An article: And always prosperous, Egypt
The death of our honorable scholar
In the 26th of September 2000, Dr. Abdel Baki Ibrahim, professor of architecture and urban planning in Ain – Shams University and the Chief – editor of Alam El Benaa (World of construction) passed away.
Everyone who knew Dr. Abdel – Baki Ibrahim – whether he agreed or differed with his ideas – could not deny that the man spent all his life concerned with the public worries. You can find such people (so concerned with this matter) in every age. Dr. Abdel Baki Ibrahim was the first student of his class in the department of architecture in Cairo University 1949. It is the class to which Professor Ali Raafat, Dr. Abou Zeid Ragih and others belong. They all enriched our cultural life in architecture, housing and planning. Dr. Abdel – Baki Ibrahim is from Kafr El Hamam village in Sharkeia from which came also his late cousins the architects Kamel and Salah Zeitoun.
I knew him for the first time after his return from his scientific mission in England. He was assigned to teach in Ibrahim University that became Ain – Shams in the early fifties of the last century. Our relation continued with all respect – even if we disagreed – because our age is one of those ages that respected everyone who taught them. Then I knew him after my graduation when the ministry of scientific research came into being, and formed a research unit that was headed by the great Hassan Fathi along with Dr. Abdel Baki Ibrahim, for the development of rural houses. Then I worked with him for several months in the early sixties when he won, with Dr. Yehia El – Zeini and Dr. Fouad El Faramawi, the competition of the international Cairo Fair built in Nasr City. The buildings and halls of the Fair, with their spatial compositions and their constructions, were a real contribution at that time from which architects can learn a lot.
