Adam Hennen Residence
Location: Giza, Egypt
Date : 1968
Century: 20th
Decade: 1960s
Building Type: residential
Notes
The Adam Henen Residense is a traditional house with a workshop for an Egyptian
artist. The architect, through his design, sought to provide the artist and his family
with a comfortable house and a functional workshop at a minimal cost. Adam Henen
was a young sculptor, a pupil of Wissa Wassef, and shared his philosophy. He needed
a place to live and work, and could not then afford to buy a conventional house. The
site was large enough for the artist's studio to be in a separate building. The ground
floor comprises a sitting room, dining room, study, and kitchen. The first floor
contains two bedrooms and a bathroom. The choice of mud-brick as a material
ensured not only that the construction cost would be kept to a minimum, but also that
the thermal performance would be good. Domes and vaults are constructed from red
brick and mortar cement. The house is surrounded by a garden.
Church of al-Mar'ashali
Street Address Zamalek
1970s
Notes
An intelligent design in a rationalized vernacular mode, this church occupies an
important intersection in the fashionable Zamalek district of Cairo. Its architect,
Ramses Wissa Wassef, is a contemporary of Hassan Fathy, and, like him, he sought
architectural inspiration in the vernacular traditions of Egypt. He went on to
implement his architectural and socio-religious vision in the arts and crafts center he
founded and built in the village of Harraniyya outside Cairo.
Source:
Rabbat, Nasser O.
Harraniya Craft Village
Variant Names Harraniya Weaving Village
Street Address Harraniya
Location Giza, Egypt
Architect/Planner
Hassan Fathi
Architect/Planner
Wessa
Date
1940
Decade
1940
Building Types
educational, urban settlement
Notes
"The Harraniya Crafts Centre is a third community project, which like those of Lulu'at
al-Sahara and Garagos, is much less well known than New Gourna, yet represents an
important member of the group of examples of this typology designed by Fathy.
Carried out in collaboration with the architect Rarnses Wissa Wassef, and the
Ministry of Scientific Research, the centre was based on a dual belief in the natural
creative ability of children and the need for the material self-sufficiency to allow that
natural creativity to have free rein. As the son-in-law of the famous educator Habib
Gorgy, who first promoted these ideas in Egypt, Ramses Wissa Wassef became
intrigued with the concept of a utopian, self-contained weaving village in which
Gorgy's theories could be tested. Along with Fathy and Hamid Said, Wassef also
believed in the critical importance of reviving national, traditional crafts in the face of
the threat of expanding industrialization. The essence of the village, which radiates
out from a man-made lake at its apex, is the reciprocal relationship between the
housing units and the fields next to them. These fields, which were intended to sustain
both the sheep from which the wool for the weaving would be taken, and the plants
that would yield the natural dyes to colour them, symbolically alternate with the
houses in which the young weavers live. In this way a repeating rhythm of protected
agricultural areas and contained pedestrian streets is set up by the interlocking lines of
the houses between them. The direct contact between the houses and the fields also
allows the farm animals to be brought into the interior of each house, which is an
important factor in rural Egypt, and was first attempted by Fathy in his design of the
houses in New Gourna. As the plan progresses from the green agricultural perimeter
towards the lake at its apex, it becomes more and more public in function, and this is
where the majority of the facilities for weaving, selling, storage and shipping are
located. Although never realized in the form documented here, the Ramses Wissa
Wassef weaving village was finally built in Shabramant near Harraniya, and was the
recipient of an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1983. The extraordinary
tapestries woven by the children there have become the pride of Egyptian
contemporary art, and are now exhibited in galleries throughout the world."
(Source: Steele, James. 1989. The Hassan Fathy Collection. A Catalogue of Visual
Documents at the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Bern, Switzerland: The Aga
Khan Trust for Culture. 22)
Mohi Houssin Residence
Giza, Egypt
1970
Notes
The Mohi Houssen Residence is a traditional house with a workshop for an Egyptian
sculpture situated in a private garden. The architect, through his design, sought to
provide the artist and his family with a comfortable house and a functional workshop
at a minimal cost. The residence is designed as two separate sectors; the larger sector
comprises the residential area, which covers both the north and east side of the
courtyard. The other sector comprises a ceramic workshop that encloses the courtyard
on the west. The house is entered by a porch at the northeast corner which leads to an
entry court facing the internal courtyard. The accommodation is divided into two
parts: the north end is for the family, with three bedrooms and a bathroom on two
levels. A corridor leads to the other half of the house where there is a domed sitting
room, dining area kitchen and workshop. The domes and vaults are constructed using
red bricks, while ceilings were built of mud-brick. The walls are load-bearing roughhewn limestone.
(Source: AKTC)
Ramses Wissa Wassef Arts Center
Street Address
just outside the ancient village of Harraniya
Giza, Egypt
1974
Decade
1970s
public/cultural
Notes
Near the pyramids at Giza, the centre was founded in the early 1950s by the late
architect Ramses Wissa Wassef as a weaving school. It has since evolved to comprise
workshops and showrooms, a pottery and sculpture museum, houses and farm
buildings, constructed entirely of mud brick. For Wissa Wassef, vaulted and domed
mud brick structures represented something quintessentially Egyptian as these forms
had been adopted in turn by Paranoiac, Coptic and Islamic civilisations. The choice of
this traditional technology also reflected his desire to transmit the values of handicraft
to succeeding generations in a rapidly industrialising country. The jury commended
the centre for "the beauty of its execution, the high value of its objectives, the social
impact of its activities as well as the power of its influence as an example."
Recipient of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 1983.
(Source: AKTC)