ARCHITECTURE IN FACT AND FICTION: THE CASE OF THE NEW GOURNA VILLAGE IN UPPER EGYPT

In 1946, the architect Hassan Fathy (1900-89; fig. 1) was commissioned by the Egyptian government to plan and build a new village for the inhabitants of Old Gourna, who for generations had lived directly above the rock-hewn tombs in the cemetery of Thebes on the western mountain side of the Nile, near Luxor (fig. 2). The purpose of the project was to put an end to the villagers' age-old livelihood of robbing antiquities from the Pharaonic tombs and offering them up for sale to archaeologists, tourists, and anyone else who set store by these treasures.