WHAT WE DO

Hassan Fathy was not satisfied with only designing buildings to take into account community organization, and that the houses were of local materials and provided with natural ventilation. The people of the village were also presented with the first theater to provide culture, recreation, community participation and preserve the folklore of music, singing, dancing and games. In addition, he created a vocational training center for crafts and traditional industries (called the Khan), brought trainers, set training courses, and an outlet for the sale for tourists on their way to the monuments of the western mainland in Luxor.

Hassan Fathy’s works attracted the attention of architects throughout the world when environmental conservation movements spread and he became a pioneer in the field of green and Earth architecture. In addition, when concept of sustainability appeared, his  works characterized by  the participation of people in construction, restoration, use of local materials and taking into account the environment became the pillars of “sustainable architecture.” Hassan Fathy thus well deserved the Balzan Prize for Architecture, Urban Planning and Good Living in 1980, and in the same year the President Aga Khan Award for his overall lifetime work, as well as the alternative Nobel Prize.  In 1984 he was awarded the Gold Award of the International Union  of Architects. Other awards follow, and architects in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Latin America were eager to get acquainted with his work, prompting the American architect James Steele to compile the works of Hassan Fathy in a reference book published in 1997 ( translated into Arabic by the architect Omar Raouf).