Current Watch Site

New Gourna Village, a planned 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 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. Fathy inspired a new generation of architects and planners worldwide through his integration of traditional materials and technology with modern architectural principles.

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 between 1946 and 1949, 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, however, nearly 40 percent of the village has been lost due to lack of maintenance and demolitions. The boys’ school has been razed; the theater, the Khan, and the market, as well as numerous homes are on the verge of collapse. Increased urban and the tourism pressures are compounding the situation. Collective action is needed to ensure the preservation of this complex legacy of modern town planning and vernacular heritage.