Reflections

• I reject borrowing from the past. The architecture and technology of the past met the needs of their people with the means available then; we must think of an architecture suited to the spirit of our own age. The architect must free himself from traditional styles whose formative conditions have disappeared.
• Architectural work should be bound to the spiritual content of Islam, not to particular outward forms such as the arch, the mashrabiya or the dome.
• Applying an Islamic architectural character to building façades is an architectural falsification of those façades.
• The architect should be of his time, engaged with every new idea and practice, following rapid progress in technology and economical methods, without cutting himself off from his roots and his faith.
• Functional theory remains an ideal that architects strive towards, because it contains fundamental principles of great value for analysing a design and testing whether it is right.
• Style and character are different things. What distinguishes the Islamic style from others is essentially its details: arches, domes, mashrabiyas. These are not essential to a design that springs from the architect's conscience, and a distinctive character can be achieved without contradicting the basic principles of functional theory.

Written in Arabic by Mostafa Shawky. English translation.