The Azem Palace and the Popular Arts Close to the Omayyad Mosque on the southern side, this palace was designed in 1749 for Assaad Pasha al Azem, Governor Damascus. It exactly fulfills the expectations the foreigner may have gained from romantic literature, about the Damascene “douceur de vivre”. Pretty rather than grandiose, it has a wealth of polychrome stone, cascading fountains in basins of immaculate marble, and a riot of flowers and greenery - bougainvillea, roses and the scents of jasmine and the cypress trees.
It was in this ravishing setting that the Department of Antiquities decided, in 1952, to, establish the National Museum of the Arts and Popular Traditions of Syria. Two years later the Department of Antiquities opened the doors of the Azem Palace, whose collections today contain almost ten thousand items. There is even more in the store. Specialists often come to study and gain inspiration - dress designers have made extensive use of the splendid costumes here in order to create new fashions. The display is both educational and extremely attractive; life-size dioramas are a frequent feature.
Furniture. Tools, utensils - everyday items as well as more unusual ones -are used in settings in which highly realistic was figures recreate natural scenes with almost uncanny accuracy. This series of glimpses of Syria as it was, often until very recently, brings to life scenes as divergent as massaging or making a cup of coffee, a wedding ceremony or a Pasha’s reception.