The Egyptian architects look back on their design for
Dubai’s Ismaili Centre and what they learned from
their decade-long period working with Hassan FathyRami El Dahan
and Soheir Farid
Written by Aidan Imanova
Images courtesy of El Dahan and Farid Engineering ConsultantsF
or more than a decade, the Ismaili Centre in Dubai has stood as a sym-
bolic marker of the Ismaili community in the Middle East, serving as
an ambassadorial building, a ‘jamatkhana’ or place of worship, and a
space for social and cultural gatherings, intellectual engagement and
spiritual contemplation.
Commissioned by His Highness the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the Shia Is-
maili Muslims, the building, like all Ismaili centres, follows spatial principles
that coincide with the Islamic branch’s teachings. It also exemplifies the ar-
chitectural principles of Egyptian modernist architect Hassan Fathy, as it was
designed by the husband-and-wife team Rami El Dahan and Soheir Farid, who
worked under the late architect’s guidance and mentorship for 10 years.
Set on a corner site in Oud Metha, a small residential neighbourhood in Dubai,
the monumental structure consists primarily of Aleppo limestone. While Syr-
ian masons completed the stone work, an Egyptian master mason, whose father
worked with Fathy, led the construction of the many brick domes that shelter
the building.
The Ismaili Centre in Dubai displays a meticulous devotion toward artisanal
quality and detailing – an attitude El Dahan and Farid inherited from Fathy, and
which serves as the driving force behind their own architecture.
Although described in multiple publications as a structure inspired by Fatim-
id architecture, the architects insist this is not true.
“We have been asked many times what our reference is, and I always answer
that we don’t have one – it all comes from within,” El Dahan explained. “Of
course, the concept of the procession hall is very Fatimid, but the detailing is a
modern interpretation of building with stone. We, as architects, don’t like the
word ‘style’ because style is only the superficial layer. If you remove the superfi-
cial layer, you remove the style, but you keep the architecture.20 / COVER STORY