Sohag Sculpture Center

Faculty of Fine Arts, Alexandria University in Alexandria

Project idea

The main idea of ​​the project is to try to make the Sohag Sculpture Center an educational, cultural and artistic centre by exploiting the limestone found in the eastern and western plateaus surrounding the city of Sohag, with a length of about 15 km, to make stone sculptures and sell them at high prices due to the quality of the limestone in the two plateaus (most Egyptian antiquities are carved from limestone And trying to exploit the road network to transport it internally to Luxor. Aswan to sell it in the markets and outside it through the port of Safaga to increase national income and increase the economic return from the exploitation of raw materials. At the same time, he is working to develop an ancient, vanished craft to teach women and children a craft that will benefit them in an attempt to lift the people of the city of Sohag out of poverty.

Project description

The Sohag Sculpture Center aims to be a forum for international sculptors and sculptors of the Arab world, to hold workshops or exhibitions of stone sculptures, and to try to benefit from some sculptors who specialize in some techniques that work to raise the general level of trainees and local sculptors, while trying to make the Sohag Center a landmark for the region and a tourist destination. For the region as well. To be an attractive point for tourists coming to visit the Atrapis Temple, which is 250 meters away from our project and at the same time close to Deir el-Bahari and the White Monastery, which is one of the Coptic Orthodox monasteries that has great fame. The site can be easily reached by road, making it a suitable destination for tourists and excursions

Technical information

Our direction is focused on making the project the Sohag Sculpture Center that reflects its internal function by sculpting the project inside the western plateau so that it is close to the limestone quarry areas to save the price of transporting the raw material to the project land and at the same time being intertwined with the plateau in an artistic sculptural way to be a tourist interface for the city of Sohag and its renaissance. To emerge from the quagmire of poverty because it is the poorest governorate in Egypt, in addition to trying to reach the sustainability of buildings by reducing the use of building materials by 70% and exploiting the stone walls of the plateau in terms of ceilings and internal walls and trying to reduce carbon emissions in the surrounding environment and at the same time exploiting thermal insulation within the plateaus. And the mountains to achieve thermal comfort within the spaces and exploit the heights of the plateau to achieve self-shedding along the boarding corridors of the project’s three terraces, while using the idea of ​​curtains to achieve ventilation within most of the spaces in the project villa and creating public places for sculptors or trainees while providing outdoor workshops for stones or large-sized sculptures.