The establishment of the Rashad
Shawa Cultural Center and its development:
The Rashad
Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza is the first Cultural Center to be built in Palestine.
The commission
for the design of the center was initiated by the late Rashad Shawa (1909-1988), Mayor of
Gaza, in his capacity as president and founder of the Benevolent society for the Gaza
Strip which acted as patron to the project.
The building
was designed by the Syrian born British architect sa’ad Mohaffel who supervised the
construction and completion of the building to international standards. The Cultural
Center was nominated for the Agakhan Award in 1992.
The Center was
designed to cater for the cultural needs of the population of Gaza, who suffered total
isolation from the world community and endured an occupation designed to erode their
cultural heritage and national identity. The objectives of building the center were to
fill this vacuume and to provide access for all Palestinians to have a platform from
which it could interact with the world community for all forms of cultural exchange.
The center has
facilities for seminars, lectures, conferences, art exhibitions as well as theatre
performances and the cinema. Its library, “ The Diana Tamari Sabbagh library” is
designed to serve students and professionals, the library has a lending section with
over 100,000 books, videos and CD from disks.
The cultural
center started operating in 1992 and is today the focus of most, if not all, cultural and
social activities in Gaza. As such, it needs the support and patronage, in order to
continue fulfilling the role it set out to play in rebuilding sense of identity with
dignity and restoring pride in the cultural heritage of all Palestinians.
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