Somers Clarke (1841-1926) and the Revival of Mudbrick Architecture in Egypt

RIBA Modern Architecture and Town Planning Trust Award 2008

 

Somers Clarke was an architect trained in the office of Sir Gilbert Scott. His principal work was church restoration, and this culminated in his appointment in 1897 to the post of Surveyor of the Fabric, St. Paul’s Cathedral. It is, however, his ‘parallel life’ and activity in Egypt that will be the focus of the proposed research. Since 1880 Clarke was an active participant in archaeological excavations there. His great interest in, and knowledge of, ancient building techniques is manifest in two major scholarly contributions: Ancient Egyptian Masonry, the Building Craft and Christian Antiquities in the Nile Valley.

In 1902 Clarke settled in Egypt, and soon built himself a vast mudbrick multi-domed house beside the Nile 80km south of Luxor. The house, partly modelled on monastic lines, stands to this day, and is the earliest surviving example of an architect-designed mudbrick building in Egypt in the modern period. His architectural output continued with railway stations, the first Anglican Cathedral of Aswan, and extensions to Coptic monasteries. All these structures were substantially, or entirely, made of mudbrick. Perhaps inspired by him, other foreign architects also adopted local materials and technologies: a group of large mudbrick houses were subsequently built at Luxor for different archaeological missions.

These pioneering essays in mudbrick ‘vernacular’ construction by foreign architects (among whom Clarke was outstanding) have been hitherto ignored: most attention has been focussed on the much later work of the well-known Egyptian architects Hassan Fathy and Ramses Wissa-Wassef. The earlier buildings deserve notice, however, as they seem to form a link with ‘Arts and Crafts’ movements of the late-19th century. Whether they also influenced the development of the indigenous architectural revivalism of the mid-20th century remains to be seen.

The bulk of Clarke’s archive from Egypt is now held at the Griffith Institute in Oxford, but relevant material is also to be found at other British, American, and Egyptian institutions. Information derived from these archival sources will be complemented by field surveys in Egypt of surviving structures to create a better understanding of the origins of the mudbrick ‘style’ in Egypt, ultimately to be presented as a short monograph or long article. 

 

Biography

Dr. Nicholas Warner is an architect and architectural historian trained at Cambridge University, UK, and the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. Since 1993 his work has focussed on Egypt, where he has participated in or directed a number of projects related to the documentation, preservation, and presentation of historic structures and archaeological material. Amongst these are:

• The Cairo Mapping Project (a new map of Historic Cairo showing the plans of approximately 550 buildings in the mediaeval city) 
• The Saqqara New Kingdom Necropolis Project (constructing protective shelters and designing a long-term conservation and presentation strategy) 
• The North Kharga Oasis Survey (the architectural recording of Romano-Byzantine domestic and sacred architecture) 
• Columbia University / New York University excavations at Amheida, Dakhleh Oasis (the consolidation of a late-Roman standing remains including a mudbrick pyramid)
• The Animal Mummy Project at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo (a new display) 
• The Gayer-Anderson Museum in Cairo (construction of a new conservation laboratory and visitor facilities, restoration of the building fabric, and the design of improved displays) 
• The Monastery of St. Paul, the Red Monastery, and the Fortress of Babylon/Old Cairo (architectural documentation)

He is currently about to start the construction of a replica of a late-Roman mudbrick villa at Amheida in the Dakhleh Oasis, which is intended to serve as a visitor center for the surrounding archaeological site.

Nicholas Warner’s books include:

• The True Description of Cairo: a sixteenth-century Venetian view (3 vols., Oxford University Press 2006),
• The Monuments of Historic Cairo: a map and descriptive catalogue (American University in Cairo Press, 2005),
• Legends of the House of the Cretan Woman (American University in Cairo Press, 2001), 
• An Egyptian Panorama: reports from the nineteenth-century British press (Zeitouna Press, 1994).
  
  Contact: nicholasjwarner@gmail.com