I have received the following short bio of Nasri Khattar from his daughter and I thought it would be great to share it. I have always admired his work and am very happy to contribute to his memory.
NASRI KHATTAR
Architect, Type Designer, Inventor, Painter, Sculptor, Poet
1911 - 1998
Nasri Khattar, architect, practiced his profession for thirty-five years in the United States; in Colombia, South America; and in his country of origin, Lebanon, where he pursued his early education at the American University of Beirut (AUB) with a B.B.A. awarded in 1930. In 1940, he earned an M.A. in Architecture from Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 1939, he was associated with Frank Lloyd Wrightís Fellowship in Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin; and in Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
A dual American-Lebanese national, Mr. Khattar was an Arabic consultant to IBM in the fifties, and architect, Arabic calligrapher, and Arabist to Arab-American Oil Company (Aramco) in New York City, 1950-1957. During this time, he made innumerable calligraphic works for both Aramco and the Arabs. He received a Ford Foundation grant for the years 1958-1961, to promote his ìUnified Arabic, UAî( system. Unified Arabic is Mr. Khattarís Arabic type system that simplifies the printing and teaching of Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and other languages utilizing the Arabic alphabet.
As he continued to work on his Unified Arabic, Mr. Khattar designed new Arabic typefaces, practiced architecture, and lectured at the American University of Beirut. His topics were Frank Lloyd Wrightís architectural achievements and principles of design, and his own work on the writing and design of Arabic type. Impressed by Mr. Khattarís versatility, Martin Giesen of AUBís Architectural Department, called him, ìthe Renaissance Man,î for being architect, calligrapher and type designer, painter and caricaturist, poet, and inventor (30-40 patents and copyrights). ìItís been a long time since Iíve seen such perfection,î wrote Mr. Giesen in 1977.
In 1986, Reverend Dennis Hilgendorg and Dr. Ben Wood, Director of Educational Research at Columbia University, nominated Mr. Khattar for the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifeís visionary achievements and their vast implications for the fields of linguistics, literacy, printing, computers, and telecommunications.
Mr. Khattar is survived by his spouse, Jacqueline Hedrick Khattar, and by his twin daughters, Alexandra Khattar and Camille Khattar Hedrick. His son, Christopher Khattar, passed away in 1992 after a long illness.
www.unifiedarabicalphabet.com
My warmest thanks to you, Nadine, for sharing my father’s work on your blog. It has been a pleasure to follow your work, especially when I first read about it in “Main Gate,” the alumni magazine of the American University of Beirut. I’m sure that my father would have liked to have known you, and that you would have discussed Arabic type design for hours!
One of his last wishes was to have his own Web site, and you are thus fulfilling this wish. Thank you for showing here his very earliest design patented in 1947 or thereabouts, which was definitely a revolution at the time. Over the years his thinking evolved, and he developed connected cursive designs such as the Unified Arabic (UA) Neo-Kufic and UA Classiky. Yet each style comprises only 28 characters, based on his original, ground-breaking design for Unified Arabic. - Camille Khattar Hedrick, daughter of Nasri Khattar.
Left by Camille Khattar Hedrick on February 7th, 2007