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The Modernization of Cairo

   
               
               
               
   
20th Century
       
               
19 - Competing Neo Styles in the Early Twentieth Century
       
       
 
The Sabil-Kuttab at Bab al-Hadid: An overwrought little complex built ca. 1870 by the Italian architect Ciro Pantanelli.
     
Side view of the Sabil.
   
     
Dar al-Kutub: Built in 1904 by the Italian architect Alfonso Manescalo in a pure and well-studied neo-Mamluk style.
Main facade of the Dar al-Kutub.
   
     
Main facade of Dar al-Kutub before it was expanded to become the Islamic museum.
   
     
The Central Railway Station: A neo-classical facade articulated in a Mamluk style done by the British architect Edwin Patsy in 1893.
An early 20th. century view of the central railway station with the statue of Ramses II in front.
   
     
Awqaf Ministry Building: A clear neo-Mamluk building built in three stages in 1898, 1911, and 1929 by Mahmud Fahmi the chief architect of the waqfs ministry.
The arcades of heliopolis.Side facade of the Awqaf Ministry Building.
   
     
Bank Misr: A composition informed by several Mediterranean types, yet heavily "Islamicized" by different motifs from Andalusian (Moorish) to Mamluk, designed by the French architect Antoine Lasciac.
Main facade of the Bank
   
     
Muslim Youth Association Center: A deliberately "Islamicized" building done in 1935, which nonetheless shows some attempts at symmetry and simplicity, both considered modernizing aspects.
Main facade of the Center.
   
     
Egyptian Engineers Society: Another neo-Mamluk building built in 1930 by Mustafa Fahmi, chief architect for the royal palaces.
Main facade of the Egyptian Engineers Society building.
   
     
Assicurazioni Generali Trieste Apartment Building: A balanced composition of Mediterranean classical and Islamic styles built by Antoine Lasciac in 1910.
Main facade of the Apartment Building on the Qasr al-Nil Street.
   
     
The Coptic Museum: Completed in 1946 by M. Simaika Pasha, an Egyptian architect, it heavily copies the Fatimid style of al-Aqmar mosque, perhaps because of the affinity between the Fatimid and historical Coptic styles.
Main facade of the Museum.
   
     
Mausoleum of Sa`d Zaghlul: The mausoleum of the leader of the 1919 revolution against the British, this is the high point of neo-Pharaonic style, designed by Mustafa Fahmi in 1928 to express an Egyptian identity that unites the Muslims and Copts.
Side facade of the Mausoleum.
   
     
The Heliopolis Company Buildings at `Abbas Street: built between 1908 and 1910 by the French architect Ernest Jaspar as the commercial and civic center of the new garden-city planned and executed by the Belgian industrialist Baron Empain in this suburb of Cairo for a new, select working class.
The arcades of heliopolis.
   
     
The Palace of Baron Empain, Heliopolis: Built by the French architect Alexandre Marcel as an eclectic Hindu palace in an Islamic capital. (completed 1905)
Side facade of the Palace
   
     
 
     
   
 
               
   

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