About the Achitectural Heriatge of Cairo
Background
During the period between 1860 and 1940, Downtown Cairo witnessed a major building boom that gave birth to a unique architecture combining European styles with local influences and materials. The architectural product of that era will never be equalled. Post-1940 architecture unfortunately lost any sense of uniqueness as the international style predominated the architectural scene.
Purpose
The purpose of this project is to document this endangered architectural heritage in an unprecedented digital approach that crowns the attempts of a few dispersed scholars who have documented one aspect or another of Cairo's architecture. Based on a Geographic Information System, it enables the user to browse the database viewing and printing helpful information and locating historic buildings on a map of Cairo. The system also relies on visual documentation, simulation and multimedia.
Contribution
In the wealth of studies about Cairo, only a few have documented one aspect or another of Cairo’s architectural heritage and nineteenth and twentieth century history. Some researchers have documented the history of certain neighbourhoods that have a special character, like Maadi, Heliopolis and Garden City, while those who examined the Downtown area mostly focused on nineteenth and twentieth century developments.
Despite their usefulness, such efforts lack continuity. Only one offered a thorough systematic documentation of individual buildings and certainly none is in digital format. Moreover, these publications are not easy to browse and do not facilitate the task for researchers.
Purpose
The purpose of this project is to document the architectural heritage of the Downtown area of Cairo in an unprecedented digital approach that crowns the attempts of a few dispersed scholars who have documented one aspect or another of Cairo’s architecture. Our approach uses a Geographic Information System (GIS) that enables the user to browse the database, to view helpful information and at the same time, to locate historic buildings on a map of Cairo. The system also enables the printing of reports containing the data.
Objectives
The objectives of this project are:
o To conduct a systematic survey for all historic buildings
o To compile a database of all buildings
o To gather all possible information on each building
o To photograph each building in its actual condition
o To provide old photos and architectural drawings for each building (when
possible)
o To provide guidelines for the restoration of a (or some) selected building
o To provide guidelines for the redevelopment of a (or some) selected
block
o To provide a simulated tour showing the before and after restoration
condition
