| Summary: | A little-known aspect of architect Hassan Fathy’s work is explored in this article, namely, his tourism development projects designed for Egypt from the 1960s to the 1980s. These include projects for the Mediterranean coast between Alexandria and Marsa Matrouh, beginning in 1967, and designs for transforming several sites into tourist resorts, such as the village of New Gourna (from 1968), the Nile Festival Village in Luxor (1976-1982), and the reconstructed town of Yamit (1968). In the 1960s, at a time when the entire length of the Mediterranean coastline was open for development, Fathy mainly dedicated himself to his work at Sidi Krier, for which a single unit was constructed in 1971. His resort projects must be discussed in relation to constructions by François Spoerri (Port-Grimaud) and Olivier Cacoub (Port El Kantaoui). With his vast knowledge of Italian and French coastal resort cities, Fathy took the first steps in establishing what could have become a theory of coastal architecture. Having observed foreigners’ taste for a “neo-vernacular Arabian style” of architecture, he hoped to recycle prototypes he had already created for single-family homes and peasant villages. This plan became a reality after his death, when the “Gourna-style” resort town became an omnipresent feature of Egyptian tourism.
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