Mohamed Saad Mohaffel was born in Syria in 1940, the son of the Syrian Ambassador to Belgium. He was educated at the English School, Heliopolis, Cairo, from 1952-1957 and then travelled to the UK, where he studied at Bournemouth Municipal College of Art (1958-62). He then enrolled on the five-year Diploma course at the Architectural Association (AA), London, in September 1962, entering the Third-Year cohort. After a two-year gap in his studies, Mohaffel re-entered the AA for his Fifth-Year, in 1966, electing to study within the AA’s Department of Development and Tropical Studies, where his final thesis project was on the topic of urban renewal in Singapore. Seven years later, whilst preparing a feasibility scheme for hotel in Yemen, for the International Investment Bank in Beirut, Mohaffel met the painter Laila A-Shawa, daughter to Rashad A-Shawa, recently re-elected Palestinian Mayor of Gaza. They were married and in 1973 Rashad commissioned his son-in-law to design what was the first, post 1948, Palestinian cultural centre (now the A-Shawa Cultural Centre, completed 1988). Strongly informed by his teachings at the AA Department of Development and Tropical Studies, the Centre was situated on an east-west axis permitting the Mediterranean breezes to circulate and ventilate the building. Having a shaded terrace on the south-facing side and windows to the north served to simultaneously protect against direct sunlight and to allow cooler air to enter. Mohaffel also made clever use of an open-grid suspended ceiling, together with hollow double wall construction, to enhance air circulation and permit service access. Completed in 1988 and inaugurated in 1992, the Centre immediately became a landmark building and was a key location for the Oslo Peace Process, hosting talks between Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton. In November 2023 it was reported that the Centre had been destroyed during the Gaza War. Mohaffel’s connections with Rashad A-Shawa also resulted in his being appointed as the joint head (with Elyon Meromi) of the Israeli-Palestinian Planning Team for the 1978 Gaza Masterplan. Details of Mohaffel’s later career are not yet known to us but it appears that by the early 1990s he was living and practicing as an architect in the UK.

 Sources

• Architectural Association Student Register, 1945-71. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Diploma Roll, 1966-67. AA Archives.
• Architectural Association Student Records, 1960s, Registrar’s Office. AA Archives.
• Abreek-Zubiedat, F., Avermaete, T. ‘Concrete Conflicts: The Vicissitudes of an Ordinary Material in Modernizing Gaza City’. Journal of Urban History 48, no. 5 (September 2022): 1159–73.
• Abreek-Zubiedat, F., Nitzan-Shiftan, A. ‘The Right to an Urban History: The Gaza Master Plan, 1975-1982’. Environment and Planning D Society and Space, 12 September 2020.
• ARCHNET. ‘Rashad Shawa Cultural Center – ARCHNET.Org’. ARCHNET. Accessed 15th September 2024: https://www.archnet.org/sites/766.