Has modern, well-meaning architecture ever foundered on more intransigence than near Luxor in Egypt? In his book Architecture for the Poor, the architect Hassan Fathy (1900-1989) described the dramatic demise of his utopian project New Gurna, which had been intended as a model village for the inhabitants of Gurna (or El Gournah).*1 Hassan Fathy's mud-brick village was sabotaged through deliberate flooding by the stubborn inhabitants of Gurna, a village situated higher up, who were determined to continue living above the ancient Egyptian heritage and close to Western archaeologists and tourists. Recently, a third and, for the time being, final act was added to the story: following Gurna (nineteenth century) and New Gurna (1947), there is now... New New Gurna. This is not only about alleged tomb robberies or a misunderstood architect, it is also an architectural mirror for contemporary Egypt.

For half a century, the Egyptian Department of Antiquities and UNESCO have tried in various ways to get the inhabitants of Gurna to leave. To no avail; the Gurnawi still live there, spread over five settlements (from Gurnet Murai to Dra Abu El-Naga) which make up the village of Gurna, situated precisely on top of the necropolis of Thebes. Tourists from Luxor, on their way to the many tomb monuments, see first a jumble of mud-brick dwellings, enclosures for animals and oil drums on wheels, which are filled with drinking water and then dragged up the mountain. The money tourists bring in is a major reason why the inhabitants do not want to leave, despite the rough living conditions. Hassan Fathy wrote that the inhabitants lived by robbing tombs.*2 He was exaggerating. The establishment of the village in the nineteenth century was a direct result of Western excavations, for which a great deal of cheap labour was needed. To this day, many Gurnawi still work for archaeologists. What has changed, however, is the value put on the work they do in the scores of excavations that take place here every year. Archaeologist Laurent Bavay of the Free University in Brussels goes even further: not only do the Gurnawi have indispensable knowledge of the site, the fact that they live on the necropolis has advantages: 'The modern occupation helps to protect the tombs. I fear an empty necropolis, deserted, without inhabitants, which would give rise to new problems.'*3 Even UNESCO now wants to demolish only those dwellings whose waste water is damaging the underlying tombs.*4 Some inhabitants have in recent years agreed to leave their homes, in exchange for a new dwelling in a desert village a few kilometres away. The paradox of present-day Gurna: for the first time, houses are being demolished, while it is certain that the village will never disappear. What's more, hotels are being built, illegally but quite openly, because the village is becoming an attraction. Present-day chaotic, Islamic Egypt not only exists alongside the Western idyllic image of Egyptian antiquity, as a picturesque village it is even acquiring touristic value. With its colourful facades, Gurna seems to be fast becoming a sort of St. Tropez of the Luxor area.

The end of New Gurna

Hassan Fathy did not much care for this spontaneous architecture with its ornamented cornice lines. The only elements he borrowed for his project were the pigeon tower and the individualization of the dwellings. The utopia of Fathy's New Gurna (Gurnet el Geddid) is one of modern architecture, a local variant of Le Corbusier's 'ville radieuse'. His mud-brick village was commissioned by the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, which was looking for the cheapest possible solution for the enforced resettlement of the Gurnawi. However, Hassan Fathy went further than cheap; his mind 'reeled' at the thought of building a village for 7000 people in which his all-embracing vision for a new Egyptian rural community could take shape. He thought of everything, right down to the smallest details, but he was also remarkably oblivious to the basic principles of the future inhabitants. A building worker from Gurna: 'The Gurnawi did not appreciate Hassan Fathy's mud domes; there were no domes in the old village. A dome is for graves, for the dead, not for living in, because it is the symbol of what doesn't move, of what stands still.'*5

And architecture in Egypt does not stand still, it is a dynamic process. The past? That is there to be replaced and renewed. Let the best proof of this here-and-now attitude be Gurna itself. As a result of the demographic explosion in Egypt, people, including Gurnawi, have finally settled here after all. However, with their remarkable, illegal, rebuilding techniques they are making short work of Hassan Fathy's architecture, which in the West would have been preserved as valuable national heritage.*6 The mud-brick walls are being replaced on the inside with concrete and brick, with an architecture, thus, which can be extended - an extra storey can be added with each new generation. With the exception of the mosque, virtually everything Hassan Fathy built has disappeared in recent years. It is ironic - he wanted to teach the Gurnawi to build their own homes, and now that they are doing just that, his architecture is being replaced by theirs.*7

'New New Gurna': Hassan Fathy's renaissance

However, Hassan Fathy's architecture is, remarkably enough, reappearing - as a superficial quotation - in the middle of the desert, but still within the municipality of Gurna, in recently built villages. The domes which were never accepted by the Egyptian inhabitants have evidently become a lasting symbol in higher circles, a symbol that, somehow or other, expresses authenticity and concern for the quality of life. For example, in 2001 in the 'New New Gurna' project Gabawi, two kilometres to the north of Gurna, 260 domed dwellings were built, derived from Hassan Fathy's style, but made of concrete and brick. Inhabitants of Gurna will move to Gabawi after accepting that their old homes are demolished. A gigantic plateau was constructed in the desert for the village, with running water and wide, shadeless streets, as a result of which it has the unreal atmosphere of a pioneer community.*8 The houses based on Hassan Fathy's ideas were designed by staff members at Cairo's school of architecture and financed by private investors as a philanthropic project. The Gurnawi are doing precisely the same here with the neo-Fathy domes as they do elsewhere: they demolish them. The mud-brick dwellings in New Gurna had many ingenious solutions and a genuine quality: they were adapted to the climate. The 'model houses' in Gabawi are small, low and hot, and what is even worse, in the eyes of the occupants they have an aura of poverty about them.*9
Consequently, there is always scaffolding throughout the recently completed village. The poorer residents alter their homes gradually, the richer Gurnawi build enormous 'dream houses' on the ruins of the domed dwellings, which they had immediately razed with a bulldozer. These colourful, kitschy villas, which extend far beyond the boundaries of the designated plots, are designed to proclaim prosperity and are based on models from television soaps and magazines. The airco appliances are positioned as prominently as possible on the facades, and plaster sculptures of dolphins and other marine life adorn the porticos.

The same can be seen two kilometres away in the village of Syoul where, following a flood in 1994, the army built 1 500 dwellings in which the poorest, suddenly homeless, Gurnawi were housed. In all of these redevelopments, private individuals annexed public land; a struggle for every extra square metre, which is called 'spreading out'. It is a fundamental strategy, the enlargement of vital private space through all manner of means, in which you have to be faster and bolder than your neighbours. Of course this 'acquisition' is illegal, a daring game which is cheerfully played with the rules in the three Gurnas.

But not everywhere. The 'Village Suzanne Mubarak', which was built in 1994, lies fifteen kilometres to the south of Gurna. This, too, was modelled on the nearby project by Hassan Fathy: the organization of the village, the mosque and the white houses with their arched vaults. The village was built and financed by Suzanne Mubarak, wife of the Egyptian president. It has the tranquillity of a European suburb. Nothing has changed here in ten years; not a single arched vault has been demolished, no walls have been added. There are names in Egypt which even the Gurnawi do not trifle with.

© Steven Wassenaar

Photography Philippe Groscaux

*1. Hassan Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, Chicago (The University of Chicago Press) 1973, was a reprint of: Hassan Fathy, Gurna, a tale of two villages, Prism art series 4, Cairo (Foreign Cultural Information Dept.) 1969.
*2. 'The whole community had [since 1900] lived by mining these tombs'. Hassan Fathy, Gurna, a tale of two villages, p. 15.
*3. From an interview held on March 3, 2004, in Gurna by Philippe Groscaux with Laurent Bavay, archaeologist at the Free University of Brussels, who confirms: 'the priority of the people is survival, archaeology is secondary.'
*4. From an e-mail interview (17-02-2004) with Mrs Mizuko Ugo, UNESCO, the official responsible at the World Heritage Centre, Arab States Unit, Paris: 'Given that, of course, any intervention should have to take into consideration the human, urban and archaeological components, the simple removal of the inhabitants with destruction of their houses wasn't considered as the best solution [...] it has been proposed to carry out this procedure only for selected houses, which are built directly on a tomb [...].'
*5. From an interview with Dr. Boutros Wadi, who quotes a building worker from Gurna. Dr. Boutros Wadi himself says: 'The domes are for foreigners; the dome corresponds to the image Westerners have of Egypt, all of the houses with a dome belong to foreigners, and all original Egyptian domes are mausoleums.'
*6. A difference which is illustrated, for example, by the bid to get the French city of Le Havre, rebuilt by Auguste Perret in 1950, already on UNESCO's world heritage list.
*7. 'I wanted to teach the Gournis brickmaking, quarrying, brick and lime firing, bricklaying, plumbing and plastering', in: Hassan Fathy, Gurna, a tale of two villages, p. 61.
*8. Being situated far from everything has economic consequences. An inhabitant of Gabawi (who wishes to remain anonymous), originally from Gurna: 'I saw more people [tourists and family, SW/PG] in Gurna, and there was money every day. Now life is more difficult, we don't have a garden, we have to buy everything. Even running water is not a plus point - in Gurna we used to fetch enough water with the donkey, and you chatted to people at the well.'
*9. A home-owner in Gabawi who wishes to remain anonymous: 'The rooms were too small, the dome too low, it was terribly hot, it was badly built.'