Strictly to specifications
The design is Norwegian, the construction, Egyptian. And it's been a marvelous feat of engineering. Al-Ahram Weekly interviews Mamdouh Hamza, the man behind the building
Mamdouh Hamza
photo: Sherif Sonbol
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Taking pride of place on the Shatby corniche, the new Alexandria Library stands out against the jumble of architectural styles dominating the skyline of today's Alexandria. Mention of the Library of Alexandria may evoke a sense of ancient history, but the building itself is ultramodern, and touted by those in the know as a remarkable feat of engineering.
Soon after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) revived the plan to reconstruct the Alexandria Library in the late 1980s, an international competition was organised for this formidable work of resurrection. The first prize, $60,000, was awarded to the Norwegian architectural firm, Snohetta. Which is all that most of us know about an edifice ten years in construction.
But Mamdouh Hamza is not just anyone. From behind a desk littered with papers and files, he recounts in detail the making of that cool façade. For Hamza, chairman and founder of Hamza Associates, the Egyptian firm that developed and built Snohetta's design, the Library represents ten years of his life.
It all began on a low-key note, however. "In 1991, I was in Stresa, Italy, giving a lecture on the foundations used at an electrical plant in Damietta. After the session a Norwegian engineer came up and gave me his card. He told me 'we're involved in a big project in Alexandria and we need you.'"
Thus Hamza's experience with soft-clay foundations led him to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. "At the time, there was a great debate amongst Egyptian engineers; they rejected the winning design as impossible. You see the Library is only 20 metres from the sea and sits 18-metres deep in water-logged soil -- salty corrosive water at that." Snohetta's design was in the balance.
"What many people don't realise is that while the design is foreign, 76 per cent of the work is Egyptian and was drawn in this office here," Hamza explains, his finger tapping the surface of his desk in emphasis. And he has the documents to prove it. He always does; at every turn of the conversation papers come flying out of drawers, folders of neatly filed documents are brought forth and magazine articles retrieved to substantiate the arguments he is making.
Hamza is not only head of Hamza Associates, but professor of soil mechanics and foundation engineering at the Suez Canal University, and a volunteer worker for children suffering from cancer: he is a precise man. "I'm proud to say that the Library we built has been constructed in strict accordance with the initial design." That was, indeed, his greatest challenge. "Do you know why the footbridge that is supposed to cross the highway from the Library to the cornice stops abruptly at the perimeter of the Library?" he asks. "According to the design the footbridge was supposed to cross the highway. Imagine: you work in the Library, step out, have a coffee in the Library grounds, cross the bridge, walk by the sea, then return to your work; all without having to face the hassle of the streets." His eyes glaze over as he spells out the scenario. "But then we were told that, for some reason, we could not extend the bridge; I was asked to have steps leading from the footbridge to the highway sidewalk. Nothing doing. It goes against the concept. It would not be right. And so the bridge will sit there unused till it can be extended."
Make no mistake, he is dead serious.
Like the time the first concrete pillar was constructed. "I went and saw it and it was really excellent, but not in accordance with the specs. I asked that it be removed and rebuilt. And everyone called me and said 'it is a great pillar. No where else in Egypt has such a pillar been built.' And they were right, it was a very good pillar: just not good enough. It was brought down and another one built. Still not according to specs. I had the second one taken down and the third one was correctly made. It was the first and last time anything was not built perfectly," he tells me proudly.
And the effort was immense. In many fields, Egypt simply did not have the expertise to meet the specifications. "Can you imagine? We had to test 120 bricklayers to find six! And that is just one small example," he says.
But Hamza was adamant that the Library be as Egyptian as possible. "I insisted that we use Egyptian expertise, and that in the areas that required it, we develop the necessary expertise, and that I had the last word not just in architecture but in construction," Hamza notes. So when the issue of wood partitions was brought up and European candidates were suggested, Hamza insisted on an Egyptian contractor. "Another problem was the granite. In Egypt, one of the richest countries in the world for granite, we have no industrial quarries. So we got a Norwegian grant to develop a quarry, and then we used its output for the cladding. Most of the roof -- pre-cast girders of reinforced concrete weighing up to 18Mg and a diagonal secondary steel system -- was manufactured in Alexandria," he added.
That Egyptian expertise was sufficient to meet this challenge is a matter of great satisfaction to Hamza. But now that the Library has been built, he wonders what will become of these experts.
"I consider those who worked on the building of the Library -- some 3,000 Egyptian artisans, craftsmen, engineers and other specialists -- the first graduates of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Just as the Aswan High Dam produced a generation of engineers and architects, so has this project. But then there were other projects for them. I'm afraid that, today, these people will either find no work or be headhunted from abroad. Several have already been snapped up by companies in Europe," he says, shaking his head. Recession and the brain-drain are already plaguing the project. But these are problems way beyond its scope.
In the meantime, the Library they have built is, says Hamza, "unique. It is ten stories high. The open-access reading area is the largest of any library in the world, and is illuminated throughout by indirect natural light; it includes 144 study cubicles. The area comprises seven platforms, each dedicated to a field of knowledge, and visitors can move from one field to the next completely unhampered. It is very comfortable."
And all that against the odds. The ground conditions are complex, with four of the basement levels below the water table. Construction required "extensive foundation and ground- engineering work, including excavation, de- watering, pile-driving and jet-grouting, not to mention a diaphragm wall, which, at 35 metres down, is said to be the largest in the world." According to Hamza, the estimated life of any concrete construction is 50 years, yet UNESCO demanded 200 years. "And we have delivered," he concludes.
And now? What does he feel when he looks at the building into which he has put so much of himself? "What next?" he replies, emphatically. No room in Hamza's mind for nostalgia. "It is the anticlimax I felt the day I got my PhD. We must begin work on the next project. Though watching children rehearse in the Library the other day did almost bring tears to my eyes. We built the structure. Now the Library must fulfil its function as a centre of knowledge."
