“A student once approached me and
asked if I thought he would become a
good architect,” Alousi said. “I said, ‘How
can I know? Only you can determine
that. But, I will ask you one thing: do you
read?’ And he responded by telling me
he did not, and in fact, he had never been
to a library. Imagine. He isn’t the only
one – today, nobody writes and nobody
reads, and the end result is an uneducat-
ed architect who visually pollutes due to
complete ignorance.”
While Alousi attributed this to the
“misuse of the Internet” and the ability
for people to now gather information
so immediately and without developing
indepth understandings, he’s also from a
time when it was common for architects
to conduct research and write architec-
tural theory. His contemporaries such
as Rifat Chadirji wrote ‘Concepts and
Influences’, while Mohamed Makiya
penned several Arabic-language books.
Alousi, who himself has written several
publications including ‘Visual Diary of
an Arab Architect’, and his peers pro-
duced work that was not only seen, but
also read and studied.
Alousi and Omari are, of course, from
different generations and they attribute
what they consider the decline of archi-
tectural quality in the region to differ-
ent causes, but it is interesting to note
that the quality of architecture today in
the GCC and greater Middle East has
seemingly worsened to industry
professionals.
There are many architects today who
still work with the same level of aware-
ness, motive and quality as revered
architects of the past, such as Fouad
Samara. While the Lebanese architect,
academic and founder of his namesake
studio, addresses his concerns about
development in his home country dur-
ing our interview, he also represents
a pool of architects in the Middle East
who contribute to architectural dis-
course in the region. Read more in his
interview (pg 16).COMMENT / 7Big Box in Bahrain, by Omar Al
Omari’s firm OAOA (pg 32), which
aimed to suit its context and use in-
novative technology that responds
to the country’s climatic conditionsGOT A COMMENT?
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