Though best known for its splendid World-Heritage-listed historic monuments, its inhabited Cities of the Dead (cemeteries), or its contemporary informal peripheries, Cairo is also a city that has experienced almost all international trends of modernism (in a broad sense) across the entire 20th century. The phenomenon can be traced back to the 1870s when an ambitious ruler, Khedive Ismâ’îl (r. 1863–79), known for his passion for architecture and his will to prove that his country was European rather than African, decided to transform the Egyptian capital according to the model of Paris. Within less than a decade, new quarters (the actual city’s center) were created at the edge of the historical core; streets were cut through the old fabric, and building types alien to the local context were introduced, starting with a Palace Hotel (1869) by Christopher G.Wray, an Opera (1869) inspired by La Scala in Milan, apartment buildings with commercial arcades, and town houses surrounded by garden...