Ramses Wissa Wassef

Ramses Wissa Wassef (November 9 1911 in Cairo, Egypt - 1974), was a famous Egyptian architect and designer, and a professor of art and architecture at the College of Fine Arts in Cairo. [Egyptvoyager.com, Wissa Wassef Arts Center [http://www.egyptvoyager.com/artcrafts_wissawassef_biographies_ramses.htm Bio] ] Ramses was also a potter and weaver who taught many disadvantaged Egyptian children to weave tapestries.

Ramses Wissa Wassef's father was a lawyer, a leader of Egypt's nationalist movement and an art patron who persuaded the Egyptian Parliament to develop the arts in Egypt. After finishing high school, Ramses wanted to become a sculptor but changed his mind at his father’s advice and began to study architecture in France at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris. His thesis project "A Potter's House in Old Cairo" received the first prize in 1935. He had a passion for beauty in form and said "One cannot separate beauty from utility, the form from the material, the work from its function, man from his creative art " [The Ramses Wissa Wassef Arts Center [http://www.wissa-wassef-arts.com/] ]

Ramses Wissa Wassef's family donated all his original architecture drawings to the Rare Books Library at the American University in Cairo.

Architecture and Design

At the beginning of his career in 1935 Ramses was struck by the beauty of the medieval towns and the old quarters of Cairo. His vision was filled with the harmony and picturesque beauty of villages with the simplicity of certain old houses, its narrow lanes which were shaded most of the day. Ramses saw sharp contrast to the coldness of most modern buildings. Why, he would ask himself, was it possible for craftsmen in the past to succeed where present-day architects failed.

Ramses once wrote:

Ramses did not undertake massive projects, such as the housing blocks and complexes, which are profitable by virtue of their uniformity. This Ramses found, was not genuine to his nature or his interests. Ramses' main concern was the way in which conditions of the individual in a mechanical civilization gradually could be humanized. Helped by his classical architecture training and his studies of the history of art and architecture Ramses gradually conceived elements of an architectural style bearing the stamp of his own strong personality and responding to the challenge of the times without breaking away from the past. Impressed as he was by the beauty of the Nubian houses in the villages around Aswan, which still preserved the domes and vaults, inherited form the earliest Pharaonic dynasties, he resolved to maintain their presence in his own architectural work for reasons of aesthetics, climate and economics.

Ramses incorporated the skills of a number of traditional craftsmen such as stonecutters, traditional carpenters, glass blowers and potters who had inherited the techniques and traditions of the Egyptian vernacular heritage. The combinations of these varied elements found shape in a number of his universally admired architectural achievements such as:

* The Mahmoud Mokhtar Sculpture Museum (coord|30|2|25.8|N|31|13|22.3|E|type:landmark|name=Mahmoud Mokhtar Sculpture Museum), Cairo
* [http://www.copticarchitecture.com/arc/heritage/zama.htm Saint Mary Coptic Church] in Zamalek, Cairo
* Several other churches in Cairo, Alexandria and Damanhour, including the [http://www.copticarchitecture.com/arc/heritage/helio.htm Church of St. George] in Heliopolis
* The Junior Lycee school at Bab al-Louq Cairo
* His own house in Agouza, Cairo and several private houses along the Saqqara road near the Pyramids
* Adam Henein House, [http://www.copticarchitecture.com/arc/heritage/oth.htm Harrania] Giza. Adam was his student at the college of fine art.
* The Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center compound, Harrania Giza, which include: the tapestry workshops and gallery, the Habib Georgi sculpture museum.

Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center and Art Education

Wissa Wassef attempted to prove that art is innate in everyone and it can flourish in spite of the deadening influence of mass production [ [http://archnet.org/library/parties/one-party.tcl?party_id=460 Ramses Wissa Wassef ] ] that he believe killed creativity. He set out to prove that children can all grow up to artists if they are encouraged to work in art and live surrounded by other artists. He founded the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center in 1951 near the Pyramids to teach young Egyptian villagers how to create art and tapestries. He believed that All children are endowed with a creative power which includes an astonishing variety of potentialities. This power is necessary for the child to build up his own existence. [ [http://www.wissa-wassef-arts.com/intro.htm Welcome to the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art School ] ]

The Art Center gave Ramses the opportunity to design and implement his architectural ideas in total freedom. It was also an opportunity for Ramses to teach local builders the art of building domes and vaults which has been traditionally being executed by builders from Aswan, in Upper Egypt. It is thanks to these local brick layers, that a new generation of dome & vault builders continues this wonderful building tradition. When the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center, won the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1983, the awarding committee eloquently summed up the project as follows:

Wissa Wassef taught the children to express themselves by weaving tapestries. Weaving these tapestries at the Center was a lively and creative process for the children because no preliminary drawings were used. By the end of the 1960s Wissa Wassef's Art Center was well known in many countries and was a favourite stop for tourists in Egypt.

Wissa Wassef loved pottery and was an accoplished potter. Part of the Art Center was and still is dedicated to teaching pottery. The Art Center's pottery is well known among the world's potters.

Today, the Art Center is thriving and even after its founder died in 1974; the Center is still famous for its experiment in creativity and its lively tapestries. In 2006 the Art Center organized an Exhibition at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London to commemorate its 50 year journey in creativity. [ [http://www.wissa-wassef-arts.com/report1.htm report1 ] ]

The book, "Egyptian Landscapes" celebrates the Center's 50 years of experiments in creativity. It includes photographs of the center's buildings throughout the years. It has photographs of the early tapestries, and shows how the work developed and the experiment in creativity and education is continuing.

Professor of Art and Architecture

Ramses taught Architecture and Art at the Dapartment of Architecture, College of Fine Arts, Cairo, which he also chaired. Teaching made Ramses think about the conditions required for training an artist; he decided the creative effort was the most important.

Children, he observed, were generously endowed with this creative faculty and that is why he started working with young village children in his art center. After teaching the rudiments of weaving, he deliberately set out to isolate them from any sophisticated external influence. Encouraged by early results, he extended the experiment to other materials:

* knotted carpets, fine cotton weaving on horizontal looms, batik
* stoneware ceramics
* stained glass windows, using the oriental technique of colored glass and plaster
* building with traditional materials (adobe bricks and rammed,earth walls)

The results as in the case of tapestry weaving exceeded the most optimistic forecasts.

Wissa Wassef loved glass and was well known for his experiments with glass and stained glass designs. Hewon a presitigous award in Egypt for his stained glass window design for the National Peoples Assembley Building.Ramses Wissa Wassef's life was entirely devoted to art, which he regarded as the best means of communication between human beings. His pioneering teaching method was an act of love and faith in the potential of the child. He proved that nothing was impossible if one’s intelligence stemmed from the heart and if one’s artistic sensibility were genuine enough.

Awards

* Egyptian National Award For The Arts - 1961, for his stained-glass window designs for The Egyptian National Assembly building, Cairo
* The Aga-Khan Architectural Award - 1983, for his achievements and particularly for the art center at Harrania, Giza

Quotations by Ramses Wissa Wassef

References

* "MIMAR 35: Architecture in Development" by Taylor, Brian Brace, 1990
* "Architecture in Continuity" by Cantacuzino, Sherban, 1985
* "MIMAR 5: Architecture in Development" by Noweir, Sawsan, 1985
* "Egyptian Landscapes Fifty Years of Tapestry Weaving at the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre, Cairo", Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center, 2006

ee also

* Egyptians
* List of Egyptians
* Copts
* Prominent Copts

External links

* [http://www.artplusradio.org/podcasts/shows/ART+Wissa_Wassef_04252007.mp3 ] 50th Anniversary Celebration (2007) Interview with Lady Hilary Weir, Barbara Heller trustees of Ramses Wissa Wassef Trust in London and Suzan Wissa Wassef and Architect Ikram Nosshi who run the Art Center in Cairo
* [http://www.wissa-wassef-arts.com/about1.htm] , a site dedicated to the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center
* [http://www.wissa-wassef-arts.com/exhibitioncatalogue.htm] , Egyptian Landscapes: Fifty Years of Tapestry Weaving at the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre, Cairo
* [http://archnet.org/] , ArchNet, a digital library that features works by and about Ramses Wissa Wassef
* [http://www.marlamallett.com/wissawas2.htm] a site about Wassef's Harrania Tapestry Workshop
* [http://www.akdn.org/] Aga Khan Development Nework