2018 Essay - Hassan Fathy

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HASSAN FATHY GOUACHE FOR NEW GOURNA


Figure 01 Gouache for new Gourna by Hassan Fathy (1946)

In their drawings— simple lines painted on the walls of the tombs—[the Ancient Egyptians] convey more of the essential character of nature than do the most elaborate confections of color and light and shade by the most celebrated exponents of modern European-style painting (Fathy, 1973) Introduction In 1945, Hassan Fathy was commissioned by Egypt’s Department of Antiquities to design a village for the relocation of 7000 Egyptians. The inhabitants of Gourna, located across the Nile from Luxor, relied on robbing the Tombs of the Nobles, on which the village was built, for their income, to the objection of the Department. It was a complex project that would dismantle and reassemble a whole society in a new place (Fathy, 1973). Fathy produced an allegory for the design: Test Design with Plants and Animals, or Gouache for New Gourna (figure 01). The image is a gouache of two sets of plans with associated elevations set within various flora and fauna. This essay will address Fathy’s agenda behind the image, the techniques he employed, and the success of the image as a method of client engagement. Agenda By 1945 technology had ignited the Modernist movement throughout the world (figure 02) and architects like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius were leading the way using theories of abstraction and scientific rationaliza-

tion to design. Fathy stood vehemently against the movement, convinced that modern Egypt would benefit from preserving its traditional cultural patterns (Steele, 1992, p. 51). His early career focused on the revival of mud as a construction method (figure 03), and he aspired to establish proof of concept through New Gourna. Fathy disagreed with Le Corbusier’s design methods, but they both recognised the need for a ‘new kind of plan’ (Le Corbusier, 1927, p. 3), and they weren’t alone; model cities were being designed and built all over Britain and Europe. Fathy was convinced that ‘the solution to Egypt’s housing problem lay in Egypt’s history’ (Fathy, 1973, p. 8) and through New Gourna Fathy employed a new template of city planning to meet the needs of the inhabitants both socially and economically. Aware of a distance between architect, builder and dweller, Fathy wanted to use an architectural language that could be universally understood. The project relied upon the support of the Gourniis, Fathy believed that the owner ‘doesn’t understand the idiom of architectural drawing nor the architect’s jargon’ (Fathy, 1973, p. 29) and so denounced the architectural tricks manipulating


Figure 03 Queen Hatshepsul Making Mud Brick. Fathy references the image in his book, Architecture for the Poor

Figure 02 An example of Bauhaus Architecture in the Middle East. Bruno House in Tel-Aviv by Ze’ev Haller (1933)

Figure 04 Gouache of the Mosque at New Gourna. Fathy produced a number of gouaches for New Gourna and other projects.

drawings to the advantage of the architect; a motor car, additional people, a ‘convenient oak tree to balance massing’. Instead, Fathy wanted to created drawings that the people could understand and be inspired by. Expression I had to try to give my new designs that appearance of having grown out of the landscape that the trees of the district have. They should look as much at home in the fields as the date-palm and the dompalm. Their inhabitants should live in them as naturally as they wore their clothes. (Fathy, 1973, p.44) The architectural representation for New Gourna is a gouache, a form of watercolour typically used on papyrus. Fathy praises the Ancient Egyptian drawings for representing the soul and character of Egypt and he produced several gouache studies throughout his career (figure 04). The subjects varied from fictional utopian landscapes to design proposals for clients, but all highlight the relationship between nature and infrastructure in the traditional, Egyptian way.

To overcome the architectural language barrier, Fathy took inspiration from the Pharaonic drawing conventions of flattened perspectives. In Gouache for New Gourna the plans are drawn with simple lines showing walls in red, stairs in a finer line and the domes above in white (figure 05). There are no annotations: Fathy sees little use for dimensions, recognising that the skilled labourers had little need for them, or wouldn’t follow them. Additionally, the image is a ‘test design’ so would not be used for construction. Steele notes on a different drawing, although it is applicable here as well, that ‘the simplicity of the plan reflects the house’s basic, functional design’ (Steele, 1997, p. 64). What particularly makes this image stand out is Fathy use of symbolism to connect the proposals to their environment and the dwellers. The trees shown at head and foot of the page are the date-palm and dot-palm, both native to Northern Egypt (figure 06). The Nile footnotes the page in a pharaonic convention (Reid, 2015) and the tree in the centre is a sycamore. The sycamore holds significance in Egyptian mythology for shading Osiris, god of resurrection, an indication of the


Figure 05-07 Call-outs from Gouache for New Gourna 05: Floor plan drawn with simple lines 06: Local trees and the Nile 07: Hathor behind Gourna mountain

The surfaces of the elevations; the lines of the plans, the depictions of the different flora and fauna, Gourna Mountain, and even the goddess Hathor peeping from behind the mountain, evoke a rural idyll, at once ancient and contemporary, an Egypt we dream of. (Hamid, 2010) plans for New Gourna’s future. The rock in centre right of the page is Gourna mountain, a sacred rock, behind which we see Hathor, fertility goddess, in the form of a cow, the cow being more common in the area than the buffalo seen in the rest of Egypt (figure 07). These elements were carefully chosen to connect the design to the people, their beliefs and the site and to encourage familiarity and ownership. Criticism The surfaces of the elevations; the lines of the plans, the depictions of the different flora and fauna, Gourna Mountain, and even the goddess Hathor peeping from behind the mountain, evoke a rural idyll, at once ancient and contemporary, an Egypt we dream of. (Hamid, 2010, p.70) The project is generally considered an architectural success, but a social failure. When only 130 of the 900 units had been constructed disgruntled villages from Old Gourna, unwilling to relocate or surrender their lucrative careers, cut the dyke and flooded the village, sabotaging the project (Guitart, 2014, p. 172).

Criticism towards the project is often assigned to Fathy’s cultural ambivalence. Taragan questions ‘the ability of visual representation to reconstruct and preserve authentic culture’ (Taragan, 1999, p. 170), and concludes that Fathy, a highly educated member of the upper class, failed to understand the requirements of a Gournii peasant. Similarly, Guitart blames Gourna’s failure on Fathy’s focus on ‘abstract sociological concepts rather than an awareness of the concerns of the villagers’ (Guitart, 2014, p. 176). In response to the development, Egyptian journalist Fathi Ghanim published al-Jabal, a semi-biographical novella that explores the complicated relationship between the villagers and the architect. The project is deemed a failure and ‘the investigation file remains empty’ (Taragan, 1999, p. 171) Fathy himself critiques the project in his book Architecture for the Poor, but more poignant is his fable The Land of Utopia, a thinly veiled allegory, in which a wise man and a beautiful woman travel through failing modern societies on a journey to discover ‘Utopia’. The couple are unsuccessful, and the novel ends as disappointingly as the project, reflecting Fathy’s own bitter experience.


Figure 08 An image Outram produced for an office building at 200 Queen Victoria Street (1988-1990)

Despite criticism for the project, Fathy’s architectural representation is praised. Ahmed Hamid, author of Hassan Fathy and Continuity in Islamic Arts and Architecture: The Birth of a New Modern and understudy of Fathy’s, writes a generous description of the image (above), but his bias is evident. Professor James Steele, author of two books on Fathy and member of the UNESCO Scientific Committee for the safeguarding of New Gourna commends the gouache for expressing ‘[Fathy’s] empathy with both the living condition and the status’ (Steele, 1997, p. 86). The image seems to encompass a social awareness that the project was unable to deliver. Influence Fathy is rare in his style of architectural representation, and there is little evidence of influence. One could pull similarities between the gouaches and John Outram’s work decades later (figure 08). Both architects incorporated visual metaphors into their drawings and even wrote fictional narratives to support the intent behind their buildings, although Outram has not commented on this.

Critical Conclusion ‘Inducing local participation is a difficult, often unpredictable, and potentially contentious undertaking.’ (Mansuri & Rao, 2012, p.288) Reviewing Fathy’s agenda and the visual representation that followed l am disappointed by the project’s outcome. Fathy chose this representational style to inspire and connect with the peoples of Gourna, so its success or effectiveness should be measured against this. The case of New Gourna displays the limitations of using architectural representation alone in public consultation. It is ignorant to blame the representation, but it is also ignorant to assume that a representation alone would be enough to win over the people. The criticism of it being quasi-authentic is valid, but Fathy himself humbly recognised it was a ‘very heavy task for one man’ (Fathy, 1973, p. 44), and I admire his efforts to tackle the challenge of understanding a culture. To only allow architecture to be designed by those native to the culture is unreasonable. Without the source of


Figure 09 New Gourna Street View

the cultural ambivalence he is criticised for, his education, Fathy would not have been appointed to design the scheme. The use of gouache in architectural representation is uncommon, if not unique and today’s public participation is not limited to drawings. 2016 Pitzker prize winner Alejandro Aravena, praised for epitomizing ‘the revival of a more socially engaged architect’ (Pitzker Prize, 2016), overcomes some of the challenges Fathy failed. Aravena encourages a sense of belonging and pride, not through architectural representation but extensive, gritty conversations with the users. Despite the poor reception of the project, I am inspired by Gouache for New Gourna. I agree with Steele and Hamid’s praise of its empathetic and conscientious agenda and execution. The image is saturated with consideration for the environment in which the village will be built, and the people for whom it has been designed. This style of architectural drawing was a representation of Fathy’s answer to ‘problem of public participation, the need to establish some method of design... which would enable the future user to become involved’ (Richards, 1985, p. 13). Fathy’s work at

New Gourna (figure 09) was a ground-breaking experiment in humanity focused approach design, and the image is a suitable reflection of this.

Works Cited Fathy, H., 1947. The Land of Utopia.. Geneva, Switzerland.: Hassan Fathy Archives. Aga Khan Trust for Culture.. Fathy, H., 1973. Architecture for the Poor. s.l.:The University of Chicago Press. Ghanim, F., 1959. al-Jabal (al-Kitab al-dhahabi). Cairo: Dar Ruz al-Yusuf . Guitart, M., 2014. The Failed Utopia of a Modern African Vernacular: Hassan Fathy in New Gourna. Journal of Architectural Education, Issue 68:2, pp. 166-177. Hamid, A., 2010. Hassan Fathy and Continuity in Islamic Arts and Architecture: The Birth of a New Modern. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. Le Corbusier, 1927. Towards a New Architecture. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.. Mansuri, G. & Rao, V., 2012. Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? (Policy Research Reports). 1st ed. s.l.:World Bank Publications. Pitzker Prize, 2016. Alejandro Aravena of Chile receives the 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize. [Online]


Figure 10 Hassan Fathy Portrait

Available at: http://www.pritzkerprize.com/2016/announcement [Accessed 05 01 2018]. Porter, T., 1993. Architectural Drawing Masterclass: Graphic Techniques of the World’s Leading Architects. London: Cassell Publishing. Reid, D. M., 2015. Contesting Antiquity in Egypt: Archaeologies, Museums, and the Struggle for Identities from World War I to Nasser. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press. Richards, J. M., 1985. In the International Context. In: Architects in the Third World: Hassan Fathy. London: Concept Media Pte Ltd. Steele, J., 1992. A Tribute to Hassan Fathy.. In: J. Steele, ed. Architecture for a Changing World. London: Academy Editions. Steele, J., 1997. An Architecture for People: The Complete Works of Hassan Fathy. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd.. Taragan, H., 1999. Architecture in Fact and Fiction: The Case of the New Gourna Village in Upper Egypt. In: Muqarnas Volume XVI: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World. Leiden: The Aga Khan Program at Harvard University, pp. 169-178. Images Cited Figure 01 – Fathy, H (1946) New Gourna, plan/elevation with Hathor [gouache] At: Aga Khan Trust for Culture [online]. Available from: https://archnet.org/sites/90/ media_contents/30381 [Accessed 09 January 2018].

Figure 02 – Geron, A (unknown) Bruno House, 3 Strauss Street by Ze’ev Haller 1933 [photograph] At: unknown [online]. Available from: https://www.dezeen.com/201 6/08/24/10-tel-aviv-best-examples-bauhaus-residential-architecture/ [Accessed 09 January 2018]. Figure 03– Unknown (unknown) Queen Hatshepsut making mud brick [relief] In: Fathy, H., Architecture for the Poor. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1973, p.237 Figure 04– Fathy, H (1946) Gouache of the Mosque at New Gourna [gouache] In: Steele, J., 1997. An Architecture for People: The Complete Works of Hassan Fathy. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1997, p.68-69 Figure 05-07 - Fathy, H (1946) New Gourna, plan/elevation with Hathor, op. cit. Figure 08 – Outram, J (1988-90) Blackfriars Project, City of London, Elevation [Bubble-Jet Print]. In: Porter, T.. Architectural Drawing Masterclass: Graphic Techniques of the World’s Leading Architects. London: Cassell Publishing, 1993, p144-145 Figure 09 – Viollet, R (unknown) New Gourna Street View [photograph]. Available from: http://www.architectureindevelopment.org/project.php?id=30 [Accessed 09 January 2018]. Figure 10 – © Hassan Fathy Architecture for the Poor (unknown) Portrait of Hassan Fathy [Photograph] Available from: http://www.architectureindevelopment.org/project.php?id=30 [Accessed 09 January 2018].


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