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Wael Al-Masri Biography
Wael Al-Masri
Biography
Wael Al-Masri is Founder and Chief Architect of Wael Al-Masri Planners and Architects (WMPA) which he established in 2009. Before that he served as Partner and Chief Architect/Director of Urban Planning and Architectural Design for Dar Al-Omran, where he designed and managed several important projects in the Arab region since 1994. During that period he also served as senior architect for the Jordan Sustainable Tourism Development Project, with the Washington based company Chemonics International, involving the development of major archaeological sites in Jordan. He has been a lecturer of architecture and interior design at the Jordan University for Women (now Petra University) and the University of Applied Sciences in Amman. He served in 1991 as Campus Architect for the University of Southern Indiana, USA, and worked for the Kuwaiti Engineer’s Office (KEO) from 1984 to 1990, where he designed several culturally sensitive projects.
In 1993 Al-Masri received his Master of Science in Architecture Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, through the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. His thesis was titled, “Architecture and the Question of Identity: Issues of Self-Representation in Islamic Community Centers in America.” He received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Manchester, UK with distinction in design and dissertation. His design thesis involved the urban development of the historic center of Fatimid Cairo, while his dissertation is titled "The Arabic Courtyard House." He wrote several papers and delivered lectures, and his articles and work on traditional and contemporary architecture in the Arab region have been published in several regional magazines.
Al-Masri received several local, regional and international awards including the “Arab Architect Award” for his lifetime achievement in the development of contemporary architecture in the Arab world, from the Arab Towns Organization in its 9th Cycle in 2008, the “1984 RIBA Napper Urban Design Award,” and the “Haywood Prize” for The Architectural Student of the Year 1984 from the Manchester Institue of Architects. Moreover, “Madiant Al-Fahaheel” in Kuwait, for which Al-Masri was principal architect at Dar Al-Omran, has won several international, regional and local awards since the completion of its first phase in 2005. He is a chartered member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a member of Jordanian Engineers Association (JEA) and member in several of its committees, member of the Organization of Arab Architects (OAA), Kuwaiti Engineers Society, Jordanian Architects Society (JAS) and The Petra National Trust. He received the Certificate of Consultant Architect from JEA in 2015, served as President of the Fifth Architectural Jordanian International Conference held in Amman in 2016, and became President of Jordanian Architects Society in 2017.