basic information:
- New Gourna Village
- Village, Housing
- Hassan Fathy
- Luxor, Egypt
- 1952
short description
New Gourna Village was originally a collection of Vernacular mud brick homes and community buildings. Hassan Fathy was commissioned by the Egyptian government in 1948 to plan and build “New Gourna Village” in order forcefully re-locate approximately 7,000 local inhabits from old gourna. Fathy, embracing the humanist tenant of modernism but believing in the aesthetics and architectural history of his country chose to embrace local building materials and technologies to build what he saw as a functional, low-cost community that respected its context and would provide a quality living for its inhabitants.
significance:
- Rather than outright accepting or rejecting western modernism, Fathy chose to take what he saw as useful from it and form is own cultural modernism
- Fathy leaned on wisdom of the past and included passive cooling systems such as wind catchers, courtyards and public spaces
- Fathy lived among the gourni for a time to understand how they lived and their needs
Images and drawings:
New Gourna Village, Location
New Gourna Village, House
New Gourna Village, Plan
New Gourna Village, Mosque
New Gourna Village, Square
sources:
- https://daily.jstor.org/hassan-fathy-and-new-gourna/
- https://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/637/
- https://architectureindevelopment.org/project/30
- Google Maps
