Semi-Detached Villas 21

Notes

Following the design of semi-detached villas, 20/22 villas and 24/26 villas, in 1954 and 1958, Zeitoun went on to design the semi-detached villas 21, also with no client setting limits on his architectural expression.

The semi-detached villas 21 are distinguished with their stronger link to the local architecture with the use of a semi-enclosed patio which the living room and dining room open up to on the ground floor and which the bedrooms open up to on the upper floor. Another association to local architecture could be seen in the various interpretations of the musharrabiyya. Firstly, a musharrabiyya—designed as four wooden gridded panels set in a pinwheel configuration—is featured on the windows of the bedrooms, fulfilling one of its traditional roles of providing privacy. A musharabiyya, in a more traditional design, is used as an interior partition that maintains connection between the different spaces.  Another musharabiyya use, this time designed in a pharaonic style with vertical metal rods, is used on an interior window in the office room overlooking the living room. This semi-circular window housing a lantern is itself a reinterpretation of the semi-octagonal Arab window. Flowing space governs the design of the interior. The latter features a variety of materials and a combination of fixed and moveable modern furniture.

Sources

Abdelbaki Ibrahim?, The Arab Architects: Salah Zeitoun, Center for Architecture and Planning Studies, Masr el-Gidida, 1987, p. 34-37.

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