The Damascus Room

In the 1700s and 1800s, the rich merchants of Damascus competed by commissioning lavish public reception rooms for their houses. The Arabic word is qa'a. One supposes they were used to impress potential partners with the soundness of your finances and intimidate underlings with vastness of your wealth. In the twentieth century these somehow ceased to be useful, although I am not sure why. Did steamships and railroads change the trade routes? Did these come to seem so old-fashioned that they signaled being out of date rather than being rich? Or was there just a major shake-up in which the families that owned these were replaced by others? Colonialism might be a factor, but my understanding is that there were always rich merchants in Damascus. For whatever reason, quite a few of them were sold to European and American buyers, disassembled and whisked away, and they now grace museums around the world.

This one is now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, and I found it on their web site. They acquired it just recently, so apparently there are still some of these out there in private hands. They think it was built in 1816. They are particularly proud of the ceiling.

The decoration includes a lot of text, mainly Quranic verses but also this otherwise unknown poem:

From the safety of the hills the friendly nightingales sang in blessing
Heralding glad tidings of happiness and bliss
As they approached our neighborhood they sang out
Proclaiming music for us to enjoy,
They amazed us with eloquence and the sound of melody
In the safety of the branches high above, we made their acquaintance
It is said there is a Qa’a where well-being was created
Up to a tall tree of tranquillity or Garden of Eden
Herein happiness brushing off in the middle of its courtyard
And alongside peace, for an eternity it resided 

The Met also has a Damascus Room, which they say was constructed in 1707 but modified over the decades. The difference in the color of the wood between the two rooms seems to be about how it has been conserved. The Met says theirs has been darkened by many layers of varnish, so maybe either the Qataris or somebody else removed a lot of old varnish from their room.

Is there any space in any of the masions built by tech magnates that rivals these?