MAAT
Project realized with the support of Movin' Up (MiBACT + GAI) and European Cultural Foundation.
In a country like Egypt made of sand and deserts, the landscape is never the same. The lands emerged from the paleolithic sea remind us of what our roots are, and the construction sites of the new cities rising in the desert tell us, perhaps, where we are going.
We must think that in Egypt architecture has always been an ideological medium with the purpose of transmitting and preserving the cosmic order, what the ancient Egyptians called Maat. As an expression of a sacred geometry whose forms refer to the relationship between earthly life and the afterlife, architecture for the ancient Egyptians was a vehicle to bring man closer to a higher nature. Through the knowledge of the sky and the stars, the ancients shaped cities and buildings whose form and orientation is still meaningful, embedded in a landscape that was considered sacred as it reflected and dialogued with celestial cycles.
Nowadays Egypt is obviously driven by different logic. Since the 1990s, investment in the construction of new cities has been presented as a solution to the major challenges of population growth and economic development. The government itself is building a new capital city in desert New Cairo, just a few kilometers from the capital, to address the problem of overcrowding Cairo. However, for some reason, many of these construction projects were abandoned even before their construction was completed, leaving behind traces that give a new meaning to the landscape. This work questions how natural landscape and built environment interact with each other and highlithts moments of grace in the rush of contemporary world.