posted                      

quote:

---

Memphis was the name given later in the life of the capital. It began as inbw-hdj, or "white walls," perhaps reflecting the appearance of its fortified residence, which was actually a portion of its area, probably situated somewhere near the modern town of Abusir, in the valley to the east of the northernmost section of the Saqqara necropolis. At another time, the settlement was even called Hwt-k3-pth after one of its temple precincts, from whence came the Greek Aigyptos and the Anglicized Egypt. Perhaps the most apt name for Memphis was Ankh-tawy, "That which binds the two lands."

---

From: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/memphis.htm

Example of whitewashed Greek island homes:


Egyptian whitewashed building images:



There are more in the forms of models of chapels and such, but I cant find them right now. Many of these homes and villages featured domes (for storehouses) and vaulted cielings, like those of Saqqarah. They looked much like those houses seen today in Greece in many ways, as the cities were rambling collections of homes in many cases. This style of architecture survives in Egypt, but it seems to be very prominent STILL in and around Aswan. Vaulted and domed ceilings were often used for storerooms both above and below ground throughout dynastic Egyptian history.

Whitewashed architecture from Aswan:


http://www.johnnyrolfjanderooden.nl/firedmuho.htm

Actually many of these housing styles are found all over Africa, though not all are painted white.

More on Egyptian architecture:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14400/14400-h/14400-h.htm


Also note that the fabulous gardens and pools of Egyptian villas and mansions became the prototype for those seen elsewhere in Africa, including Morrocco and elswhere. This style of building seems to have been another of the cultural influences adopted during the spread of Islam across Africa and the Mediterranean.

Posts: 8896 | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

One of the key advantages of the Nubian vault is that it can be built without any support or shuttering. The earth bricks are laid leaning at a slight slope against the gable walls in a length-wise vault, as in this photo of a building from the ruins of Ayn Asil in Egypt.

The same principle can be used to build domes, as in the example below from the Cameroon.

The age-old Nubian vault technique was notably revived by the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy in the 1940s with the building of a new village at Gourna, near Luxor. Architecturally, this village is a singular success; however, the families who were moved there soon abandoned it to return to their original village.

More recently, since the year 2000, a French Association La Voute Nubienne, by simplifying and codifying the VN (Voute Nubienne) technique, has promoted the construction of over 200 vaulted buildings in Burkina Faso (mainly village homes, but also a Catholic church and a mosque). These environmentally sound, comfortable, and aesthetic buildings require neither imported sheet metal for the roofing, nor expensive and increasingly rare timber beams. Over 40 Burkinabe builders, as well as some from Mali and Togo, have been trained in the technique, and there are as many apprentices currently undergoing on-the-job training on building sites. The programme organised by the Association (Mud roofs for the Sahel)is developing rapidly year on year in response to demand from rural families, with many requests for help and technical advice coming from the countries of the Sahel.

---

quote:

---

The "Nubian" vault and dome techniques
developed in the arid region of the ancient Nile
valley kingdom three or more thousand years ago.
In Iran and its neighbouring countries (Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, and China) similar techniques
developed, with a greater variety of shape and
building method than in Egypt. In Iran unstabilised
earth brick vault and dome building has been at the
heart of building tradition in the centre and south of
the country for centuries (early examples, Bag-é
Dowlatabad). Although in recent years the use of
unfired bricks has been in decline, fired brick vaults,
and, to a much lesser extent, domes, are still in
constant use as jack arches in conjunction with
steel I beams in Iran. Un-shuttered fired brick vaults
and domes have also been a major building
technique in Tunisia, where again one progression
has been from a traditional vault form with a quite
pronounced curve, towards much flatter masonry
roofs that depend on the restraint of a reinforced
framework (Voûte Hasssad1) that serves the same
function to the I beams used in almost flat domes in
Iran. These techniques with fired bricks have in
common that they do not require a supporting
formwork during construction, but rely on gypsum
plaster.

---

quote:

---

Yet roofing remained a problem. In rural Egypt, the fellahin could afford neither wood nor corrugated galvanized metal for roofs, nor could they even buy the wood needed to make forms to shape vaulted adobe roofs. Fathy's early attempts at building adobe vaulting without wooden forms—the only economically sensible solution—resulted in a series of discouraging collapses. This was particularly maddening because it was clear from his visits to Upper Egypt that just such form-less vaulting had been used for millennia to build ordinary houses, tombs and even royal buildings, such as the granaries of the first-century-BC Ramesseum, one of the great monuments of Thebes.

Fathy feared that the secret had been lost, but in 1941, in the Nubian village of Abu al-Riche, he found village masons building catenary vaults of mud brick that could measure two stories high, up to three meters (10 ½') wide and of any desired length, without forms. (See "How to Build A Nubian Vault," page 24.) The technique, he was exhilarated to learn, was simple enough to teach to any willing person.

---

quote:

---

Ramses did not undertake massive projects, such as the housing blocks and complexes, which are profitable by virtue of their uniformity. This Ramses found, was not genuine to his nature or his interests.

Ramses' main concern was the way in which conditions of the individual in a mechanical civilization gradually could be humanized.

Helped by his classical architecture training and his studies of the history of art and architecture Ramses gradually conceived elements of an architectural ”style” bearing the stamp of his own strong personality and responding to the challenge of the times without breaking away from the past.

Impressed as he was by the beauty of the Nubian houses in the villages around Aswan, which still preserved the domes and vaults, inherited form the earliest Pharaonic dynasties, he resolved to maintain their presence in his own architectural work for reasons of aesthetics, climate and economics.

Ramses incorporated the skills of a number of traditional craftsmen such as stonecutters, traditional carpenters, glass blowers and potters who had inherited the techniques and traditions of the Egyptian vernacular heritage.

---

quote:

---

The technique of building vaults and domes with mud bricks and without the use of shuttering to support the roof were originally introduced into Niger by the organisation Development Workshop in a training programme in 1980 at the invitation of ISAID, a Canadian NGO, at the time operating near Filingue, close to Niamey.

Impressed by the buildings that were constructed following the training programme, and by the degree to which the techniques of earth vaults and domes were taken up spontaneously by the local population, the IUCN/WWF decided to promote the same techniques in the Air and Tenere region, seeing that they were ideally suited to the desert climate and to the material resources available.

To launch the wood-less roofing programme in 1985, the project constructed its own headquarters building in Iferouane using the ‘new’ techniques.

This has been followed by a variety of other buildings, initially meeting direct project needs and increasingly finding ways of responding to public demand for construction using the same vault and dome techniques.

The techniques of vault and dome roofing that have been chosen originate in Nubia, upper Egypt, and the form of buildings using these techniques has become familiar to many, particularly through the work of architect Hassan Fathy.

---

From: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060728/asp/propertt/story_6534001.asp

Examples of Fathy's work:

http://archnet.org/library/images/thumbnails.jsp?location_id=5266


One of Fathy's books:

http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80a01e/80A01E00.htm

Modern example of Nubian architecture:


And, quiet as it is kept, there are many thousands of photographs of the architecture, culture and people that was submerged under lake Nasser, from before the dam was completed, that most people hardly will ever get to see.

quote:

---

For its part the Sony Gallery is showcasing black and white photographs taken in the early 1960s by Abdel-Fattah Eid as part of a project to document Nubian culture before the valley was submerged by Lake Nasser.

In the late 1950s a sense of urgency swept across a dispersed but deeply concerned community of historians, archeologists, architects, anthropologists, painters, and documentary film makers with the realisation, in the words of Rex Keating, that "this evocative land of Nubia" which they knew and loved, was under sentence of imminent death by drowning. This would be the first, the most immediate, and as yet the most drastic, price to be paid for the construction of the Aswan High Dam (The most immediate adverse as well as positive consequences of the construction of the High Dam are neatly summarised in Jocelyn Gohary, Guide to the Nubian Monuments on Lake Nasser, American University in Cairo Press).

---

Posts: 8896 | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Doug M:
More on Egyptian architecture:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14400/14400-h/14400-h.htm


Also note that the fabulous gardens and pools of Egyptian villas and mansions became the prototype for those seen elsewhere in Africa, including Morrocco and elswhere. This style of building seems to have been another of the cultural influences adopted during the spread of Islam across Africa and the Mediterranean.

---

Posts: 95 | Registered: May 2010  |  IP: Logged |