I’m no Imhotep
2005, School of Architecture: Year one, Architectural History I course, we were taught about the great monumental architecture of ancient civilisations, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman. Imhotep was an ancient Egyptian chancellor to the Pharaoh Djoser, a great philosopher, a high priest, and an architect. As a young student, I always had this vision of Architects being influencers, doers, but are we really?
2018, Jerash (Gaza) Refugee camp: After finishing mapping the camp as part of my PhD research on refugee camps, I decided to invest in craftsmanship of refugee ironsmiths in Wadi Al Hiddadeh (Arabic: وادي الحدادة, meaning the valley of ironsmiths) located at the beginning of the camp where many of the refugees work. I also wanted to work on a fun project, something to be made in the camp that would bring joy to people who use it. So, I decided to design a fairly simple metal rocking chair. My idea was to design a cheap prototype for a playful chair that would appeal to people from my generation, promote it on social media, and those who are interested can order more chairs from Wadi Al Hiddadeh.
I worked on the design, drew the shop drawings, printed them scale 1:1 to leave no room for mistakes and took the rolls to Jerash. I was excited to introduce the idea to beautiful people of the camp. I enter the biggest ironsmith workshop with a beautiful eye logo on metal front, and I proceed to explain what I want to the workers sitting on the sidewalk, and to my surprise, they look at me with sheer panic! “We can’t do that, its too complicated!” answers me the owner. Go to another shop, and after few attempts, I found a small shop that was happy to work on my project. “Ibshirri Mohandeseh (Arabic: إبشري مهندسة, be happy, Architect). I made sure to answer any questions, explain the drawings, then we agreed to meet again in two days to pick up the chair.
The next day I got a phone call from the ironsmith saying: ”the chair is not stable this way, I decided to make the base straight to make it more sturdy”. I explain the idea behind a rocking chair, and ask him to simply stick to the drawings. The next day when I arrive, I find the side and front drawings are made into two 2-d seperate pieces. So I decide to spend the morning working with them, together, into making this chair work. The welding was a mess, the corners were a mess.. the surfaces were bumpy and I just took the metal skeleton and went back to Amman disappointed. I ended up sanding it and painting it myself… This experience forces me to question the dialogue between designers and craftsmen in such a place. How are we hoping for a flourishing design culture if I couldn’t even get a simple chair excused properly… hoping it will help support an impoverished economy. Oh well, I’m an Egyptian-Jordanian ‘A’rchitect, but I’m no Imhotep.
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