renovated a few years ago and occupied by small women's ready-to-wear shops. You can visit the courtyard where two gigantic Spanish ficus ficus dominate. The school was opened from the Ottoman era in 1898, on the initiative of the local bourgeoisie. In particular, the School of Arts and crafts addressed the children who were orphaned there. And then the Italians did a barracks, before she returned to the School of Arts and Crafts until she had stayed. This institution therefore testifies, through its architecture and functions, to an astonishing continuity since the Ottoman era.

It offers 13- or 14-year-olds a three-year curriculum with the key equivalent to BEPC in the field of crafts. At the end of a fourth optional year, students can reach the Faculty of Fine Arts at El-Fateh University in Tripoli. Behind the main building, a boarding school accommodates students from other cities across the country. Many former artisans of the old town have passed through the School of Islamic Arts, and many teachers of the school are artisans of the old town, as one of the street dinandiers of the same name. Ceramic tiles in the courtyard are the work of school students. Normally you cannot visit the various workshops, but the windows at the entrance will give you an overview of the traditional activities taught: shoemaking, clothing, ceramics, copper work, pottery, cabinetmaking, marquetry, dinanderie.