|Biographical detail : ||An Egyptian architect.
Fathy proved that ancient building techniques remain the most effective method of solving the problems of Third World housing. He completed a conventional European course in architecture in Egypt in 1927. He built little until 1940 and in 1945 began his most famous project, the construction of the village of New Ghourna near Luxor, built of mud brick with traditional courtyard houses.
Fathy became director of schools Building and head of the architecture department at Cairo University. He was a figure as revered beyond the Muslim world as he was within it for the attempts to reconcile traditional Muslim forms and urban structures with 20th-century modernism.
His books, Architecture for the Poor and Natural Energy and Vernacular Architecture, took his visions to a wide international audience and for environmentally conscious architects.
Fathy was on the UN Committee for Housing in South Arabia, received the chairmanís award of the Agha Khan Award, was given the UIA Gold medal, and founded the institute for Appropriate Technology in Cairo.
Fathyís teachings straddled widely differing architectural philosophies while offering an answer to Third World social and economic problems. He improved the traditional Arab design of wind towers by making angles that allowed air going colder, thus a substitute to air-conditioning.