CAIRO, EGYPT

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 gardens in the Second
Empire’s manner. Public parks and promenades, designed by landscape architects with
Parisian experience, as well as a vast spa were built south of the city. The result was far
from resembling Paris, but an enduring pattern was set among the local elite: the
importing of the latest fashions from influential European capitals. Attracted by a
growing market, architects, engineers, and contractors of European origin (mainly
Italians, but also French, Germans, Austrians, and Armenians) began settling in Cairo,
where they more or less reproduced the architecture of their native countries,
occasionally using Moorish and later Mamluk motifs to add some sort of “local” touch to
their constructions.
Both the eagerness of affluent patrons for innovations from abroad and the hegemony
of French and Italian aesthetics continued all through the British occupation (from 1882
to 1922). Building in reinforced concrete started in 1894 and developed quickly. An early
example is the Club des Princes (1899), a private theater designed by the prolific Antonio
Lasciac, the favorite architect of the Khedivial family from 1895 to the late 1920s and
author of a number of princely Italianate palaces still visible today—most of them now
adapted to other uses, such as the administration offices of ‘Ayn Shams University (1902,
restored in 1997), featuring impressive metalwork and a large stained-glass opening in
the Liberty style. Art Nouveau was actually short lived, as elsewhere, but flourished as
well in its French and Belgian versions, while also producing some Secessionist
buildings, among them the Shaarei Hashamaim Synagogue (1907) by Eduard Matasek.
Paradoxically, the British influence appears to have been rather incidental. In residential
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architecture, it manifested mainly through some blocks of flats of red brick and Normaninspired
details, such as the St. David’s building (1912), by Robert Williams, or the
cottage architecture of the garden suburb of Ma’âdî (created in 1905).
Italianate villas and Parisian-styled apartment buildings constituted by far the
dominant and lasting model. Department stores were of an unmistakable French
inspiration, be it the luxuriant Orosdi-Back Store (1909) by Raoul Brandon, the Sednaoui
Store (1913) by Georges Parcq (with fine iron skeleton), or the Tiring premises (1914) by
Oskar Horowitz. The major public building of the period, and the first in Cairo for which
an international competition was organized, the Museum of Antiquities (1902), typically
featured a Beaux-Arts design by Marcel Dourgnon.
Yet the most spectacular development of the early decades of the 20th century was the
building, starting in 1907, of the new town of Heliopolis in the eastern desert, 10
kilometers away from the city’s center—and today included in Cairo’s boundaries as one
of its most fashionable residential districts. Initially a speculative development on a large
scale imagined by the Belgian magnate Baron Edouard Empain, the enterprise turned to
erecting a sustainable town, with its own facilities, transportation system, and services,
generous public and open spaces, and varied types of housing intended to accommodate a
large public, from working to upper-middle class. Due to the strict building regulations
and standards of construction imposed by Empain and his architects (among them Ernest
Jaspar and Alexandre Marcel), an architectural ensemble of remarkable homogeneity was
achieved, although a variety of stylistic idioms were used: Moorish and Mamluk Revival,
J aponisme, Indian style, French and Italian Renaissance, and Romanesque.
The prosperous 1920s and 1930s were dominated by an exuberant Art
Deco manner, characterized by the extensive use of ornate stuccowork and
elaborate metalwork. One of its best exponents was the firm constituted by
Léon Azéma, Max Edrei, and Jacques Hardy. Founded in 1921 by
classmates at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the firm opened an office
in Cairo after winning the competition for the Mixed Tribunals in 1924
and was extremely active until the completion of the project in 1929:
Among the numerous villas and blocks of flats that it designed in Cairo,
the Nahas villa (1927) and the highly decorated Rabbath Block (1927)
deserve mention. Later examples of French modernism include the elegant
work of Georges Parcq and Auguste Perret and, more largely, numerous
apartment blocks by local architects educated in Paris and strongly
influenced by Michel Roux-Spitz’s or Pol Abraham’s “modern
classicism,” such as Antoine Selim Nahas, Raymond Antonious, and
Charles Ayrout. In contrast, grand public schemes, such as Cairo
University’s campus (1937) by Eric George Newmun and the Qasr al-
’Aynî hospital (1937) by Charles Nicholas and John Edward Dixon-Spain,
were more in line with the British academic classicism.

Cultural Park for Children (1992),
Cairo, designed by Abdelhalim
I.Abdelhalim
Another significant aspect of the interwar period was the emergence, due to the
Egyptianization policies adopted after independence in 1922, of the first generation of
indigenous professionals. Its initial major concern was the search for a genuine modern
“national style,” combining a contemporary language and references to the country’s
prestigious architectural heritage. Of note, in this respect, are Mustafa Fahmy’s
interesting attempts to synthesize the Pharaonic and Islamic legacies into modern designs,
through using massive volumetry—the actual Museum of Modern Art (1936)—
eventually mixed with Art Deco stylizations of the Mamluk repertoire—the Dâr al-
Hikma (Doctors’ Syndicate offices) (1941). In an expanding metropolis that had already
reached 2 million inhabitants by 1937, the following generation, to which belonged
Hasan Fathy as well as active and prominent figures such as Ali Labib Gabr and Mahmud
Ryad, was more involved in planning and housing issues. Responsible for the layout of
the new residential quarters created in 1948 on the left bank of the Nile (Muhandisin),
Ryad also elaborated prototypes of low-density economic housing that were used in three
major schemes of the postwar period: the garden suburbs of Madinat al-Tahrîr, Helmiyya
al-Zaytûn, and Helwân, totaling 4,000 units completed in 1954. They were succeeded by
radical advocates of the International Style. A leading figure was Sayyid Karim, author of
several early high-rise buildings and, more important, the founder in 1939 of al-’ Imâra
(Architecture), the first architectural magazine in Arabic, which endeavored to
disseminate the latest developments of the international scene into the Middle East. To
the same generation belong Mustafa Shawqi and Salah Zeitun, both educated in the
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United States and claiming influence from Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture;
Cairo International Airport (1961) is among the many projects they designed as partners.
By the late 1950s, few European architects were still practicing in Cairo, and a major
shift of the prevailing architectural references was occurring: Americanism was taking
command.
Whereas Fathy’s and his disciples’ internationally-known researches based on
vernacular models have left almost no mark on Cairo’s landscape and physical
environment, conventional international architecture of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s did
have, in the form of taller and taller apartment towers and hotel blocks, unimaginative
shopping malls, ugly multistoried parking buildings, and cheap public housing schemes.
Quality design and fine execution, as found in the World Trade Center (1988) and
Conrad International Cairo (1999) by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s London office
with Ali Nour El Din Nassar, remain rather exceptional. There are still very few
redevelopment schemes dialoging with the surrounding fabric—as in the case of the
Cultural Park for Children by Abdelhalim I.Abdelhalim (1992)—or seeking to integrate
the preexisting architecture (e.g., the cultural ensemble formed by the new Opera
designed by Nikken Sekkei Planners [1987] and reused former fair pavilions). With
globalization entering the scene, approaches to architecture greatly diversified during the
1990s, ranging from the interpretation of tradition pursued by Abdelhalim Ibrahim
Abdelhalim, to the deconstructionist collision of old and new praised by Ahmed Mito,
author of the neo-Pharaonic new Supreme Court building (2000), whereas countless
exclusive compounds, drawing on the American model of the service city and displaying
“Spanish-style” villas with swimming pool and garden, are being built on the desertic
outskirts of the congested metropolis at tremendous rate. Cairo is definitely entering the
21st century with a fast-changing morphology.

BUS TERMINAL

The coming of the automobile resulted in new building types that met the needs of
motorized America, such as the filling station and motor lodge. In the early 20th century,
the arrival of bus travel also initiated the construction of a new building type, the bus
terminal. Although the architectural style of bus terminals has changed dramatically since
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their development in the early 1930s, their function and general program has remained
relatively unaltered.
Early bus terminals typically included features found in rail stations, such as waiting
areas and ticket offices; however, some architects viewed bus terminals as mysterious
new building types that required analysis and evaluation. In the 1930s, seemingly
rudimentary suggestions about bus terminal design were available from magazines such
as The Architectural Record and The Architectural Forum.
Unlike rail stations, however, early bus terminals also required a loading
balcony or platform to reach the rooftop luggage racks. By the late 1930s,
buses had luggage compartments below the cabin floor, thus removing the
need for loading balconies. Nonetheless, bus stations had to incorporate
properly designed platforms that could accommodate several arriving and
departing buses per day. As a result, the creation of a functional bus
platform was a key concern for many architects. Contemporary
professional magazines such as The A rchitectural F orum illustrated different types of bus
platforms for uncertain architects.

Greyhound bus station, in the
streamlined art moderne style, Louisville,
Kentucky (1938)
These early-20th-century platform
designs, such as the island- and-wheel types, continue to be used with contemporary bus terminals.
Architects of early-20th-century bus terminals employed a style that was consciously
different from rail stations. During this period, some architects believed that bus travel
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could assert its viability through a standardized architectural presence with value as an
advertising medium. The desire for stylistic uniformity resulted in the use of an art
moderne or “streamlined” style, a manner influenced by contemporary industrial designs.
From 1930 to 1950, most American bus stations employed the common elements of art
moderne (or Deco), such as curved corners, semicircular window bays, and smooth
surfaces. Like trains and automobiles, streamlined bus stations also used aerodynamic
movement and efficient, modern services: a new dynamic building for a new dynamic
form of travel. The New York Terminal for the Greyhound Lines (1935) is an excellent
example of this newly developed building type and correlative imagery. Designed by
Thomas W.Lamb, its curved walls, wraparound facade, rounded windows, and sleek
materials epitomized bus terminal architecture in the early and mid-20th century.
Despite the bus terminal’s clean, modern style, delays due to traffic and road
conditions compromised its efficiency, and poor maintenance and clumsy designs
undermined its appeal. Soon, bus stations were considered dark, dank, and inefficient
shelters that catered to passengers “who are automatically marked down as second class
citizens” (Dawson, 2000). In the second half of the 20th century, bus terminals lost their
streamlined style but retained their dreary quality.
During the mid-20th century, attempts were made to transform the bus terminal’s
image from an uninviting and dangerous place to a modern and safe transit center. As a
result, many bus terminals began incorporating expansive bus platform canopies that
sheltered open, well-lit, and safe spaces. These elaborate canopies, which were normally
supported by daring and intricate truss designs, achieved a sculptural quality and were
sometimes the principal means of architectural expression. For example, New York
City’s George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal (1962), designed by Pier Luigi Nervi,
was an early bus terminal to implement a dramatic and expressive trussed roof.
Unfortunately, the waiting areas did not receive the same type of innovative architectural
treatment.
Despite new canopy designs, bus terminals continued to be considered inhospitable
and troublesome buildings. During the last two decades of the 20th century, however,
several efforts were made to infuse a sense of safety and modernity to a formerly
lackluster building type. Again, one of the hallmarks of contemporary bus terminals is a
light and expressive canopy that is supported by an extravagant truss system.
Nevertheless, current terminals are also characterized by waiting areas that are simpler
and rely on an extensive use of glass. A recent example is the bus terminal for the North
Greenwich Interchange (1997). Designed by Foster and Partners, the dominant feature is
a sweeping birdlike canopy supported by a forest of metal, treelike members. The
dramatic roof slopes to enclose a waiting area that the architects emphasized as an
uncluttered and “safe, user-friendly environment” (Baillieu, 1998).
Terminals that need to fit within an existing urban fabric sometimes become part of
mixed-use facility. These types of terminals typically resemble a commercial building
more than a high-volume transit center. The Laredo Transit Center (1999) in Laredo,
Texas, is a contemporary example of a mixed-use facility that had to conform to the
city’s urbanism and face a historic town square. Here, the Laredo Transit Center’s
unassuming facade hides a bus station (which serves local and longdistance passengers),
a parking garage, and 16,000 square feet of rentable office space.
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Mixed-use bus terminals have been built in urban centers around the world since the
1930s. Similarly, although the architectural style of bus terminals has changed since the
early 20th century, the needs and functions have remained the same. Nonetheless, with a
renewed dedication to constructing efficient and safe bus terminals, many cities will
continue to witness this venerable building type.