08/10/2021
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Dawit Benti was born and raised in Addis Abeba. In 1987, Dawit got his first degree in Architecture and urban planning From Addis Abeba University. Then in 1994, Dawit got his master degree from indian institute of technology. He is now studying his phd at Eiabc.
Dawit has also Taught for 10 years at Adama university, and also 2 years in Switzerland.
From 2001 till the present he is a lecturer at Eiabc.
Architect dawit benti is the founder and moderator of Ethiopian Architecture and Urbanism, A facebook group in which people can discuss local architectural topics.but to be honest its not just a group for discussions its where people can find different files which you probably can't find online.
Its through this various discussions that we have found the answers to topics that we thought we'll never find the answers to. For example thanks to this Facebook group we now know the architect of Bedlu building is Henry Chomette. And various more topics like this.
Dawit didn't stop there he also founded and still moderates another facebook group called.African architecture and urbanism. Where there are various architects, architecture students and architecture enthusiasts from the african continent.
I've brought up this topic today because at the urban center Architect Dawit Benti led a great panel discussion tittled ''The Built World in Social Media."
In which he presented about how social media is having a very big impact on the built environment, to sum this up quickly we can clearly see how social media had an impact on the kidane beyene building.
I've summed that up so i can bring another topic that Dawit Benti brought up yesterday.
Architect Dawit Benti shared his philosophy on why Ethiopia Architecture isn't getting the respect it deserves or why the Architecture profession comes second to none when compared to other professions.
Dawit says one of the reason that Ethiopian architecture hasn't really grown is because we don't use our native language inside the profession.
Like how many of us know the the translation of Architect in Amharic?
So as long as we use english words in our profession, the broader people of Ethiopia won't really understand us.
So insted of saying architecture say แตแ-แ
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insted of saying i'm an architecture students say แจแตแ-แ
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Insted of saying i'm an Architect say แ
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So Dawit went on explaining or translating the profession's words like rendering, elevation, floorplan... and so on. He said he has a file on all the translated words to amharic.(i find it and i'll post it)
So as a conclusion i would like to say that its really great to see our Architects philosophizing because Architecture is Art + Science, and in this country we mostly focus on the art part.
We know the philosophies of other star architects like Bjarke ingles, zaha hadid, Daniel lebskind and more but we haven't really gotten the chance to hear from our own Architects. And i think its really nice they're taking a leap in that.
Imagine hearing Zeleke belay's Philosophy or Rahel shawl's or yoseph berdeden's and many more.
And on that note i would like to end todays post, i hope u've had a good read, and i promise to share our architects philosophy on future posts. And starting from now on i would like all of us to start referring to the amharic terms.
