New Village of Gourna and Vitruvius’s Three Architectural qualities

From his book Architecture for the Poor, the village of Gourna is one of Fathy’s most renowned projects in the world as the book primarily focuses on the tragic history of the village. The village was partially built in the mid 1940s following the need for government to resettle a whole community of entrepreneurs living on pharaoh tombs from Luxur and help in solving the rural housing problem that affected the government’s operations in the country. Even though the village of Gourna is significant for for its tragic history, the architectural design of the village compounds its significance as one of the renowned architectural designs in the world.

As the father of sustainable architecture in the Middle East, Fathy’s Gourna village is his major representation of respect for traditional and sustainable architectural designs characteristic of the country’s poor population. He distasted western architectural techniques and materials used in construction such as steel and concrete because they were not suitable to the country’s climate and the limited skills of craftsmen at that time. Majority of his architectural designs resembled the Nubian’s vernacular architecture whose houses were popular for their vaulted and domed roofs of mud and brick. Moreover, mud bricks were also used in making walls and were considered suitable due to low costs and environmental conditions in the Upper regions of Egypt.

The Gourna Village is one of the most popular housing projects in Egypt and the world due to Fathy’s vision of the village contained in his book Architecture for the Poor. His designs relied on orientation, local materials, ventilation, traditional building methods, and energy preservation techniques that were inevitable to consider in a country like Egypt. He mentions in his book that the Gourna village though not seen to completion was not an experiment, but the establishment was a social construction based on the culture and tradition of Egyptians.

The Gourna village is an indication that attractive compositions and forms are determined by the nature of architecture used in the construction process. When discussing the nature of Architecture, Roth utilizes Roman architect Vitruvius three architectural qualities to use when determining the nature of an architectural design. According to Vitruvius, an architectural design must possess firmness, commodity, and delight qualities to sustain the high standards of architectural design. Vitrivius alleged that architecture was a replication of nature, and humans needed to construct their houses and buildings from natural materials and elements provided by the earth. This echoes Fathy’s arguments for basing the architectural design of Gourna village on indigenous vernacular architect, which utilized the natural elements provided by nature in designing the village.

Firstly, a good architectural design had to be firm. Firmness is related to the structural resilience of the architectural design. The design of a building or house must be durable and show signs of performance for the outlined purpose. Moreover Vitruvius insisted that the materials used in constructing a house or building must also be durable. Therefore the three qualities ensure that a building is firm to sustain its operations.

However, even though a building may portray firmness, it may fail to achieve its purpose if it does not offer utility to the people who inhabit it. Vitruvius insisted that an architectural design chosen for a building or a house had to match the functionality. Moreover, it had to consider the unique needs and desires of the population inhabiting it. For a building to achieve the quality of utility, it had to be useful to all the intended people or purposes and demonstrate its ability to satisfy their needs and desires.

Finally, the quality of beauty is insisted by Vitruvius as integral when considering the nature of an architectural design. It is beauty that separates architecture from engineering as the architectural design offers visual and sensory appeal, which Vitruvius referred to as architectural delight. Using the design principles of proportion, contrast, and harmony, beauty should change the utilitarian purpose of a building and make it pleasing to the eyes, ears, and mind. This will make it express pleasure and approval for its intended purpose. According to him, the difference between a good and great architectural design is the skill to craft a stylish solution to the delight of a user.

Through the prominence of his book Architecture for the Poor, many scholars in the world are astonished by the architectural vision that Fathy had for the new Village of Gourna, which he had perfectly designed to suit the needs of the population that was being resettled from Luxur. Many argue that even though the housing project was not completed due to lack of political will during emergence and spread of politics of modernity in Egypt, the village was a successful architectural design done by Hassan Fathy. The village and its various attributes are considered one of the most attractive architectural designs in Egypt and portray the three qualities of a successful design proposed by Vitruvius.

On the quality of utility, Fathy ensured that the houses making the village of new Gourna were designed according to the varying needs and desires of the community inhabiting old Gourna. As a result, he employed a social worker as his partner to interview and incorporate the opinions of villagers about their needs for a house design. It is through participatory planning and the need for resettlement structures by the government that influenced Fathy’s plan for new Gourna and the manner he designed each house. In order to ensure preservation of temperatures in the country, Fathy adopted the three Nubian vernacular architectural essentials of altering perceived temperatures. His houses were common for their courtyards that had breezy pierced walls, carved window screens that provided ventilation, and wind catch that were forgotten, but appropriate technologies in the modern industrial era. Even though many in the modern world attribute these technologies to poverty and traditional eras, they present the distinctive Arab and Egyptian architecture adopted from the desert that nationalism in the country ignored in favor of the industrial west.

The inner courtyard has been the most efficient form of air conditioning in conventional desert architecture. Its property of trapping cool air at night and releasing during the day to the other rooms in the claustra ensures that high temperatures of the day are controlled. Another air conditioning technique was in the mud bricks that were used in building the roofs and walls of traditional houses and the many shrubs, trees, and other plants, which assisted in cleaning the air to protect people from dusty winds.

Fathy’s architectural design of the Gourna village also satisfies Vitruvius quality of firmness making them one of the successful housing projects in Egypt and across the world. His choice of traditional building materials such as adobe in constructing houses in the village portrayed the firmness of the structures proposed in the village. Through the instruction of soil-mechanics specialists and structural engineers, he turned dried mud bricks and reinforced them with straw to make adobe that was used for constructing the walls and roofs of buildings. His passion for adobe was the ability of the building material to last for millennia, but also because of its thermal qualities, which would readily solve the problem of high temperatures in the country. Many of the structures in Egypt built using adobe are more than three thousand years old. Moreover, the building material was readily available and fitted the architecture of his buildings as adobe was not appropriate for houses with straight lines and right angles, which Fathy did not intend to built in the new village of Gourna.

The architectural design of the new village of Gourna is a representation of the Arab and Egyptian cultures, and their historical connection to the cultures and traditions of the desert people. As the country moved towards modernism, the Egyptians easily identified with the industrial west, which introduced modern western architectural techniques and building materials. This was witnessed in the lack of political will to implement the housing project. However, the beauty of the new village of Gourna is reflected in the unique Arab and Egyptian architectural designs, which characterizes various attributes of the village. Its beauty is boosted as Fathy designed it to serve as a tourist attraction town in the Lower Egypt valley as many tourists would arrive to seek its rich ancient Egyptian history.