The definitive work on Hassan Fathy by James Steele

Previous studies of Hassan Fathy have sought to present his ideas by focusing on his architecture alone, without exploring the personality or intentions of the extremely complex individual behind the buildings. Having spent the majority of his life as an educator, for example, he self-identified as a teacher, rather than an architect, treating the tectonic language that he invented in his search for authenticity as a didactic medium by which to deliver his lessons.

In order to delve more deeply into the existential reality of his multifaceted identity, this comprehensive publication about the famous Egyptian architect separates out and specifically examines each of the four major aspects of his persona in great detail: his life story, his writings, his architectural projects, and the people, places and things that inspired him. To do so, this project consists of a boxed set of two Volumes, each Volume further divided into two parts. Volume I, entitled "Biography and Writings" includes: Part I: A Transcendent Life, an extensive personal profile of Fathy, from his birth in Alexandria in 1900 to his death in Cairo in 1989, and: Part II: A Hassan Fathy Reader, which contains a voluminous edited selection of his articles, papers, letters, plays and fables, as well as an annotated bibliography of his entire personal library. Volume II, entitled "Architecture and Inspirations" is also in two parts: Part III: A Living Architecture, catalogues his entire architectural oeuvre, for the first time and is fully illustrated with many original drawings and new photographs with an extensive commentary on each work. Part IV: Universal Sources of Creativity, includes each of the many architectural, historical, cultural and philosophical sources that stoked his vivid imagination, examining the influences that emerge in a myriad of ways in his architecture.

Following a Dedication and extensive list of Acknowledgements, this historic set will begin with a general Preface. Each part of these two volumes will then contain its own complete Notes, relevant to the specific material covered in each.

James Steele is an architect who received his first Undergraduate degree from Lafayette College, and both his second Undergraduate Bachelor's as well as his Master's Degrees in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; his final degree was obtained in the Louis Kahn Master's class. He then went on to obtain his PhD in Urban Planning at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1980, he joined the faculty of King Faisal (now renamed Dammam) University, in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and taught there until 1988. During this time, he published his first book, on the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, with Academy Editions, London, which was also the first serious monograph on Fathy's work. It was released the year he left Dammam University to take a position as Senior Editor with Academy Editions in London, and Lecturer at the Prince of Wales's School of Architecture, then based at Magdalen College Oxford. While there, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture asked him to archive Fathy's work then held by them, before being transferred to the American University in Cairo, published as The Hassan Fathy Collection: a Catalogue of Visual Documents at the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, in 1990, and then also to serve as Editor of two Aga Khan Award books, Architecture for a Changing World, in 1992, and Architecture for Islamic Societies Today, in 1994, both by Academy Editions, who also published his The Architecture of the Contemporary Mosque, with Ismail Serageldin the following year. James Steele has published over 50 additional books, including a second book on Fathy entitled Architecture for People: The Complete Works of Hassan Fathy with Thames and Hudson in 1997. Several recent volumes such as Rasem Badran, Narratives on People and Place with Thames and Hudson, in 2005, Jafar Tukan: Poetry in Stone with Gulf Pacific Press in 2014, and Abdelhalim Ibrahim Abdelhalim: An Architecture of Collective Memory, by the AUC Press, are also the first major studies of each, as part of an ongoing commitment to give Arab architects a voice. In 2023, with Gulf Pacific Press, he authored a three-book series focusing on the works of Hassan Fathy in Saudi Arabia, consisting of Hassan Fathy: Years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Hassan Fathy: The Al-Diriyya Projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 1964-1965; and Hassan Fathy: Projects in Jeddah, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Susanna Woo Seierup is an educator who earned her Undergraduate degree in Design from the University of California at Los Angeles and her Master's degree in Architecture from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design. Beginning in 2003, she served on the faculty of the University of Southern California School of Architecture, teaching undergraduate design studio before focusing on architectural history and teaching the World History of Architecture course series, first in partnership with James Steele, and then on her own until 2022. She is the editor of Brooks + Scarpa Architects: A Journey of Discovery, published by Gulf Pacific Press in 2020; and also edited a three-book series focusing on the works of Hassan Fathy in Saudi Arabia, consisting of Hassan Fathy: Years in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Hassan Fathy: The Al-Diriyya Projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 1964-1965; and Hassan Fathy: Projects in Jeddah, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; all with Gulf Pacific Press in 2023.