Ali Abu ghanimeh was born in Irbid, Jordan, in 1957. Graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of Rome, he is currently Dean of the School of Arts and Design at the University of Jordan, after having held the role of Dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Amman. He holds conferences and seminars in various Arab and European academies and universities. He is the author of numerous publications including: “Paolo Portoghesi”, “The mosque between tradition and innovation”, “Islamic architecture in Sicily”, “The court in Mediterranean architecture”. I met the architect Abu ghanimeh a lot of years ago in one of his many business trips in Italy and with great pleasure I had the opportunity to ask him some questions starting from the fact that he manages to operate in contexts that appear so different to us, it is deeply rooted in each of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.
You have always had a strong relationship with Italy, since you have been young, when you spent a lot of time in Rome. Do you think that travelling is still a valid tool for a young architect, or simply a young student, to discover the world?
I believe that travelling is very important for everyone. Travelling is important for everybody but especially for architects because you encounter other cultures, other identities, other materials, other architectural languages, other internal spaces, other ways of experiencing these spaces. You learn better by travelling than by just reading architecture books. Since I have arrived in Italy for the first time in 1975, as a student, I have found it very useful to visit the countries of Italy, from the South to the North. I have lived in Rome for 17 years, knowing the developments of the 80s and 90s. Here I understood how architecture is studied and designed. I saw ancient buildings next to modern ones. I met architects like Paolo Portoghesi and many others, including Aldo Rossi who I met in Venice. I always tell my students and assistant colleagues to travel, because travelling means to know and to develop yourself and this applies both to architects and to men in general.
We often talk about Mediterranean architecture. Undoubtedly, the Mediterranean basin had a strong identity in architecture, both in antiquity but also in much of the modern period. Do you think this reading is still valid today?
Jordanian people live in Mediterranean architecture, we are part of it. I feel the language of Mediterranean architecture a lot due to my long stay in Italy. The architecture of stone and mud, of trees and nature. The architecture of the relationship between matter and environment, where there is the courtyard with a tree in the centre. With the architects Oliva Longo and Ivana Passamani of the University of Brescia I wrote an essay about the court in the Mediterranean area, with the contributions of numerous architects living in the Mediterranean basin, from Italy, to Lebanon, to Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Greece and other countries that have illustrated the court as a fundamental element of the house. Another presence that we found in Mediterranean homes is the tree, also present in buildings and cities. There is a lot of similarity among Mediterranean people. There is also similarity in the smell of food, in the taste of sweets and in the nature. Mediterranean architecture reflects these places. Personally I am very happy to be a Mediterranean man. People live in the Mediterranean area have an openness towards the culture of others. Colours, for example, are another fundamental element, infact, the black volcanic stone of Catania is also found in Umm Qais in Jordan.
In your research you have often dealt about living. Take for example the single-family house, the villa, you believe that there is still a strong link between materials and nature, between context and form. In Italy, or in general in the Mediterranean area, is there still interest in this age-old sensitivity?
The house is an important element for the human being. Since ancient times it has always been important to have a quiet, healthy home, which works in summer as well as in winter, and to have the right spaces. This is sought in Jordan’s homes. With technological development the house has transformed and the materials have also changed. Stone was essential for the house of the past, it generated considerable thicknesses. Today we depend from technology and the house is losing its personality. The court has also changed. I am nostalgic for my grandparents’ house, in the modern house we are chasing the speed with which technology evolves.
Today there is much more attention to sustainability in the construction of a building. Elements such as the passive management of the hot/cold ratio, eco-friendly materials, natural elements: water, wind, etc. they are factors that affect the quality of a project. The shape is also affected by this important need. How can modern history and modern form be reconciled with these needs?
Today you can’t build like in the past, there are no the workers of the past, it is difficult to find traditional materials and it is difficult to find people available to live there. In modern fouses, with a mobile phone you can turn the lights on and off, operate the shutters, but with modern techniques the sense of humanity has been lost. Technology is taking the place of taste and beauty. Artificial intelligence is taking the place of natural beauty. We should fight for the house model where the human sense is stronger. Technology helps but we must not be dependent by it. Houses should continue to be made by natural materials, extracted by the earth and resettled into it.
What did you learn from Italy?
I learned a lot from Italy and Italian architecture, from people, from architects, from social life, from friends, from the visits I made in Rome, Naples, Brescia, Palermo, Assisi, Perugia, Gaeta, beautiful places. I lived in my frinds’ house understanding their way of life. For example, in the Neapolitan people I see they smile, they shout, they live well despite the difficulties that may exist in their world. I have learned to smile even when you are not too happy because smiling brings luck, serenity and beauty. Consequently the architecture of these places and the houses, is built with the colours of the beauty of Etna as in Catania, or in other cities the colours of fruit are brought into the house. This is an architecture that brings luck to those who lives it.
Thanks Ali.
by Giuseppe Di Giacomo
