New Gourna
THE VILLAGE
THE FALL AND RISE OF NEW GOURNA
Abdel-moniem El-Shorbagy
DEDICATION
To my wife, five children and extended family
Contents
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
2. NEW GOURNA SETBACKS
3. PLANNING THE VILLAGE
3.1 Demographic factors
3.2 Planning and Climate
3.3 Socio-Economic Factors
3.4 Cultural factors
3.5 Aesthetic Factors
3.6 Spiritual Factors
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Unless otherwise mentioned, all illustrations are credited to: (Courtesy of Aga Khan Trust for Culture)
1. INTRODUCTION
The village of Gourna (1945-1948), which New Gourna was intended to replace, is built on the site of the ancient town of Thebes (fig.1). It lies across the River Nile from Luxor, in the south of Egypt. It comprises the Valley of the Kings to the north, the Valley of the Queens to the south, and the tombs of the Nobles in the middle on the hillside. Old Gourna village is built on the site of these tombs of the Nobles and was inhabited by about seven thousands peasants whose houses are built around and over these tombs. The economy of this community was mainly based on the mining of these tombs and the selling of their priceless contents. The siting of the village presented a major problem for the preservation and scientific investigation of these major archaeological sites. Continuous tomb robbing had led the Department of Antiquities to take positive action to overcome the problem of Gourna. They asked the government to move the villagers in order to facilitate the continuity of excavations. A government commission studied the problem and decided to construct a whole new village or series of villages to accommodate the villagers.
Fig. 1. Old Gourna Village
Osman Rustum, the head of Engineering and Excavations and M. Stopplaere, the head of the Restoration Section in the Department of Antiquities, suggested to the Abbé Drioton, the director general of the department, that the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy (1900-1989) should be asked to design the new village of Gourna. They admired Fathy’s work specifically the houses of the Royal Society of Agriculture (1941), which revealed the potential of mud-brick as a building material and the low cost of using it. Accordingly, Drioton commissioned Fathy to build New Gourna village. Fathy was an architect and a master builder, whose main aim was to establish a new approach based on a conception of interpreting forms and masses from the past (fig.2).
Fig.2 Hassan Fathy (1900 - 1989)
Fathy was in opposition to the hegemony of the forms of modern architecture. Fathy believed that this new traditional 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, throughout his life 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).
2. NEW GOURNA SETBACKS
Fathy’s work in New Gourna of 1948 also exhibited an extreme responsibility toward authenticity in architecture, which can be the basis for today’s aspiration of an architecture rooted in local heritage as well as for continuity into the future. Undoubtedly, Fathy’s simple compositional technique and his ability to recreate the essence of a tradition without pastiche epitomise the strength and endurance of the vernacular. Fathy’s experiment in New Gourna represents an example of rediscovery of the vernacular as well as an example of a self-build project. He explained
Impressum
Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 04.12.2018
ISBN: 978-3-7438-8830-2
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