Garagos is a small Upper Egyptian village on the eastern bank of the Nile, approximately 25 km north of Luxor. More than 150 years ago, a Jesuit priest came to Garagos and built a church. He also founded a hospital and a school. In addition to agriculture, he also began to establish the pottery craft, thereby creating a basis for income for the people living there.
Around 1950, the priest in charge of the time called on one of the country’s most famous architects to help him and commissioned him to turn the small pottery workshop into an efficient factory. This famous architect Hassan Fathy set to work and built a building complex that perfectly adapted to the people’s environment and their work processes and still functions in the same way today.
Pottery is made with first-class clay material from Aswan.
You can observe the individual steps from the extraction of the raw material to the processing of the malleable mass on the potter’s wheel. The disc is still driven by a wooden step connected to wire ropes. Only the kiln was replaced because it was simply too small. A large picture shows the distinguished visit of the Swedish royal couple Carl Gustaf and his wife Silvia to the pottery.
There is also a warehouse where beautiful ceramic items for sale in all sizes, shapes and types are stored up to the ceiling. Whether it’s a jug, bowl, cup or plate, each piece is unique.
