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.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Sustainable Development and Planning IV |
Publisher | WITPress |
Pages | 691-701 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Volume | 120 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781845641818 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2009 |
Event | 4th International Conference on Sustainable Development and Planning, Sustainable Development 2009 - , Cyprus Duration: May 13 2009 → May 15 2009 |
Other
Other | 4th International Conference on Sustainable Development and Planning, Sustainable Development 2009 |
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Country/Territory | Cyprus |
Period | 5/13/09 → 5/15/09 |
Keywords
- Gourna
- Sustainability
- Urban communities
- Vernacular architecture
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Environmental Science