Hisham Mortada

Professor

Hisham Ali Mortada is Professor of Architecture in the Department of Architecture at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, where he has held a professorship since 1997. He earned his B.Arch at King Abdulaziz University in 1982, a M.Arch at Pennsylvania State University in 1988, and a PhD in Architecture at the University of Edinburgh in 1992 with a thesis on Islamic principles and the modern housing of Jeddah. Alongside teaching he has held senior public-sector posts in the Kingdom, serving as Director General of Urban Planning at Jeddah Municipality in 1994, Deputy Mayoral Assistant for Urban Planning Affairs in 1995, urban planning adviser for Makkah between 1993 and 2000, and adviser for urban affairs to the Minister of Hajj in 2003 and 2004, while practising as an architect and urban planner in Jeddah between 1999 and 2007. He is the author of Traditional Islamic Principles of Built Environment, published by Routledge in 2003, and of Traditional Built Environment of Saudi Arabia: Al-Ula Unearthed in 2020, together with more than forty refereed papers on vernacular and Islamic architecture, including a study of the sustainable desert architecture of central Saudi Arabia. He led the King Abdulaziz University team that documented the traditional architecture of AlUla Old Town, and has argued publicly for the protection of Jeddah's Al-Balad heritage district. He has lectured in more than thirty countries and conducts field research on the mud architecture of Najran.