Architecture of Egypt

During the Mamluk period (13th–16th centuries), a wealth of monumental religious and funerary complexes were built, constituting much of Cairo's medieval heritage today.

Under the reign of his grandson Isma'il Pasha (1860s and 1870s), reform efforts were pushed further, the Suez Canal was constructed (inaugurated in 1869), and a new Haussmann-influenced expansion of Cairo began.

[3][4][5][6] Monumental temples and tombs, built in stone and typically on terrain beyond the reach of the annual Nile floods, are the main structures to have survived to the present day.

[11] Monumental complexes were usually fronted by massive pylons, approached via processional avenues (also known as a dromos) flanked by sphinx statues, and contained courtyards and hypostyle halls.

[15] Domestic architecture was typically built with mudbrick, wood, and reed mats, and the main towns were situated on the agriculturally rich floodplains of the Nile.

[7][8] Some idea of their form is known thanks to three-dimensional models that were left in tombs, which suggest that they resembled vernacular building types still found in the Nile valley and other parts of Africa today.

[12] Much of the period's funerary architecture has not survived,[7] though some of Alexandria's underground catacombs, shared by the city's inhabitants to bury their dead, have been preserved.

The continuity between earlier classical and later Coptic architecture can also be seen in the remains of major urban centres such as Hermopolis Magna, where the same craftsmanship appears in both pagan and Christian buildings from the 3rd or 4th centuries.

[24] At the Kharga Oasis in the Western Desert, the El Bagawat necropolis contains tombs and small chapels from both the pre-Christian and early Christian periods, ranging roughly from the late 3rd to 8th centuries.

[26] Remains of churches from the 4th and early 5th centuries show that they were built as basilicas with a tripartite sanctuary including a transverse aisle and a straight eastern wall.

[27] By the 7th century, the typical plan of a Coptic church consisted of a basilica with a barrel-vaulted nave, pillars and aisles along the sides and a transept flanked by three square apses covered by domes or semi-domes.

[22] Early Coptic buildings also demonstrate a continuing tradition of rich decoration, including Corinthian and Byzantine "basket" capitals[22] and wall paintings.

[33][34] Although much rebuilt and restored,[35] the site still retains substantial remains from its sixth-century construction,[32] including a three-aisled basilical church with a Byzantine mosaic of the Transfiguration.

[37] The greatest architectural patronage of the Islamic period was centered in Cairo,[38] which preserves one of the richest concentrations of medieval monuments in the Muslim world today.

[39] After the conquest of 640, the Arab conquerors established a new city called Fustat, near the former Byzantine-Roman fort of Babylon, to serve as the administrative capital and military garrison center of Muslim Egypt.

[45] In the early 10th century, the Fatimid Caliphate rose to power in Ifriqiya (central North Africa), establishing itself as a rival to Abbasid influence.

[46] The Fatimids made wide usage of the "keel" arch and also introduced muqarnas (stalactite-like niches) in the shapes of squinches (a technique for transitioning from a square space below to a circular dome above).

[57][58] The Mamluks, a military corps under the Ayyubid dynasty recruited from slaves, took power in 1250, ruling over Egypt and much of the Middle East until the Ottoman conquest of 1517.

Despite their often violent internal politics, the Mamluk sultans were generous patrons of architecture and are responsible for much of the monumental heritage of historic Cairo.

[62] Mamluk architecture is distinguished in part by the construction of multi-functional buildings, whose floor plans became increasingly creative and complex due to the city's limited available space and the desire to make monuments visually dominant in their urban surroundings.

[63][59][60] Patrons, including sultans and high-ranking emirs, typically set out to build mausoleums for themselves, but attached to them various charitable structures such as madrasas, khanqahs, sabils, or mosques.

The revenues and expenses of these charitable complexes were governed by inalienable waqf agreements that also served the secondary purpose of ensuring some form of income or property for the patrons' descendants.

[74][75][76][77] The new style of this period also appears in multiple sabil-kuttabs built throughout the city, which feature curved street facades carved with new leaf, garland, and sunburst motifs.

[83] The city of Ismailia, named after Isma'il, was founded in 1863 by French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps as a base for workers on the Suez Canal project.

[84] These projects exemplified a trend of Francophilia that was present during this time in both Cairo and Istanbul (the Ottoman capital), as the elites of both places began to value French ideas and Parisian aesthetics.

It was founded in 1906 by a private partnership between the Belgian Édouard Empain and the Egyptian Boghos Nubar Pasha and it grew over the following decades.

[105] In the tourist center of Sharm El Sheikh, the Al Sahaba Mosque, completed in 2017, is a fusion of Ottoman, Mamluk, and Fatimid styles.

Modernist architecture is often seen as having little cultural value and receives relatively little attention or documentation, despite the large volume of construction activity in cities like Cairo during the modern period.

[110] In recent years, Alexandria's older urban heritage, much of it dating from the colonial period, has come under threat from poorly-regulated demolitions and development.

[114] Parts of Cairo's historic Northern Cemetery (also known as the City of the Dead), which contains funerary architecture built across many centuries, are also under threat from government infrastructure projects.