February 2012
10 posts
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Ahram Gardens
Construction on Cairo’s forth metro line is due to begin. The line will begin from its western-most station at the beginning of 6th of October desert city at DreamLand (a gated compound) and head east. The second station will be at Ahram Gardens, a vast area that is larger than the entire city of Cairo around the year 1900. The area of Ahram Gardens when super-imposed on the center of...
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A financial citadel
A massive construction site along Salah Salem Road, just below the Citadel, has been sitting idle for a couple of years now. The construction competes with the Citadel in a battle over size and visibility. The stalled constrcution is the Cairo Financial Center, a project that aimed to create a financial and touristic hub where the stock market would be relocated from its downtown location. Major...
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Jadaliyya: Struggles that fueled a revolution
Bulaq: Among the Ruins of an Unfinished Revolution. Directed by Davide Morandini and Fabio Lucchini. UK/Italy/Egypt, 2011.
“Bread, freedom, and social justice” has been one of the most memorable chants from Egypt’s year of mass protests. Although world and Egyptian media have been fixated on the symbolic Tahrir Square, little attention has been directed towards places where many Egyptians ...
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Specific weights of architecture, the Cairo probe
By Ying Zhou
A little more than a year ago, twenty-six architecture students from the ETH Studio Basel landed at the Cairo International Airport. They were to begin their urban research sojourn. For most it was their first time in Egypt. For most it was also their first time doing urban research. They were armed with maps, readings, toolkits for understanding the architecture vocabulary of a...
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Heliopolis Palace (Hotel)
There is a lot of mystery surrounding the commission currently surveying presidential palaces. Every few weeks news emerges of priceless finds including historical objects dating to Egypt’s last dynasty or earlier in addition to precious stones, and “rare paintings.” It is unclear why the ruling military council took such swift steps to survey the palaces and their contents...
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Al-Hakim: a place to idle
One of Cairo’s most hospitable places is the al-Hakim mosque located at the northern end of al-Muizz Street. Here is a short description of the building from Archnet:
This mosque, also known as al-Anwar, ‘the illuminated’, was begun in 990 under the Caliph al-‘Aziz but was not completed until 12 years later under the Caliph al-Hakim. At the time of its construction...
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Transport: Operating Territories
By Tiffany Wey
Cairo’s infamous traffic is popularly expressed as a mirror of Egyptian society—reflected by the seemingly deviant lifestyles of microbus drivers, corruption of traffic police, and the frustrated immobility of passengers who rely on public transportation. If traffic is a physical manifestation of urban systems in conflict, what does Cairo’s traffic indicate about the state of its...
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The Contested Road to Khufu
Why the proposed new road wouldn’t solve any of the problems it claims to
By Meredith Hutchison and Nicholas Hamilton
One element of the Cairo 2050 document is the creation of a wide boulevard from the Sphinx square to the area of the Giza Pyramids. The project proposes the extension of the Arab League Road by 6 km and a 540 m wide roadway and redevelopment zone which would...
January 2012
17 posts
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‘To Revive Authenticity’ on Sharia al-Muizz
By Frederick Deknatel
The Sabil-Kuttab of ‘Abd al-Rahman Katkhuda is at the fork on Sharia al-Muizz just north of the monumental Mamluk funerary complexes of Qalawun and Barquq. It was built four centuries after those landmarks, in 1744, by an amir “noted for his high style of living and his liberal patronage of the arts,” in the words Caroline Williams, Cairo’s longtime architectural...
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Destruction Alert: Ibn Tulun Aqueduct in Basateen
By Yahia Shawkat
The Ibn Tulun Aqueduct is a rare public works structure that dates back 1100 years to the Tulunid Empire. The mudbrick and stone structure that uses to run south-north for about 4km from a desrt spring to the Tulunid settlement has largely been demolished as Cairo has expanded over the last century.
What has survived till the recent incident has been parts of the southern-most...
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An Ottoman Sabil with Dutch Tiles in Cairo
On January 17 the Sabil-Kuttab of the Ottoman Sultan Mustafa III was inagurated after extensive architectural conservation. The 18th century building was part of a network of charitable fountains where the public can access clear drinking water free of charge. This particular sabil is unique because its interior is decorated with nearly 2000 blue Dutch tiles showing scenes of Dutch countryside....
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Alexandria: Villa Aghion by the Perret brothers
The destruction of Egypt’s modern architectural heritage is widespread in cities across the country. In previous posts (#destruction) various reasons for this have been mentioned and they range from legal and inheritance issues but the state is mostly to blame for failing to provide a legal framework that protects this heritage without undermining the economic interests of the property...
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modern urban vernacular
Building on an earlier post, here are some more reflections on this often overlooked building typology which represents one of Cairo’s modern vernaculars (late 19th-20th centuries).
The brick buildings pictured above are not located in an “informal” area or on the outskirts of the city or along the ring road. These are in the center of Cairo in the district of Abdeen, a 19th...
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Lessons from elsewhere: Dutch cycling
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Postcard #7a
Cairo2150 plan proposes to move all of Cairo’s residents to an undisclosed location. The plan also proposes redirecting the Nile + consolidating islands to create a one to one replica of Manhattan island. The island will be home to the world’s largest air-conditioned golf course and exclusive gated malls and homes only accessible to visitors from the Persian Gulf and their friends....
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WatchBulaq - Among the ruins of an unfinished revolution. On 25th January thousands of Egyptians gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, sparking what we call now the Egyptian Revolution. Only a few hundred meters far from the world-famous square, the people from popular neighborhood Bulaq joined protesters, finding in demonstrations something more than a glimmer of hope. Through their voices, ‘Bulaq’ ...
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Destruction Alert: Villas in Heliopolis and more
Egypt’s modern architectural and urban heritage, arguably the country’s most relevant to contemporary history and most prolific, has been under attack for over five decades. Throughout the country thousands of historic apartment buildings, villas, public buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries have been destroyed since the 1970s. The official government apparatus has failed...
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WatchMaydoum [short film, 2010, 12 minutes] When he hears his cousin is to sell their grandmother’s land, Sharif gets on the first plane to Cairo. On arrival, he finds himself faced with old arguments and new decisions in a changing country.
Related to previous post on Bread and Urbanism
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Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo ends...
After two years of renovation work, this weekend the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo celebrates the completion of work on the upgraded facilities. The Institute was founded in 1971 as a hub for cultural exchange as well as teaching and research particularly in the fields of Arabic & Islamic studies, Egyptology, Archaeology and Papyrology, among others. Part of Leiden University, the...
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Urban planner David Sims explodes myths on Cairo’s...
Note: This article first appeared in Al Masry Al Youm on 12 January, 2012.
By John Harris
What springs to mind when you think of Cairo? The gentility of Zamalek? The bustle of downtown? The mercantile rush of Mohandiseen? The laid-back charm of Cairo’s original suburbs, Maadi and Heliopolis?
If so, at least in terms of where people actually live, you’re missing out on the real Cairo....
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Environmental Voices: Of biohazards, 1100 year old...
Note: This article first appeared in Al Masry Al Youm 28 November, 2010.
By Yahia Shawkat
Cars fly through a street called Al Mantiqa al Sinaaeya (Th Industrial Zone) as though the surrounding decay might catch up with them. For a length of about 150m, a continuous mound of demolition debris, blocks of broken stone and organic household waste, up to three meters high, fill the road,...
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All Saints Cathedral
Today’s All Saints Episcopalian Cathedral is a modernist-inspired concrete shell structure located in Zamalek behind the Marriott Hotel. However, the church predates this current building, which was erected in 1988 and designed by Egyptian architects Awad Kamel and Selim Kamel. The current building was constructed by The Nile General Co. For Reinforced Concrete.
The Church in Egypt...
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An architectural oddity?
A rather small building on a quiet street in the southern part of Roda Island has a lot to say. This, neither mosque nor apartment building, or both, is not a haphazard construction or the result of two conflicting interests, to build a mosque vs. to build homes, rather it is an “architected” designed hybrid building that combines the sacred and the profane. Or does it?
At first...
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Bread and Urbanism
العيش و العشوائيات: العلاقة بين رغيف العيش و النمو العمراني في المدن المصرية
Egypt, once the breadbasket of the Mediterranean, is the world’s biggest importer of wheat and grains. Egyptians are the world’s biggest consumers of bread per capita. Over the years Egypt’s dependency on imported wheat has steadily increased with no sign of reversal.
Egypt’s population ,...
December 2011
19 posts
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Zamalek Waterfront
A long stretch of waterfront in central Cairo is paved, clean, and planted with some shrubs and palm trees, overlooking the skyline on the eastern shore of Cairo, but it is empty of humans. The unused stretch of waterfront is about one kilometer long and begins about 150 meters north of the Qasr el Nil Bridge in Zamalek up to the Marriott Hotel (just before the 26th July Street).
The first 150...
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A new beginning for Egyptian tourism(?)
Note: This op-ed first appeared in Al Masry Al Youm on June 1, 2011.
In the recent flurry of reports about Egypt’s impending economic challenges, many have highlighted the damage done to the tourism sector in the wake of the 25 January revolution. The number of tourists who’ve come to Egypt in the first quarter of this fiscal year is down 46 percent from last year. Despite this significant...
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Book: Remaking the Modern
Farha Ghannam. Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation and the Politics of Identity in a Global Cairo. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
Reviewed by Amy Mills (Department of Geography, University of Texas at Austin) Published on H-Gender-MidEast (June, 2003)
Building the Urban Landscape with the Gendered Spatial Practices of Everyday Life
This rich ethnography examines the forces...
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New Construction: St. Regis
Actually this construction isn’t so new, it has been slowly trying to make its way out of the ground for a few years now and it will be another few years before it is complete. The 6 billion+ Egyptian pound investment by Qatari Diar is expected to be finished in 2014, however it may take longer with 2016 as a more realistic completion date. The St. Regis project consists of two towers...
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What's going on with heritage management?
Excerpt from Al-Ahram Weekly:
Netherlands/Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) and the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) convened a one-day Heritage Management Workshop on 22 November to review the current situation in Egypt and discuss a way forward. In her opening address Kim Duistermaat, director of the Netherlands Institute, which hosted the event, said: “Archaeology is no ...
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Resurrecting Boulac Bridge
One of Cairo’s iconic bridges, Boulac Bridge, is pictured here in 1961 during the 9th anniversary of the 1952 Coup/”revolution.” The bridge was located at the extension of Boulac Street, later renamed Foad Street and currently holding the name 26th of July Street (which begins at Azbakiyya Garden bending at the High Court and on to the bridge which crossed the Nile from Boulac...
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Al Masry Al Youm Blog: Walls go up
By Sarah Carr
There are now not one, but four walls in downtown Cairo. Huge cubes of round-edged cement are clumsily stacked on top of each other, as if by a child. Hours after its construction, the Qasr al-Aini wall was almost completely covered in graffiti on the protesters’ side. Tens of silhouetted army soldiers stood sentry behind the cubes, visible through the gaps between them....
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Urbanizing the Counter-Revolution
Excerpt from an article on Jadaliyya.com
The Tools of Occupation
The events of the past eleven months have put into focus the notion of the “postcolonial.” During the past decade it was becoming increasingly clear that postcolonial regimes only serve private interests, the interests of multinational corporations and the strategic interests of superpowers, not the people they rule. Recent...
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Destruction Alert: Institut d'Egypte burned
UPDATE December 19, 2011: Unfortunately the very same forces that have kept Egypt in the dark about its cultural resources, its libraries and heritage have been abusing the devastating burning of the Institut d’Egypte on government and some private media outlets to guilt Egyptians for the loss of heritage. Similar tactics were used in the early days of the January 25 uprising when the...
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Khaled Fahmy on Cairo2050
مأساة مشروع القاهرة 2050
أخبار الأدب –18 ديسمبر 2011
منذ حوالي عشر سنوات انتشر الاهتمام بتاريخ منطقة وسط البلد بالقاهرة في أوساط النخبة الثقافية، فعقدت ندوات كثيرة ونشرت كتب عديدة تتناولت ما يسمى بـ”القاهرة الخديوية”، كما أفردت هذه المجلة الغراء ملفا كاملا عن الموضوع. وكأحد الدارسين لتاريخ القاهرة في القرن التاسع عشر سعدت كثيرا بهذا الاهتمام، ولكن أزعجني في نفس الوقت التأكيد...
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Qursaya Island
To most Egyptians, the sight of members of the army in confrontation with civilians is rather unusual (until recent events). However, residents of Qorsaya Island had their encounter with the army back in 2007 when it was used by the government to protect bulldozers and intimidate residents of the island. The government wanted to forcibly evict the rural community inhabiting the island in order...
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Modernist building damaged
Amid the recent clashes near Tahrir Square between protesters and security forces, an iconic building designed by Egyptian architect Ali Labib Gabr was damaged. Fire broke out on the third floor during the fighting and eye witnesses claim it was caused by a tear gas canister which landed in the apartment. Regardless of the exact cause of fire, the entire apartment was burned with black marks...
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Paris was never along the Nile
Warning: I’m about to throw a brick at the glass house where a lot of people live.
The expression “Paris along the Nile” is popular among nostalgists and Orientalists alike. It has gained currency among a growing bourgeoisie who view contemporary Cairo with discontent and find a fragment of its imagined past to be a redeeming escape only because it maybe referenced via Paris, the “capital of...
Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design
The MSc Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design aims to train a new generation of experts and decision-makers to face the tremendous environmental, cultural and social challenges resulting from the rapid urbanisation and ongoing societal transformation currently taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. In studying IUSD students acquire skills to develop integrated,...
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Lessons from elsewhere: Frankfurt Waterfront
The Nile River goes right through Cairo. Yet for pedestrians there are few opportunities to experience the river up close. At present the river can be experienced by riding boats or crossing the city’s bridges, particularly Qasr el Nil Bridge. The sidewalks along the river are higher up from the water where pedestrians are much closer to buzzing traffic than the river. In addition views of...
Tahrir Square on 360Cities (click image)
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Architectural History Matters: Sultan Hassan +...
At first glance the two mosques pictured above appear to belong to the same historical era. The Sultan Hassan Mosque (left) and al-Rifa`i Mosque (right) are two of Cairo’s most important monuments and they stand at one of Cairo’s most important and oldest squares at the foot of the Citadel. The two buildings compliment each other in proportion, material, orientation and although they...
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November 2011
20 posts
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The Road to New Cairo
Tahrir Square is the epicenter of the Egyptian uprising and the inspiration for the global occupy movement. From here, at the gate of the American University’s downtown campus, busses depart on a regular schedule towards the new campus some forty kilometers away. From downtown Cairo, the historic nineteenth century center, the journey east to New Cairo takes about one hour without traffic....
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Lessons from elsewhere: Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis,...
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth: an Urban History – Film Trailer from the Pruitt-Igoe Myth on Vimeo.
Completed in 1954, the 33 11-story buildings of Pruitt-Igoe were billed as the solution to the overcrowding and deterioration that plagued inner city St. Louis. Twenty years later, the buildings were leveled, declared unfit for habitation.
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postcard #6
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Resident Perspective: Maadi
Resident Perspective are a series of standardized interviews with Cairo residents to get their views on the city and their neighborhoods.
CO: Where do you live?
Hany: Maadi
CO: Describe your neighborhood in three sentences or less:
Hany: Quiet and pleasant neighborhood with lots of greenery, beautiful modern buildings and villas and plenty of squares.
CO: How did you end up living...