On 31 October every year, United Nations-Habitat (UN-Habitat) celebrates World Cities Day. UN-Habitat works with partners to build inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities and communities in order to reduce inequality, discrimination and poverty.
This year, Luxor was chosen as the site of the global celebration of the day. The theme selected was “Adapting Cities for Climate Resilience” as a result of the increasing pace of climate change manifested in unprecedented global disasters including violent storms, devastating floods, and wild fires. Climate change is menacing the world’s water scarcity, food security, and economy.
On this occasion, and in partnership with the World Urban Campaign, UN-Habitat, the International Union of Architects (IUA), and the Habitat Professional Forum, the Hassan Fathy Centre for Architecture and Sustainable Development in New Gourna organised seminars and activities highlighting the pioneering contributions of the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy in the field of adapting houses to the climate and the local environment as well as the participation of local communities in building affordable houses.
This, as well as his efforts to link housing with cultural and economic development in the 1940s, earned him global recognition, and he became a source of inspiration for architects in all countries of the world. This was clear in the message from Thomas Vonier, president of the IUA, during the seminar on Sustainable Architecture and Development organised by the Hassan Fathy Initiative for Architecture and Sustainable Development in February in Gourna.
Vonier said then “that many generations of architects have learned from his works and from him personally, and his message is not only limited to architects because his works are a message to all of humanity. It is a message that offers hope for the world we live in now.”
Within the framework of the World Urban Campaign (WUC) launched by UN-Habitat, the first campaign in the world to promote “The City We Need Now” was inaugurated in New Gourna, designed by Hassan Fathy to be a model for building with people and for people everywhere in the world. Sandeep Chachra, chair of the steering committee of the WUC, called for countries to commit to providing the necessary funding to provide a decent life for the poor who are suffering from the harmful effects of climate change.
The objectives of the campaign include highlighting the features of “The City We Need Now” that will provide us with a better life through improvements in infrastructure and the provision of decent housing for all, job opportunities to combat poverty, a vibrant economic climate, creative educational and cultural activities, appropriate means of transportation, health services, clean water and sanitation, while also providing security, peace, equality, and ensuring fruitful coexistence between different groups of society.
“The City We Need Now” also includes addressing climate change, preserving the environment, providing green spaces, and the participation of government agencies, people, and the civil, professional, production and service sectors to manage the city through comprehensive and integrated governance to achieve the desired goals.
The launch of the campaign from New Gourna was accompanied by the issuance of the first guide map of this village and introducing Hassan Fathy and his contributions to the children of the community through storytelling, a documentary film, and a drawing workshop about the houses that Hassan Fathy built. The activities also included a tour to inspect the restoration carried out by the Urban Coordination Agency and the UNESCO Office in Cairo and an exhibition of pictures of the village buildings.
Participants in the seminars attending in person and via Zoom included Jyoti Hosagrahar, deputy director of the World Heritage Centre at UNESCO, and several officials from UN-Habitat including Raft Tuts, Sebastian Lange, and Sandeep Chacra, as well as Jose Luis Cortes, the president of the IUA, Mona Radi, president of the Habitat Professional Forum (HPF), and Christine Auclair, coordinator of the WUC. They also included Eric Huybrechts, deputy director of the International Scientific Committee on Earth Architecture, Amanda Rivera Vidal, vice president of ICOMOS-ISCEAH, the International Council on Monuments and Sites committee on earthern architectural heritage, and In-Souk Cho, vice-president of the ICOMOS-ISCARSAH committee on the analysis and restoration of structures.
Experts participating in the seminars included Tarek Attia, director of the National Centre for Building and Housing Research, Soheir Hawass, professor of architecture and urban design at the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University, Dalila Al-Kerdani, professor of architecture and urban planning at Cairo University, Hend Farouh, professor of environment and sustainable urban development at the Housing and Building National Research Centre, architect Ahmed Sedki, Satprem Maini, president of the Auroville Earth Institute in India, Maria Brown, president of the Society for the Architecture of Earth, Energy, Heritage, and Environment in Spain (ESTEPA), architect Nabil Ghali and Hoda Al-Masri, vice president of the African Union of Architects.
The participants acclaimed Hassan Fathy’s pioneering efforts in designing buildings compatible with the environment and climate, of which New Gourna in Luxor was a remarkable model as early as 1946. They emphasised that the contributions of Hassan Fathy are relevant to the adaptation of cities to climate resilience. Those contributions include the design of housing with local degradable materials and local labour, recycling, and the use of courtyards, air-circulation openings, thick walls, domes, vaults, and the making use of natural ventilation and natural lighting.
In another session, the experts applauded the role of Hassan Fathy in linking architecture with social, cultural, and economic development and improving people’s livelihoods through training in handicrafts, quality education, health and well-being and cultural development, thus being a forerunner of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition to building the houses in New Gourna, all that was required of him, he built schools for boys and girls, a school for craft industries, a craft training centre (the khan) and a permanent exhibition hall for crafts. A building was also allocated to include a social centre for women and a clinic. Moreover, Fathy provided a park, a theatre, a cinema, and designed a public hammam. Moreover, the village was planned to take into account the social organisation of the community and the preservation of the individuality of each house.
On another level, Hassan Fathy called for establishing a national project for the comprehensive development of all the countryside, which was not achieved by any government since the 1940s until President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi presented the Decent Life initiative. This aims to develop all Egyptian villages with the aim of providing infrastructure, community services, and economic development.
In his book, Architecture for the Poor, published in 1969, Hassan Fathy denounced the population increase in Egypt that has to be confronted on the one hand by birth control, and, on the other, by an increase in production, investment in housing, and the encouragement of craft industries. This coincides well with the current policy of the government, as evidenced by the opening of the “Our Heritage” (Turathna) exhibition of handicrafts, in which 1,500 people contributed, and by family planning programmes.
New Gourna, as stated by Hassan Fathy in his book, was not a goal in itself. Rather, he considered it to be the first experimental step on the road to renewing the Egyptian countryside and solving the population crisis for the poor, which has become a problem not limited to the developing countries.
Hassan Fathy is world famous, and his book has been translated into 22 languages and is taught in universities all over the world. His genius resides in discovering and learning from Egyptian traditional building traditions starting with the ancient Egyptian architect Imhotep, who designed the Step Pyramid of Djoser, and his commitment to architecture as a stepping stone to a better and prosperous life.
It is only fitting that his vision was celebrated in Luxor from the village that he hoped to be a model for “the City We Need Now.” Now more than ever, in a world suffering from housing problems and the threat of climate change, his ideas are a shining example of how architecture can contribute to a better future for humankind.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 11 November, 2021 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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