As part of my research into the history of the Garagos Pottery I am reading Architecture for the Poor - Hassan Fathy. More than just a source of information this book is actually a very good read - not too technical but an excellent social study of the Egyptian poor, particularly in the villages.

I wrote in the blog that the common theme running through the craft producing families we visited was that the younger generations were giving up the family trade/craft to take up other professions. In many cases they were going to work in one of the Red Sea resorts where tourism is thriving.

This passage from Architecture for the Poor shows that this is not just a modern phenomenon.

"I once talked to moallem Mohammed Ismail, a craftsman who makes windows out of stained glass set in plaster. This was once a common decoration in a city house, but when I asked Ismail how many others apart from himself practiced the craft, he could think of only one man, moallem Loutfy. I asked Ismail if he was teaching his craft to his children. He said, “My elder son is a mechanic and I have sent the younger one to school.” “So after your generation there will be nobody left to carry on the tradition?” “What do you want me to do? Do you know that we often don’t have anything to eat. No one wants my work today. There’s no room for a stained glass window in this new architecture of yours. Think of it, once even the water bearer used to decorate his house and would engage me. Today, how many architects even know of our existence?” “And if I brought you ten boys,” I said, “would you teach them the craft?” Ismail shook his head. “1 wasn’t taught in a school. If you want to revive the trade, then give us work. If we have work, then you will see, not ten schoolboys here, but twenty apprentices.” (I was able to give him a commission, and his work attracted the attention of other architects, so that his elder son, the mechanic, was drawn back to the craft, and has now surpassed his father in skill.)"

Architecture for the Poor, Hassan Fathy, Printed in Egypt by International Press