The architectural and egyptian paperwork week

The first architect in the week was M.Rifaie on Monday, who drove me to the Arab Academy of Sciences (AAS) and facilitated me access to the architecture department library (RIBA accredited degree). In there (limited but high quality collection) i studied books on Hassan Fathy keeping up with my research on Egyptian vernacular and in the hope of meeting some people that could lead me to architects that are maintaining their traditional methods. My hopes proved correct! I met various architects that facilitated me some names and places where to keep digging. Ahmed is working in a practice in Cairo and when he found out about my research asked me very kindly if he could accompany me in my walks in his city. He has studied the work of the great Fathy but, as sevillians rarely go up to the Giralda, he has not personally visited them; so i will have some expert company. He was especially helpful in giving me some background information about the history of the capital and the remainings of buildings of the past. His help was not only restricted to that, he forwarded me information about the incredible lecture that i assisted last night in Biblioteka Alexandrina (i will detail later). The second contact was the architect Mr.Yunus who led me to the work of PhD A.B.Elseragy (thesis title: Architectural and solar potential of curved and flat roofs in hot arid regions) by the University of Nottingham and currently working in the AAS; fortunately they had a copy of his thesis in the library and i had the chance to have a look to it (ill have to return to this one). Mr.Yunus is helping me too to arrange a meeting with PhD. G.Moshad, as she researched egyptian vernacular in her doctorate. I really thank Mr.Yunus for his help; research would be an impossible task without the help of the local experts. Mr. Rifaie, a very busy and talented young man, not only made all of this possible by investing his precious time in me, but we found a very interesting project where we might collaborate in the future .

On Tuesday i received more help, this time from Aya, an architect from Alexandria University. She offered some of her holiday time to help me to gain access to the library of her University to assist me in my research. First we went to the University with my certificates and identification, we sat in the security office for half an hour before the security man could work out what was the procedure. The procedure was that I needed an approved paper from a different office...that is exactly the kind of thing i was trying to avoid. So we walked 15 minutes to the next stop, spoke with some people and found the woman that deals with this sort of cases for international people. Very kind woman indeed, what i do not understand is how a person in her specific position does not speaks English or French!!! but at least we seemed to be going somewhere, i needed a couple of photocopies of my passport, my spanish ID, my letter from Bath University and the corresponding translation to Arabic...and even prove of my application to Cambridge University, thank god that i was not asked for my birth certificate. I did not have all of these on me, and of course that was impossible to return with them on the same day (cos they close at 2pm), so we arranged to come back the following day. I did not think that Aya had to come with me next day, but the woman in the office insisted quite forcefully that she should. So Aya, again, had to spend more of her time in that office, apart of making me the favour of translating my letter from Bath University. We arranged to meet next day in Biblioteka Alexandrina to go together, but the lack of morning coffee mixed with my lack of sleep made me go in the morning to the office instead and i forgot totally about the real meeting place. If that was not enough and as most of you know already, many times my mobile is a purely decorative object i carry around with no battery with the sole purpose of occupying space in my bag. So basically i left her waiting for me for 45 minutes with my mobile off until i could work out a way to contact her (her number locked inside the idiotic item). I felt so embarrassed that, on top of all the time and help, i made her wait. In the mean time, i hanged around with all the security people in there, i got introduced to everyone of them, they brought me tea, offered me cigarettes and ask me about Real Madrid and Barcelona FC and told me about the local football teams (here you are Jimmo, the comment you were waiting for). So finally Aya arrived much less pissed off that what i was expecting and i lost the count of the times i said "sorry". So, back to the international woman that does not speak any other language but Arabic, we handed all the papers and everything seemed (and i mean it, just seemed) fine after some complimentary 30 minutes of discussion, apart of the fact that we found out that this permission document was valid just for 4 entrances to the library...ok then! But there was a little final requirement: i needed the signature on the document of the head of security to validate everything, they might think that a Christian terrorist might blow up their library...fair enough! I thought that was going to be a piece of cake as i knew already all the security people...but no!!! after another 30 minutes waiting i was informed that the man could not sign the frigging paper that day and that i should come back the following day for it!...agggghhh!! i was beginning to lose my patience, that place looked pretty much like the mad house of the 12 works of Asterix and Obelix..but ok...just one more day and i could go to the library, i just want to read!

After the early morning hassle, i went to meet Dani (Spanish psychologist) in his workplace, the Alex Med Centre (https://www.bibalex.org/English/researchers/Alexmed/alexmedcenter.htm). It is a very reputed research centre within Biblioteca Alexandrina. There are many architects working there, some of whom i got introduced to. I spent half of my time theoritising to work out with Mr.Karakiri the possible use of one anomalous tower in the archaeological site he is studying. My suggestion was a particular astronomical use, but we require the exact calculation of the orientation of the complex to know if i was right in my guess. The other half of the time, i spent it Dr.Aref, who helped me greatly to find out more names that i should dig in, and some potential problematics that i might find out when implementing my proposition. Very critical, very insightful, very kind...very useful. I met the subdirector of the centre, but i failed (just then) to meet one of the people i have been wanting to meet even before arriving, Prof. Mohamed Aued, the director of the centre and one of the most prominent egyptian architects of our times. But due to that, he is an incredibly busy man...i had to wait

So today i had come back to the mad building again, one of the security people led me to another and this one to another one. They did not seem very busy at all, in groups of sixes or sevens sitting in many offices smoking cigarettes and drinking litres of tea. In the fourth room i saw the first of them actually "working", he was typing in an old looking computer with his two index fingers at a rate of approximately one stroke per second, with breaks to smoke and sip his drink (no much stress, i see). So after asking and asking about my paper, they could just ask me where were my papers...oh no! they did not have a clue of what i was talking about. Finally one of them seemed to understand...or did he? he told me to sit, order one of the others to bring me more tea and he begun to call in the phone. Meanwhile, seven officers stood in the office and talking in arabic about me...i could catch doctor, isbany, isbilliah and things of the sort. After the third call of the guy, interrupted by a 5 minute call to his wife, he told me everything was ok...yeah? where is my paper then?. He answered me that there is no paper!!! that i just have to go to the library and ask for fulan and give him his name and mine and he will know what i am talking about...so conclusion: i went out of all of that hassle with a couple of arabic names that i scribbled in a post-it!!!...i really cant wait to go to the library and find out the rest of this story and wasting some more of my time drinking tea and watching more officers talk in the phone, i cant get enough of it. This is one of the few moments when i come to realise how much i miss England.

The architectural week culminated today in big style. I assisted the lecture, organized by Prof. Aued, and named "the language of architecture" by Charles Correa, (http://www.charlescorrea.net/) world famous Indian architect, planner, activist and theoretician, winner of the Agha Khan Award in 1998. He is one of few great architects originally from the developing world that has built most of his works in his country of origin, and still gained wide recognition from western countries from it. He studied in Michigan University and MIT and then came back to India, where he made tremendous effort to adapt the technical advances of the modernist architecture to vernacular typologies. That makes him tremendously relevant for my research, as he has managed to draw a successful bridge between the past and the future. He has been specially concerned with using modern building technologies for designing low cost shelter in developing countries respecting the cultural values of the place. His presentation was simply wonderful, he explained many of his works and how he developed his own language of architecture, some extracts from it:

-"developing a language of design respecting the local cultural values"
-"This power point thing is a menace" (when the presentation was giving him some technical problems)
-"understanding the past to understand the aspirations of the people in the present"
-"an architect should only build in places where he has been living in" (criticising architects that build in places that they have no previous cultural knowledge of)
-"Simply copying an existing building or typology is kitsch; the transformation of old cultural and architectural concepts for fulfilling the needs of the users is good practice"
-"Incrementality, Pluralism, Participation, Income generation, Equity, Open to sky space and maleability"
-"build a rich building that poor people can enjoy without being intimidated by it" (in reference to the Ghandi Museum designed by him)
-"The centrality of an empty space in hot arid climates is related to the ancient idea that enlightenment can just be achieved in open air"
-"achieving complexity through manipulation of simple structures"
-"the beauty of science is undervalued nowadays"

The humanity that this venerable man transpired, his words encouraging the young audience of architecture students to innovate, his humility and simplicity made me love the man even more than the architect. He has become in 3 hours in one of my heroes (thanks Ahmed for telling me about this lecture, i will be gratefull for the rest of my life). And that was not all, among others, i met Mr.Gharib a PhD student in the AAS that is researching in Life Cycle Assessment of buildings and another teacher in Alex University who is going to help me circumvent all the stupid paperwork. And finally, i managed to meet, with some bravery of my part, Prof. Aued!!! i asked to meet at some point with him and he kindly passed his arm over my shoulders and accepted with a smile in his face. I hope he does not forget me!

The greatest sunset i have seen in my life, yesterday form the ship building site in Alexandria. As my strict principles dictate, the colours are not photoshoped...but i could have done it to clean to beach :P

Curiosity of the day: Hassan Fathy found a perfect moment for the implementation of his ideas about recovering vernacular architecture when Egypt suffered shortage of modern building materials due to the sanctions imposed after the declaration of independence of Egypt from England in 1956.