This article uncovers several different and occasionally competing interpretations of Hassan Fathy's famous design of the village of New Gourna: a pilot project of the late 1940s for revitalising rural Egypt. Based on archival and field research, and a critical analysis of the reception of Fathy in different contexts, the article re-examines New Gourna from alternative points of view, with the goals of revisiting Fathy's vision and of uncovering the nuances of its response to culture and modernity. The alternative stories about New Gourna not only situate the model village within the socio-political circumstances of its locale, but also contemplate the rôle of this model community within broader discourses on nationalism, decolonisation, modernisation, modernism/anti-modernism and environmentalism. Through an interdisciplinary outlook that integrates historical and theoretical perspectives on modern architecture with critical perspectives on the cultural politics of modernisation, representation and post-coloniality, the article considers the rôle Fathy's project played (and still plays) in the formation of contemporary conceptions about local tradition and cultural identity, and about modernism, urbanism, technology or ecology.