The ḥammām as a Cultural Heritage: Comparative Perspectives on Architectural Terminology and Cultural Practices in the Mediterranean and Central Asian Contexts of Tlemcen and Bukhara

Abstract

This article examines the ḥammām as both an architectural institution and a space of cultural memory through a comparative study of bathhouses in Tlemcen (Algeria) and Bukhara (Uzbekistan). While previous research has primarily focused on construction techniques, hydraulic systems, urban integration, and typological classifications, less attention has been paid to how architectural terminology, spatial experience, and cultural practices interact in the production and transmission of collective memory. The central problem guiding this research is how the architectural terms related to the bathhouse reflect distinct conceptions of space. and how this terminology contributes to the preservation of cultural memory within Islamic societies?

The study adopts a qualitative interdisciplinary methodology combining architectural history, phenomenology, lexical analysis, and ethnographic inquiry. The research corpus comprises historical descriptions, endowment documents, architectural surveys, archeological studies, historical dictionaries, dialect vocabularies, ethnographic descriptions, and scholarly works on Islamic bathhouses in the Mediterranean and Central Asian regions. The ethnographic dimension of the study draws on oral testimonies and vernacular narratives related to bathing practices, popular beliefs, ritual traditions and collective memory associated with the traditional bathhouse.

The comparative analysis reveals that, despite geographical distance and regional variations, the bathhouses of Tlemcen and Bukhara share a common spatial logic structured around a progressive sequence of transitional spaces linking cold, warm, and hot spaces. Movement through these spaces creates a gradual transformation of bodily and sensory experience, while architectural elements such as domes, filtered light, water basins, and intermediary thresholds contribute to a symbolic process of purification as a fluid and dynamic environment in which circulation, visibility, and ritual practices are as important as architecture itself.

Beyond its physical organization, the ḥammām emerges as a significant space of cultural memory. Ritual practices, oral narratives, popular beliefs, life-cycle ceremonies, and vernacular language preserve and transmit collective memory across generations. In both Tlemcen and Bukhara, the bathhouses operate as a liminal space mediating multiple oppositions, including purity and impurity, private and collective life, everyday practice and sacred symbolism. The study argues that architectural vocabulary constitutes an integral component of intangible cultural heritage because it encodes local understandings of space, social relations, and embodied experience. By integrating spatial analysis with linguistic anthropology and memory studies, this research highlights the importance of preserving not only historic bathhouse structures but also the linguistic and cultural traditions through which their meanings continue to be interpreted, transmitted, and remembered.