Last October in Berlin Shahira Mehrez delivered a powerful message in an inspiring lecture, "The Arab Interior between Orient, Orientalism and Globalization."
For well over three decades, this remarkable woman has been ceaselessly creating an awareness in Egypt of traditional Arab architecture and crafts. Her primary concern at present is to finish her book, "Traditional Women's Costumes in the Egyptian Countryside, Oases and Deserts." Shahira has collected some 450 costumes over a period of 40 years. She explained, "My collection can act as a point of reference." Not only is she in a privileged position to document her subject but she also feels a duty toward the future generations.
Many young people - Arabs included - ignore the wealth and importance of their heritage. Young Egyptians, for example, who wish to live in a contemporary Arab interior are faced with a dearth of choices. In Egypt the traditional Arab house and its interior decoration characterized by striking features have given way to Western influences. This was a gradual process originating in the 17th century when European merchants went to Syria and Egypt. In the beginning their influence was minimal but a great upheaval resulted with Napoleon Bonaparte's 1798 expedition to Egypt. Though French rule was brief it had great repercussions since it effectively opened the gates of the Arab world to direct Western intervention. The strong move to Westernization brought many changes but "we paid a high price for modernism" says Mehrez. "The changes affected urbanism and architecture, disturbing the fabric of the traditional Arab city, bastardizing our towns, but it was also reflected in other aspects of our material culture. Furniture changed, ways of dressing changed and even food changed."
For some people, tradition slowed the march into the future. Tradition even meant underdevelopment and backwardness. The growing desire for European style furniture and house accessories caused the decline of a thriving and brilliant craftsmanship. For centuries, the craftsmen in the Arab world had developed the arts of metal, wood, stone, ivory, glass and, above all, textiles and carpets. They had created through borrowing, imitation and experiment something distinctively new and unique. Mehrez does not mince her words and calls it "artistic bankruptcy."
Master craftsmen, bearers of secular traditional know-how, inherited from earlier generations were gradually left stranded with no patrons to commission masterpieces. They lost their livelihood and for economic reasons were obliged to abandon their crafts.
"When these carriers and transmitters of tradition disappeared, we lost our artistic references. Not only did they have a deep knowledge of the repertory of motifs and patterns used in the various fields, but they also mastered the codes that for centuries had been ordaining their use. In their absence, there was no way to renew and develop the tradition," says Mehrez.
Traditional Arab art and craftsmanship was at a turning point. To survive it had to find a compromise. Its saviors were not Arabs but foreigners, mostly travelers, and all those lured by the exotic appeal of the Orient. According to Mehrez, Orientalism helped the urban elite in Egypt rediscover their legacy even if it was through the eyes of non-Arabs, mostly Europeans.
Alas, the European interest in Arabic crafts resulted in the creation of the so-called "Arabesque" style consisting of typical western furniture decorated with mother of pearl, ivory or marquetry. This also spread to architecture and at this point Mehrez denounces a "swindle" which went unnoticed until the 1940's when Hassan Fathi rehabilitated traditional architecture and dissociated it from the "Arabesque" style. Mehrez comments, "I do not want to appear biased against the Arabesque style. The problem is that it was, and still is, mistaken for the authentic tradition. The term 'Arabesque' came to be applied indiscriminately to the indigenous, genuine style as well as to the Western-inspired hybrid derivation. Europeans not only re-interpreted the original style but many didn't even know what the original looked like or couldn't differentiate between the real and the copy." She concludes that this is an indication of the estrangement and alienation from genuine Arab culture.
Today, young Egyptians tend to find the Oriental style exotic and too heavy. Mehrez characterizes it as "confused and agitated" whereas the authentic Arab style is highly functional, giving it a distinctively contemporary outlook.
The traditional Arab house was an intimate reflection of a way of life reflecting the character, the personality and the customs of the men and women who lived in it. Traditional architecture reflects a deeper consciousness that integrates climatic considerations, design arts and sensibilities to fulfill the social and economic needs of its inhabitants. Unfortunately, Mehrez acknowledges that if they are people who share her concern, she is not aware of many of them. "We are in a decadent era!" she says and then underlines the media's failure to highlight the genuine as opposed to the copy. She laments, "Unless more research, serious study and documentation is made accessible, in a few decades our traditional architecture and decoration will be replaced by California variations."
