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A
medal commemorating the Napoleonic Expedition to Egypt dated 1798.
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Cover
Page of the L'Architecture Arabe ou Monuments du Caire mesures
et dessines de 1818 a 1826. |
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Musafirkhana
Palace (1779-1888):
The guest house of
Muhammad `Ali and his immediate descendants, this palace is a grander
version of the Suheimi house and the last specimen of a tradition
of princely houses that have lasted from the Ayyubid period until
the early 19th century. |
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View
of the courtyard with the main qa'a in the background. |
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Interior
view of the main qa'a from the durqa'a towards the right side iwan. |
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The
main qa'a of the palace after it burned down in late 1998. |
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Sabil-Kuttab
of Tusun Pasha (1820):
A heavily decorated round-fronted sabil with two kuttab rooms on either
side. It was built in memory of Tusun Pasha, Muhammad `Ali's oldest
son who died in 1816. |
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General
view of the Sabil-Kuttab. |
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The
Bijou Palace (1824) and the Palaces of the Harem (1826):
Built as royal residences and offices at the Citadel, they follow
the familiar theme of Ottoman palace organization, which divides the
structure into a salamlik (men's quarters) and a haramlik (women's
quarter). Their surface articulation, heavily copied from European
Baroque, is a testimonial to the strength of European styles in influencing
the taste of the Pasha of Egypt and his whole court. |
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General
view of the Harem Palaces and other sturctures built by Muhammad 'Ali
in the Northern Enclosure of the Citadel. |
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The
Mosque of Muhammad `Ali, Cairo Citadel:
Begun in 1830 and
not finished until after the death of Muhammad 'Ali in 1848, it stands
at the highest point of the Citadel and is visible from almost every
location in Cairo. The mosque, which is a pure central-domed plan,
has two slender pencil minarets that soar to a height of 82 m. The
interior is articulated in a neo-baroque style that contrasts sharply
in its profusion and eclecticism with the structural straightforwardness
of the mosque. The mosque is a rhetorical composition designed to
emulate the early style of royal Ottoman mosques of Istanbul. |
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General
view of the Mosque on top of the Citadel of Cairo. |
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Side
facade of the Mosque showing the central and side domes. |
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The
ablution fountain in the center of the courtyard and the clock tower
of Napoleon III in the background. |
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Interior
view of the Mosque's domes with their Baroque decorative patterns. |
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The
Mosque of Suleiman Agha al-Silahdar (1837-39):
Built by this trusted
lieutenant of Muhammad 'Ali on the main street of Cairo, this elegant
mosque displays the same mixture of Baroque Ottoman and local Cairene
styles as the mosque of the Pasha at the Citadel. |
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The
courtyard of the Mosque. |
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The
Baroque inspired capital of one of the three types of columns used
in the mosque. |
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The
French Expedition (1789-1801):
An imperial enterprise led by Napoleon Bonaparte, it ushered the age
of Westernization and modernization in Egypt. Along with the army,
Napoleon recruited scholars and engineers who systematically collected,
classified, and represented all available material on the history,
geography, and culture of the country. Their work, which formed the
basis of the modern knowledge on Egypt, was published as the Description
de l'Egypte (1809-28) in nine volumes of text and fourteen grand volumes
of illustrations. |
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Muhammad
`Ali Pasha:
Semi-independent ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848, he established
a dynasty that lasted until 1952. Muhammad 'Ali started the transformation
of Egypt into a modern state that challenged the Ottoman empire and
threatened the European powers' designs for the Middle East. His descendants,
later called the Khedives, were not as farsighted as he was and they
eventually lost even Egypt's independence, which became a British
colony in 1882. |
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Pascal
Coste:
French architect who, between 1817 and 1827, worked for Muhammad `Ali
first as the designer and supervisor of large engineering projects
and later as an architect of palaces and commemorative structures.
His book, L'Architecture Arabe ou Monuments du Caire mesures et dessines
de 1818 a 1826 (1837), offered the first visually comprehensive and
typologically codified analysis of important Islamic monuments in
Cairo. |
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