By Ingy Higazy The interlacing, patterned motifs that adorn walls of smooth, dust ridden stone of a centuries-old structure –a mosque to be precise –stand adjacent to a small vintage shop as witnesses to the changes brought about by nothing but the progression of life itself. Motorcycles bypass this mosque, roaming around with the buzzing, sometimes irritating sound of their engines. Inhabitants attend to their daily tasks, walking back and forth on the relatively new stone blocks of ‘the restored street’, contributing to its engulfing vibrancy. This street is where a caliph and his entourage once passed through, surrounded by lavish decorations that lined the left and right sidewalks of what was once a newly erected street, in a newly founded city. Shari’ al-Moez Li Dīn Allah al-Fatimī, or shortly Shari’ al-Moez, was once the main street that extended the length of the then-newly-founded city of al-Qahira (Cairo). After approximately a millennium, the street still stands, with major architectural alterations that attest to the culmination of centuries of dynamic urban life in a bustling city that is Cairo. Urban expansion within Cairo has without doubt left its imprint on the…
An Omnipresent Past: Reflections on Urban Encroachment on Egypt’s Cultural Heritage
August 20, 2015
