Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Representing a Diverse Reality with a Single Jdentity Chapter 1A Nacrative on People, lace and Culture Chapter 2 Creative Heritage and the Return co the East CChapsce 3. Houses and Housing ‘Chapter 4 “The Fourth Dimension is the Spit Chapter § Preserving a Living History Chapter 6 An Farthly Baraise Chapter 7. Rediscovering the Islamic City Chronology Notes Tibliogzaphy Glossaryi REpret Sonera smanantem nae coca 0 nere Introduction Representing a Diverse Reality with a Single Identity ist heard about Rasem Badan in 1983 while Iwas teaching at King Faisal Uni- versity in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Contractual restrictions forbade me doing architectural work outside of my teaching obligations, so I had decided to ‘write a book about the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy in 1980, which was my firs yeae at King Faisal, Thad not writen a book before and had fastened on Fathy tecause my Saudi students seemed to respond positively ro lectures about him in the history course Iwas teaching. Uhad read Architecture for the Poor: An Exper- ‘ment in Rural Egype (1973) on my fight from the United States to Saudi Arabia and found it compelling, Fathy had portayed himself asthe ‘barefoot architect’ the underdog ina malevolent establishment determined to suppress him. Everyone loves an underdog and I was no exception, rooting for him to win against the over whelming odds and I emember being outraged that he did not. My book on Hassan Fathy, eventually published in 1983, has a great deal of bearing on this effort because he was the frst architect in the Arab world to attempt what Rasem Badan is doing with such grea success today: finding an appropriate, non-Western language, hased on relevant religious, social and cultural precedents, with which to demarcate authentically a divergent identity. Luckily, I was very naive about the difficulties | would face in doing that frst book, Newly arrived from Ameria, having ecivedastrietly defined Modernist training under Loui Kahn, approached the projet with that perspective but what I found out inthe ‘course of imterviewing Fath of researching and wring, changed my point of view and made me question much of my earlier academic experience. Apariah “Throughout his career Fathy was teated asa pariah in Egypt because he was con- sidered to be against progress, the most highly valued goal in the developing world. People sccking this elusive geil regard the quest for traditional wisdom asa st ‘mental, romantic anachronism, and view this instinct as a luxury they cannot afford. Nostalgia, as it was first defined, was considered a sickness, not merely a longing for something ost or out of reach, and Fathy was thought to be pathologi- cally misdirected. [tasted a. mild sampling of the ostracism he faced, just in lecturing about his work and undertaking to write a book about him, without really understanding why at fist