Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt
Hassan Fathy
University of Chicago Press, 1973/2000

Hardcover (1973), Paperback (2000) | 5-1/2 x 9 inches | 366 pages | 132 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0226239163 | $38.00

Publisher Description:
Architecture for the Poor describes Hassan Fathy?s plan for building the village of New Gourna, near Luxor, Egypt, without the use of more modern and expensive materials such as steel and concrete. Using mud bricks, the native technique that Fathy learned in Nubia, and such traditional Egyptian architectural designs as enclosed courtyards and vaulted roofing, Fathy worked with the villagers to tailor his designs to their needs. He taught them how to work with the bricks, supervised the erection of the buildings, and encouraged the revival of such ancient crafts as claustra (lattice designs in the mudwork) to adorn the buildings.dDAB Commentary: If the juries for the 2014 and 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prizes, which went to Shigeru Ban and Alejandro Aravena respectively, were around before 1989, when Fathy died at the age of 89, they probably would have awarded one of "architecture's Nobel" to Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy. Like those architects, Fathy designed buildings for people who could afford to hire an architect (these took the form of villas, mainly), but he devoted a good deal of his energy to "architecture for the poor," akin to Ban's refugee and post-disaster housing and Aravena's inc...