Cairo since 1900: An Architectural Guide

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Cairo since 1900: An Architectural Guide

Mohamed El-Shahed


Revolutions are meant to be harsh ruptures with the immediate past 

 

For anyone trained then in the history of twentieth-century design, the Egyptian experience equated solely with attempts made by Hassan Fathy at reviving mud-brick construction. Recent extensive research in the archives of Hassan Bey has shown that his was a broader universe, one that is deeply rooted in the ethos of the Egyptian 1930s and could not be reduced in any case to vernacular masonry. by then, there was indeed a largely shared belief that modernism beyond Europe and the United States was primarily, if not  exclusively, the working of colonial agency and society. in other words, the input could not come but from the west. To some extent, this ideological prejudice still holds firm today in mainstream knowledge. 

 

Cairo is a city that inspires and troubles me 

 

For Cairenes, the sanctity of design is trumped by practical needs and changing tastes. The user of this guide will therefore need to put some effort into peeling away layers of dust and signage and to mentally reconstruct the original appearance of a building. 




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