Water Infrastructure and Resistance at Qurna: Re-reading Hassan Fathy’s Architecture for the Poor
“My father avoided the country. To him it was a place full of flies, mosquitos, and polluted water, and he forbade his children to have anything to do with it.” – Hassan Fathy[1]
During two recent research trips to the American University in Cairo’s (AUC’s) Rare Books and Special Collections Library and Regional Architecture Collection, I spent significant time with the papers and drawings of Hassan Fathy, an Egyptian modernist architect known for his dedication to sustainable design and materials, especially mud-brick construction. AUC’s documents, models, and plans indicate Fathy’s desire to use his expertise to change Egypt: from urban planning reform for Cairo, to boosting local and regional tourism through historic preservation, to disrupting urban and rural housing systems. Many of his ideas reflect a middle-class postcolonial worldview, one galvanized but not necessarily realized by the regimes of Gamal Abdel Nasser and his successors.
Fathy collected articles and pamphlets on rural water systems, which are available in this archive. He also directly addressed the issue of water access at New Qurna in his book, Architecture for the Poor. First published in 1969 by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, Architecture for the Poor (originally titled: Gourna: A Tale of Two Cities) is a theoretical and practical guide to building functional, aesthetic, and cheap housing. More than that, it is a detailed account of the New Qurna project begun in 1945.
According to Fathy, the Ministry of Antiquities wanted to move the inhabitants of Old Qurna, a small village across the Nile from Luxor, out of their homes in the hillside’s pharaonic ruins. It is unclear to what extent residents were consulted about this relocation, but by the time Fathy arrived, it was clear to him that many were unwilling to leave. The project, nevertheless, moved forward, and Fathy began to redesign an entire village to house them (Figure 1). The project was ambitious, but ultimately failed. The residents of Qurna resisted their removal, and, according to Fathy, government bureaucrats actively impeded his progress. When Fathy returned to the village in 1961, much had fallen into ruins.[2]
Figure 1. Hassan Fathy, Plan of New Qurna. Regional Architecture Collection, 46.02 A 101. © Rare Books and Special Collections Library, The American University in Cairo.
Here I discuss the essential role of water in the project’s conception, realization, and demise. Reading Fathy’s papers, plans, and his book from the perspective of water brings forward an overlooked, yet critical series of material and social entanglements. Water was a fundamental concern for Fathy, and yet his understanding of water differed from that of the villagers. Fathy saw Qurna’s water as something pathological, an entity that needed to be aggressively monitored and controlled, even as he recognized water held a critical social function in the community. This perspective provided the villagers with an opportunity to resist Fathy’s plans, and ultimately sabotage the project.
“Hassan Fathy saw Qurna’s water as something pathological, an entity that needed to be aggressively monitored and controlled.”
Women and Water for the Home
Within the context of building a functional and comfortable peasant house, “Our main problem in providing a washplace, shower, laundry and latrine was the supply and drainage of water,” wrote Fathy.[3] He installed a basic distribution system, supplied with water gathered by hand from a public pump and stored in large clay pots on the roof, above the bathroom. These were connected to pipes suspended from the ceiling in the house, using gravity to manage water intake and drainage.
Fathy briefly discusses his decision not to install indoor plumbing. Aside from cost, he argues that a public water place and the task of carrying water served an important social purpose, especially for young women. He notes that his personal observation of local culture supported this decision, as well as reading about efforts in India to install taps indoors that failed to dissuade girls and young women from gathering water from the river: “This was because fetching water was their only excuse for going out, and thus their only chance to be seen by the young men of their village.”[4] Fathy points out that instead, his public pump design cultivated female socializing: “The pump would be inside a small, domed room provided with seats round the wall where the women could sit and chat while waiting their turn. …drawing it (water) became a pleasant, cool and leisurely pastime”[5] (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Hassan Fathy, Plan and Drawing of Village Fountain at New Qurna. Regional Architecture Collection, 46.02 A 302-y-a. © Rare Books and Special Collections Library, The American University in Cairo.
Fathy, however, is candid about his struggles to communicate with the women of Qurna. It was not until the later stages of the project that he was able to directly get some idea of their needs—apparently by recruiting some of his female friends from Cairo to act as interlocuters. In this sense, Fathy’s claim that water-gathering was a revered cultural practice for women seems suspect, even specious. Certainly, the manner in which he describes women’s water labor retains patriarchal overtones: “It is hard to imagine a village in Egypt without its black-robed women, erect as queens, each with her water jar (ballas) carried nonchalantly on her head, and it will be a pity to lose the sight.”[6] Like many administrators during the colonial period, Fathy predicted that the task of water carrying would eventually fade. But “for the time being we stuck to public pumps in Qurna.”[7]
Interviews of women from the American University in Cairo Qurna Hillside Oral History Project support the importance of communal water labor for female friendships, but the women’s perspectives on water access were complicated, and not monolithic. These interviews were conducted in 2008, after the Egyptian government finally succeeded in forcing the inhabitants of Qurna to move from their homes in the hillside. Instead of Fathy’s mud-brick houses, however, families were moved into concrete block homes that featured indoor plumbing and electricity.
Interviewers asked the women whether they preferred the convenience of indoor plumbing to manually gathering water. Their answers vary widely, and are sometimes difficult to understand. The urban-rural divide of Fathy’s era is evident in some of the difficulties experienced by the interviewers, especially in terms of the southern Egyptian dialect. Nevertheless, we get a glimpse of the social utility of water gathering as practice.
Nour Mohamed Gorgar and her family voluntarily left their home in the hillside in order to have easier access to water. But when the interviewer questions Gorgar further about her indoor plumbing, it leads her to complain that her family gets sick more often in the new location. Other women, such as Fatma Mahmoud Ali, are adamant that gathering water on the hillside was not a chore. Water was abundant, even if it required multiple trips to the well. In the new government-built houses, water is not always forthcoming from the tap. Like Gorgar, Ali claims that the hillside homes were healthier. “I mean, all those chores were easier as we had better health… the new town here is polluted and there is something in here that causes you to be tired; something is contaminated here.” Both Gorgar and Ali mention gathering water with friends, and that it was nice to be able to see other people, including tourists during water-gathering outings.
Naamet al-Taher and Fatma Ahmed Taber were both especially unhappy with their relocation, and did not consider indoor plumbing necessarily an improvement. Fetching water was a required daily chore on the hillside, but the air was fresh and both gathered water with friends. Al-Taher had a donkey to help carry her heavy pots. Taber describes water gathering as vital social outing reserved for women. The women would rise early, before the sun rose and while the air was cool, to embark on many trips to gather water. From her perspective in the house in New Qurna, a place she dislikes, these former chores were not laborious:
Interviewee Fatma Ahmed Taber: … And we don’t feel it.
Interviewer Sarah Wassef Aziz: Because you were together?
Interviewee Fatma Ahmed Taber: Yes, because we were together. And we tell stories and it was the best days.
These interviews suggest that while Fathy was correct that women valued the event of water gathering, it had little to do with finding a marriage partner. Instead, women appreciated the gendered camaraderie of water gathering. Indeed, the labor of water carrying was not onerous in the company of other women, telling stories and passing time together. In other contexts, scholars such as Nefissa Naguib and Farhana Sultana have concluded that women have profound and sometimes conflicted relationships to the labor of water-gathering, and its entanglements with female friendships, kinship networks, and health.
Infested canals and a swimming pond
Fathy’s misapprehension of the community’s water needs extended beyond the logistics of potable water access. His conception of peasant water requirements was profoundly framed by his understanding of the countryside as “a paradise darkened from above by clouds of flies, and whose streams flowing underfoot had become muddy and infested with bilharzia and dysentery”[8]. Indeed, the image of infested waters peppers Fathy’s descriptions of Qurna and undergirds his descriptions of the dire state of Egypt’s countryside in general. Bilharzia specifically played a practical as well as an ideological role in this. It made an impact on Fathy’s design of Qurna’s social spaces, especially the inclusion of a multifunctional pond that could be used for bathing animals as well as leisure swimming (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Hassan Fathy, Proposed Artificial Lake at New Qurna. Regional Architecture Collection, 63.04 A 204 Y. © Rare Books and Special Collections Library, The American University in Cairo.
Figure 4. Hassan Fathy, Boys Swimming in a Canal near Quran. Hassan Fathy Photographs, Box 5, Project 46G. © Rare Books and Special Collections Library, The American University in Cairo.
For Fathy, a dedicated bathing and swimming pond solved a number of planning issues, including managing the spread of bilharzia. Fathy posited that prohibiting people to swim in canals would have little effect; swimming was an important summer activity, especially for children (Figure 4). Instead, he designed his swimming pond with an ante-tank, in which water could be first disinfected to kill bilharzia parasites and the snails that carried them. Then, the water would flow into the pond, which included a designated swimming and sunbathing area. Fathy writes: “I do not ask it (the pond) for their amusement, but for their very lives.”[9] In this proactive apologetic, Fathy reveals his place in the class hierarchy, and his general adherence to the urban-rural divide. Water is either clean or dirty, and people can be judged by how strictly they adhere to this dictum. More so, water must be made clean, and peasants must be taught how to use it properly. Thus, the peasants are in need of intervention, and their water requires decontamination. Fathy implies that he, as a socially minded architect, is uniquely capable of this task. The pond was also a sustainable solution to the problem of mud-brick manufacturing, which left a large hole in the ground that could fill with stagnant water and become a new threat.
Teaching Bill Harzia
To complement his design for a swimming pond, Fathy wrote a play to communicate the dangers of bilharzia to the peasants of Qurna. The play, entitled “Bill Harzia,” begins with the birth of a boy. But, during celebrations seven days after his birth, the “demon” Bill Harzia appears at the foot of the boy’s cradle, casting a shadow over him and causing the boy to cry. Fathy designed a costume for the demon, and claims he played the part himself (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Photographer Unknown. Hassan Fathy (?) as the “Demon” Bill Harzia. Hassan Fathy Photographs, Box 30. © Rare Books and Special Collections Library, The American University in Cairo.
The boy’s story continues when the child turns ten and his father falls sick and dies from bilharzia. The father’s last wish is that the son stay away from water, to avoid a similar fate. But it is impossible, as the boy must support his family and the only work available in the village is in water. The boy eventually contracts bilharzia, and becomes gravely ill. Then, two doctors appear “easily recognizable in white coats and large spectacles.”[10] When they are brought in front of the boy, they take out various diagnostic equipment: stethoscopes, microscopes, and even an enormous syringe filled with medicine for the boy. The play includes dialog in which the doctors describe in detail the use of each object.
But the medicine is only a temporary solution. To help stop the demon for good, the doctors tell all the children to wear special trousers when they are in the water. These frighten the demon, who is then shot and killed by the doctors: “he expires with a loud hiss as he lets the air out of his inner tube.” The play also introduces Fathy’s new pond as a solution. In order to keep the demon from returning, the boys must “wait until a new beautiful lake has been dug, broad and clean, with trees around it and an island in it—a lake like the pasha’s lake in Cairo—where there will be no danger, and everyone may swim all day.”[11]
A page from AUC Press’s 1989 edition of Fathy’s text illustrates the problem Fathy was trying to address with the play, and also the epistemic gap that existed between his and the Qurna peasants’ understanding of water, and the model city project in general. At the top is an image of children playing in a canal (Figure 6, see Figures 3 and 4). The children are all naked boys, splashing about in shallow, slow-moving water that hits most of them at about the waist. They pay no attention to the camera, but instead enjoy the cool canal water. The scene seems benign, and, as Fathy notes in the text, very common. But the caption underneath the image is a dire warning: “Children in an infested canal.” For Fathy, this is not a charming scene of children playing, but an example of risky, ignorant behavior.
Figure 6. Juxtaposition of boys swimming in the canal and Hassan Fathy’s artificial lake. Published in Fathy, Architecture for the Poor (Cairo: AUC Press, 1989). Images © Rare Books and Special Collections Library, The American University in Cairo.
Below this photograph is Fathy’s plan for the multifunctional pond (see Figure 3). The pond is a pleasing curvilinear shape, modestly landscaped. Moving water is indicated with precise wavy pen lines. Important engineering features are properly labeled, such as the locks at either end of the pond. Interestingly, Fathy included typical bourgeois amenities more often seen at Mediterranean or Red Sea beaches: changing rooms and a café. These details transform the pond from a modest multifunctional pond into a controlled, modern aquatic environment.
“A re-evaluation of Fathy’s classic text from the perspective of water suggests that water had everything to do with the project’s social and logistical challenges.”
Sabotage
In his description of the third season at Qurna near the end of his book, Fathy relates a terrible dream. In it, some of his young relatives are playing in a shower, and then the dream shifts to a deluge of people, cut down by men on galloping horses. A few days later, after seeing another self-described bad omen in the form of a film poster for a movie called “The Great Mire,” Fathy receives a note from his assistant that the model village of Qurna has been flooded.
Fathy writes that the villagers had pierced a dike and flooded the model village that was situated below the level of the Nile in a cleared basin (hosha). The damage to the buildings was not insurmountable, but all the mud-brick that had been laid out to dry for the next season’s work had been washed away. Additionally, the land had soaked and dried, and thus become cracked – threatening to crack the walls of the buildings themselves. Fathy laments that the Qurna peasants refused to help repair the dike; those that were forced to do so sabotaged the work: “While working, they contrived to widen the gap with their feet while ostensibly filling it in with their hands.”[12] Even as Fathy believed the village could be saved, the project was discontinued soon after this incident.[13]
The punctured dike that doomed New Qurna was not the first time the villagers had attempted to sabotage the project with water. Indeed, in the first season (1945-46), a plot to flood New Qurna was successfully thwarted. Other bureaucratic and logistical hiccups, such as obtaining straw for mud-bricks, or cheap pipe for water pumps, all involved water or the lack of it. Cholera in 1947-48, a water-born bacterial disease, further disrupted construction and threatened the lives of the villagers. Fathy and his team worked from Department of Public Health pamphlets published during the 1902-3 epidemic to help the villagers and protect the project: they built deeper wells, attempted to close “infected” ones, and attempted to persuade the villagers of the “danger” within the water.
Like the villager, water at Qurna could not be controlled. Attempts to do so, as described in Fathy’s book, reveal the seeds of his project’s destruction. The villagers’ relationship with water was multifaceted, as suggested by the women’s oral history accounts of gathering water. It was (also) about life and living, about family, friends, fresh air and pleasure; fully integrated into every aspect of an ambivalent everyday life.
Re-evaluation
A re-evaluation of Fathy’s classic text from the perspective of water suggests that water had everything to do with the project’s social and logistical challenges; regardless of recalcitrant villagers or bureaucrats without vision. Instead, it emphasizes a profound, unfortunate aquatic epistemic gap. Indeed, Fathy’s plans for New Qurna largely affirmed legacies of imperial hydrological theory that considered water as an object to be acted upon. Fathy’s planning and housing designs were ambitious and innovative; but when it came to water, he seems to have considered it in binary and absolute terms. Water was either clean or dirty, and people used it correctly or incorrectly. These theories were embedded in professional architectural and engineering education and practice, and reconstituted in Fathy’s experience at Qurna to embody a quintessential example of the urban-rural divide. The inhabitants of Qurna seem to have understood the limits of Fathy’s imagination in this regard, and exploited it to, for a time, maintain their homes in the hills.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank AUC’s curators and archivists for their assistance with this work. In alphabetical order: Balsam Abdul-Rahman, Eman Morgan, Mostafa Taha, Ola Seif, and Stephen Urgola. This research was supported by New York University Abu Dhabi’s Humanities Research Fellowship for the Study of the Arab World.
Citation
Alexandra Camille Schultz, “Water Infrastructure and Resistance at Qurna: Re-reading Hassan Fathy’s Architecture for the Poor,” PLATFORM, Nov 25, 2024.
Notes
[1] Hassan Fathy, Architecture for the Poor (Cairo: AUC Press, 1989): 1.
[2] Fortunately, funding from UNESCO supported recent restoration work of Fathy’s New Qurna.
[3] Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 99.
[4] Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 99.
[5] Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 100.
[6] Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 100.
[7] Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 100.
[8] Hassan Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 2.
[9] Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 109.
[10] Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 107.
[11] Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 105-113.
[12] Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, 176.
[13] The first edition of the book published by the Egyptian Ministry of Education titled: Gourna: A Tale of Two Cities, includes images of the broken dike, the flooding, and the subsequent cracked earth. It is unclear why these were removed from the American edition, first published by the University of Chicago Press.
