A world of otherness: A spatial ethnography of the oasis of Farafra.

Abstract

Farafra is more than a story of an isolated oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, it's people and the spatiality of their existence. It is architecture... not as the making of buildings, but of meaningful places. Farafra is a story of 'differentness'; a confrontation with a different view of the world, and a different conception of space. In Farafra, space is not talked about; it is lived through. The Farfaronis perceive their spaces only as places, their houses as homes, and their buildings as manifestations of their socio-spatial order and meanings. I tell the story the inhabitants chose to tell, or rather, it is my reading of their reading of the world. It is through a dialogical, critically reflective, Human Science approach, that the complexities inherent in the never-ending dialectic of experiencing and shaping the environment begin to unravel. Farafra brings about a confrontation with the professional story. The notion of a lived-in space, or existential space, is one that contrasts dramatically with the notion of a storyless geometric space advocated and perpetuated by 'professiono-centric' practices. The confrontation forces us to question the impact the professional view of the world has on the physical l and scape it helps shape, as well as on its inhabitants. We need to critically review whether the profession should change this conception to a more existential one, tuned to the world of the people it purportedly works for; and whether it can change its exclusionary and elitist practices. Thus, the door opens for a transformed vision of architecture: an 'open profession' that works as a force of empowerment for the emancipation of people as opposed to their massification. A profession that is concerned with the making of meaningful places rather than sculptural objects. This study does not provide any clear cut answers, nor does it claim to seek any. Rather, I seek an underst and ing of the taken for granted, unexamined assumptions of our professional and non-professional views of the world. In presenting this dissertation as a 'counter-text', I hope it contributes to an on-going critical discourse, both within and without, the profession of architecture, and that its 'otherness' raises possibilities for a transformative praxis. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)