New Gourna Village, an experimental earthen village on the West Bank of the Nile, is a testament to how the relationship between heritage and society is often fraught with multiple meanings and conflicting values.
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New Gourna Village, an experimental earthen village on the West Bank of the Nile, is a testament to how the relationship between heritage and society is often fraught with multiple meanings and conflicting values.
In 1945, the Egyptian Department of Antiquities commissioned the renowned architect Hassan Fathy to design and construct a new settlement to which the inhabitants of Old Gourna were to be relocated, in an effort to curtail suspected looting at the nearby Pharaonic sites and facilitate tourism development. Fathy’s philosophy and vision derived from humanistic values about the connections between people and places and the use of traditional knowledge and resources in designing the built environment.
New Gourna was at once his greatest achievement and most profound disappointment. Though Fathy's project was meant to shelter 20,000 inhabitants, only part of the plan was realized due to political and financial complications and opposition on the part of the residents to relocation. The constructed New Gourna included housing and many public facilities. Today, it remains a dynamic living settlement; however, nearly 40 percent of the original buildings have been lost.
Hassan Fathy's New Gourna: Past, Present, Future
