Hassan Fathy: Prophet of Earth Architecture

By Abdel-moniem El-Shorbagy

The Egyptian architect and master builder, Hassan Fathy (1900-1989) was one of the first architects to found a new approach based on a conception of interpreting forms and masses from the past. He was unique in believing that this language could exist alongside that of an aggressively modern one that cut all ties with the past. In addition to Fathy’s tireless efforts to establish his traditional approach, he struggled to improve the housing and living environments of the poor, especially in the Third World. Fathy’s efforts were acknowledged by several awards, including the Chairman’s Prize, Aga Khan Awards for Architecture (1980), the Right Livelihood Award (1980) and the first Gold Medal of the International Union of Architects (1984).

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Jan 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9783743894563

Book preview

.

 Hassan Fathy (1900-1989)

Dedication

To my wife, five children and extended family

Content

Introduction

Chapter 1 Creative Environment

Chapter 2 Sense of Belonging (1928 - 1945)

Chapter 3 Embracing the Challenge (1945-1957)

Conclusion

Appendix 1 Chronology of Fathy’s Life and Career

Appendix 2 Awards, AffiliationsConferences

Appendix 3 Glossary

List of Illustration

Bibliography

Introduction

The Egyptian architect and master builder, Hassan Fathy (1900-1989) was one of the first architects to found a new approach based on a conception of interpreting forms and masses from the past. He was unique in believing that this language could exist alongside that of an aggressively modern one that cut all ties with the past. In addition to Fathy’s tireless efforts to establish his traditional approach, he struggled to improve the housing and living environments of the poor, especially in the Third World. Fathy’s efforts were acknowledged by several awards, including the Chairman’s Prize, Aga Khan Awards for Architecture (1980), (fig.1) the Right Livelihood Award (1980) and the first Gold Medal of the International Union of Architects (1984).

In order to understand Fathy’s life and career, and to explain the origins and much of the evolution of his thinking as well as his nationalist attitude, an understanding of the historical circumstances within which he lived, is necessary. A brief history of modern Egypt and the many transformations in Egyptian nationalist orientations over time will clarify how Fathy perceived his own identity and how he tried to realise his nationalist beliefs in the world around him. The crowning event in establishing a brilliant period of Islamic civilisation and a prosperous centre of Islamic culture was during the Fatimid dynasty that ruled Egypt from 969 to 1171. During this period the Islamic character of Egypt, especially its capital Cairo, emerged, represented still in the architecture of the houses and mosques of the Fatimid era. However, old medieval Cairo was the city which influenced Fathy and in which he spent his formative years and the most productive part of his career as a professional architect.

Fig.1. The Aga Khan First Award Steering Committee

Front row left: Hassan Fathy, His Highness the Aga Khan, Renata Holod.

Fathy was born when Egypt was under British occupation and ruled by the Egyptian crown. The extensive foreign involvement in Egyptian affairs had brought into the country a large number of people whose way of life differed from that of the native Egyptian. This also brought to Egypt different architectural styles, which Fathy regarded as inappropriate and a threat to Egypt’s culture. The nationalistic atmosphere of the early twentieth century inevitably affected Fathy’s thinking and was the impetus behind his search for cultural identity. Fathy’s opposition to the concept of Westernisation was the result of the hegemony of the west on his country as well as the taken-for-granted idea that the East is inferior to the West. Fathy stated, When Hitler classified the races, I was very worried, I decided that there is no superior race, there are only specialities of race.

Fathy’s anti-westernisation attitude, which was reflected in his architecture, could be interpreted in the context of orientalism, which was thoroughly discussed by Edward Said in his Orientalism in 1978. Said defined Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient. Orientalism is mainly a British and French cultural enterprise based on the assumption that the relationship between West and East is a relationship of power, hegemony, and domination. For Egypt, colonisation and Western imperialism was different before and after the British occupation. From the time of Napoleon, Egypt was an academic example of Oriental backwardness, but it became the triumph of English knowledge and power. However, it is likely that Fathy’s quest for an authentic vernacular architecture was not only to fashion architecture for the people, but also an expression of his intention to liberate his country from ongoing westernisation during the second half of the twentieth century. Fathy was a contemporary of other intellectuals in Egypt, who were the product of this period, including the artist Hamid Said, for whom Fathy built a house in 1942 (fig.2). 

Fig.2. Hassan Fathy (right) and Hamid Said

Like Fathy, Said’s main concern was to establish a link between the modern world and Egyptian culture through the medium of art. In the early 1960s, he was asked by the Minister of Culture to write a book to represent his ideas. In his book The Contemporary Art (1962), Said argued that history is similar to nature and always needs reinterpretation. He explained that we make history when we highlight both its spirit and meaning and history makes us by defining the direction we follow in our life. History is the way to understand the present, and the way to the hope in the future.

Like Said, the late Ramses Wissa Wassef (1911-1974), architect, weaver and former head of the Architectural Department at the School of Fine Art in Cairo, was also Fathy’s close friend and shared with him the same traditional architectural approach (fig.3). Wassef studied architecture in Paris, but although he was the product of the Beaux-Art educational system he was, like Fathy, concerned about national issues and the decline of the traditional architecture and handicrafts of Egypt. Wassif was influenced by the teaching of the educator and sculptor Habib Gorgy, whose main concern was to establish a distinct Egyptian national character. Gorgy was Said’s teacher and later became Wassef’s father in law. Gorgy and Wassef taught a group of village children to weave tapestries according to the children’s own designs.

Their work has been exhibited in Europe and attracted the admiration of artists as well as critics. Like Fathy, Wassef also was impressed and influenced by the buildings of the old parts of Cairo and believed that the