Mohamed Elfateh has studied architecture and town planning in Sudan and holds a Master's degree in Architecture from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He ist currently preparing a Ph.D. in the History of Architecture under the supervision of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Rheidt, IGS-BTU (Brandenburgeische Technische Universität, Cottbus). Mohamed Elfateh works on the architecture of the Ottoman Empire in Port Suakin and Jeddah between the 16th and the 20th century. his research interests center around the architecture of the Ottoman period in the Red Sea region with special focus on architectural types and styles in ther interplay with urbanistic, social, economic, and political factors.
the urban structure of the Ottoman Port of Suakin (former Habesh Eyaleti) is a particular expression of a long established Red Sea regional building tradition. The spread of Islam greatly increased the urban importance of Suakin as the entry point for the African pilgrimage tothe two holy cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina. Be it the Ottoman imperial sphere, Egypt, or international influences, the apperance of the Port city has been shaped mainly between 1865 and 1905, a period for which many extensions and architectural changes ca be clearly documented in the buildings owned by the new settlers.
The lecture discusses the urban and architectural developments of the Port city with its urban complex, its grid of narrow, congested streets, the changing of style and typology in the architecture and its significance with a wider process of political and social transition. This considerable change can be observed in the new types of buildings, which relate to the "post-Ottoman" period after 1865, when Suakin came under Ottoman-Egyptian control. New ongoing investigations based on the method of tree-ring dating (dendrochronology) in the Port city, which are currently pursued by Mohamed Elfateh in technical cooperation with the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), Berlin, make it for the first time possible to develop a reliable inventory of buildings for the Port city as a means of understanding and documenting the changes in the time city's development during different colonial eras. The architecture of the post-Ottoman houses in Port Suakin brings together influences from the individual building cultres of each of the distinct groups of residents of the city after 1865, while at the same time retaining an essentially Ottoman spatial design.