Architecture for the Poor versus the Desire of the Poor: The Ambivalent Reception of Hassan Fathy’s Architectural Legacy
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Until the 19th century, architecture was primarily shaped by the collective taste and not the ingenuity of a single architect. Aside from monumental buildings and edifices associated with power, ordinary houses were built by ordinary people. During the 20th century and especially after the destruction of many European cities during the First World War, the social role of architects radically transformed. Le Corbusier, for example, represented the emblematic figure of the architect as a privileged agent of social change. Modernist architecture thus became the global model for development in the post-war era. Architects and politicians alike in North African and South American countries used European Modernism to express their desire for modernity and democracy. Hassan Fathy (1900-1989), however, is one of the early architects who contested white modernist architecture of the 1930s. Some historians have discussed the work of Fathy along Kenneth Frampton’s notion of critical regionalism. This paper opens a new window into Fathy’s ambivalent relationship with the public he committed to serve. He saw his responsibility to build with considerations for context, whether climatic, cultural, or tectonic. Yet, the public for whom he was building had an entirely conflicting desire for architecture. This is shown through Gourni’s refusal to relocate to Fathy’s New Gourna village, designed in upper Egypt in the 1940s. Through Jacques Rancière’s “The Distribution of the Sensible, between Aesthetics and Politics”, this paper compares the design philosophy of Fathy with the reception of his work by the general public, contemporary architects, and political entities in Egypt. It investigates the contradictory prevailing character of Fathy’s architecture and his aspirations for an architecture for the poor. It argues that architecture, with the architect as a sociopolitical catalyzer for a new world and way of living, promoting equality, holds a dominant character that persisted in Fathy’s practice.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
CACM - Architecture
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Prof. Ehsan Sheikholharam Mashhadi
Architecture for the Poor versus the Desire of the Poor: The Ambivalent Reception of Hassan Fathy’s Architectural Legacy
Until the 19th century, architecture was primarily shaped by the collective taste and not the ingenuity of a single architect. Aside from monumental buildings and edifices associated with power, ordinary houses were built by ordinary people. During the 20th century and especially after the destruction of many European cities during the First World War, the social role of architects radically transformed. Le Corbusier, for example, represented the emblematic figure of the architect as a privileged agent of social change. Modernist architecture thus became the global model for development in the post-war era. Architects and politicians alike in North African and South American countries used European Modernism to express their desire for modernity and democracy. Hassan Fathy (1900-1989), however, is one of the early architects who contested white modernist architecture of the 1930s. Some historians have discussed the work of Fathy along Kenneth Frampton’s notion of critical regionalism. This paper opens a new window into Fathy’s ambivalent relationship with the public he committed to serve. He saw his responsibility to build with considerations for context, whether climatic, cultural, or tectonic. Yet, the public for whom he was building had an entirely conflicting desire for architecture. This is shown through Gourni’s refusal to relocate to Fathy’s New Gourna village, designed in upper Egypt in the 1940s. Through Jacques Rancière’s “The Distribution of the Sensible, between Aesthetics and Politics”, this paper compares the design philosophy of Fathy with the reception of his work by the general public, contemporary architects, and political entities in Egypt. It investigates the contradictory prevailing character of Fathy’s architecture and his aspirations for an architecture for the poor. It argues that architecture, with the architect as a sociopolitical catalyzer for a new world and way of living, promoting equality, holds a dominant character that persisted in Fathy’s practice.