Reflections on the Red Sea Style: Beyond the Surface of Coastal Architecture

Abstract

In 1953, a British architect named Derek H. Matthews introduced the idea of “The Red Sea Style” in print, in a modest article with that title. Although brief and focused on a single site, this article proposed that the architecture around the rim of the Red Sea could be conceived of as a coherent and unified building category. Since then, those who have written about Red Sea port cities have generally accepted Matthews’s suggestion of a shared architectural culture. Indeed, the houses of the region’s major ports, such as Suakin in modern-day Sudan, Massawa in Eritrea, Jidda and Yanbu al-Bah r in Saudi Arabia, and Mocha, al-H udayda, and al-Luh ayya in Yemen, share a number of visual similarities that support this cross-regional designation. Although many are in ruins, these coastal buildings appear to have more in common with each other than with their inland counterparts in their locality. The present article delves into the perceived coherence of Red Sea architecture, but it...