Abdulrahman El-Taliawi

Mud & Concrete: The Reinvention of Vernacular Architecture in Egypt at the turn of the 20th Century

El-Taliawi is an architect and researcher from Cairo, specialising in the research and practice of earthen and vernacular architecture in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region. He holds an MSc in Architectural Design from Politecnico di Milano (2013), and an MA in Architectural History from UCL (2020). He is currently a PhD researcher in the department of Architecture and Design at Politecnico di Torino (2024-2027). His research, Mud & Concrete, looks at the decline of building with earth in Egypt at the turn of the 20th century against the proliferation of cement production, and the parallel emergence of a colonial discourse on ‘vernacular architecture’ much earlier than commonly known. El-Taliawi is also a cofounder of Boldan, an initiative for the exploration and documentation of vernacular architectural heritage, a member of Materia in urban and cultural regeneration projects, and a member of the Environmental History and Construction History Groups at Politecnico di Torino.

His archival research project, supported by The Barakat Trust, will examine the papers of British architects Ernest Richmond and Somers Clarke in Durham and Oxford, and the archives of the Public Works Department in Egypt held at the Colonial Office in the National Archives in Kew. It aims to contribute to the fields of Environmental and Construction History in the Modern Middle East.