Two Versions Of ‘New Gourna’ And The
Dilemma Of Sustainability In New Urban
Communities In Egypt
Author(s)
K. G. Ahmed & L. Elgizawi
Abstract
Gourna, a vernacular village in Upper Egypt was built above the Pharonic
heritage site. In order to protect the monuments from theft, the Egyptian
government commissioned Hassan Fathy in the 1940s to design a new settlement
for the Gourna residents. Unfortunately, the project failed as most of the
residents refused to move to the new village. Recently the government repeated
the attempt, but this time the second version of the New Gourna was
significantly different from Fathy’s one. The main objective of this paper is to
investigate if the second version of New Gourna is going to overcome the
problems associated with Fathy’s New Gourna and deals successfully with the
sustainable vernacular architecture of the region. It has been found that both of
the two ‘New Gourna’ projects reveal how the top-down official processes might
end up with either a superficial mimicry to the authentic sustainable vernacular
architecture or an imposed alien built environment.
Keywords: Gourna, vernacular architecture, urban communities, sustainability.
1 Introduction
Gourna, a small village in Upper Egypt near Luxor, was built by its residents
about 100 m to the east of the Temple of Seti I. Old Gourna was a thriving
community of five hamlets built along the hills in West Luxor, on the ancient
cemetery of Thebes. Until the early 19th century the community included at least
parts of the Temple of Seti I. Edward William Lane related in 1825 that the
village was abandoned and not a single inhabitant lived there. Isabella Frances
Keywords
Gourna, vernacular architecture, urban communities, sustainability.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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