Study In Pink

Wrought iron bars are often placed on the ground floor windows of homes for security. Obviously this young lady felt that they were there for another purpose. It's a great look out for a small one.

Step Down

This odd image is even odder with an explanation. This was taken in a shop on Kasr el Aini Street in downtown Cairo. Egyptian buildings are not built with basements, so how is it that you have to come down five stairs to enter the shop? Many of the streets and buildings are so old that over time the street level has risen above the original by this much. Some of the old buildings in Old Cairo are even further below street level.

The Tiring Building

If you are driving from Khan el Khalili to downtown, you see this extraordinary building to your right. Originally built by a Turkish born Austrian as a department store, it only served as such for about ten years until 1920 and since then has been floating in ownership limbo. You can read more about it at cairobserver.com/post/38678056409/landmark-tiring-department-store. 

Craftsmanship

This is a detail of a door at Rifaii mosque in old Cairo. The mosque was built during the late 1800's and early 1900's. It houses the tombs of the royal family of Egypt and also the tomb of the late Shah of Iran.  The door is made out of small pieces of wood and ivory that have been fitted together to form the pattern. If you touch it, you can feel each piece of wood or ivory move independently.

Wondrous Sound

I generally post a photo here but a while back I was visiting the mosque and madrasa of Sultan Hassan in Cairo with a friend when one of the men offered to show us how the construction of the mosque facilitated the transmission of sound from the area where the sheikh would be preaching to the people sitting in the large courtyard. This mosque was built in the 1100's long before anyone could dream of microphones, but the effects are extraordinary.

Creativity

A traditional component of most village homes is a mastaba, a bench on the front of the home where the family can sit in the cool of the evening or in the morning sun. Many of them are simply painted concrete, but the owners of this home took fragments of tile to create this image of lotus flowers.

Colours of Home

Light shining in from upstairs highlights the bright lime green of the entry way. The villagers love their colours.

Opening Soon

Yes, that is what someone stenciled on the wall of the burned out NDP headquarters that housed Mubarak's old political machine. It burned during the last days of January 2011 and many Egyptians hoped that it was gone forever. I don't know who took this photo. I found it on Twitter and no, it is not photoshopped. As Egypt waits for the military to announce who won the second round of presidential elections, the distinct possibility that Mubarak's prime minister will be declared winner regardless of the vote.

A Jewel in the Orchards

This is such an extraordinary villa set out in the midst of palm and mango orchards. I don't know who owns it and have only seen an older woman out in the garden as I've ridden by on horseback. The colours and the tile work are gorgeous. One of our hidden treasures.

New Tombs

For years the people of the village of Sakkara have battled with the antiquities authorities to try to expand the burial area for the village. There is no space to bury people in the Nile Valley. It is filled with dwellings, cities and farmland. In addition, the water table in the valley is so high that digging a hole a meter or so deep will hit water...not the best situation for burial. I'll bet that this has always been the case and that is why for thousands of years Egyptians have buried their dead at the edge of the desert. Within a month of the end of the 18 days of revolution (or whatever it may turn out to have been) these tombs had been built in a wadi next to Sakkara village and the pyramid of Pepi II.  In past years the Antiquities Council has brought in bulldozers to get rid of the village tombs but with the government in disarray no one did that this year. In fairness to the villagers, my unprofessional bet is that their tombs are unlikely to be a major problem, as in the valley that they chose for the location, the yearly flood would have made any construction in the area difficult if not impossible. But the horses sure miss one of their favourite gallops across the wadi.

The Tie That Binds

We are having plastering done on the house and this is the scaffolding that the plasterers are working on. Holes are knocked into the wall (they will be filled in with brick and mortar later), holes are dug in the ground and then the poles that fit into the holes are tied together with palm fiber rope. Yep. Tied. With handmade rope. And they move the planks around to give themselves a place to stand while plastering. Workmen's compensation or industrial safety would be having fits.

The Old and The New

Oddly enough, you can see the pyramids of Giza from a lot of different angles.  People expect to see them in company of sand dunes and camels, but as you drive into Cairo from Alexandria, they come into view in a landscape of traffic lights and mobile phone towers.

Life on The Top Floor

Yet another random architectural wonder from Giza. This peculiar building is on Pyramids Road and I'm honestly not sure what it is other than an amazing waste of space. Will they ever put something on the first...how many?...floors? My daughter suggests that it must be governmental, the wazeeret wazayer? For you non-Arabic speakers that would be the mythical Ministry of Ministries.

Liftoff in Ten Minutes

This looks like a UFO parked on a roof but it is actually the cover for an air vet in an old house in the old section of Cairo. The cover helps keep rain from coming in on the off chance it may rain, but lets the hot air escape. This is probably about 100 years old and was constructed of wood covered with stucco.

Getting The Dome Straight

One of the loveliest aspects of house design is the dome and it is built with the aid of a long rod attached to a point in the center of the room which gradually measures the decreasing circle. There are no artificial supports in place.

I Want My Wall Here

I never tire of the eccentricities of Egyptian construction. Someone nearby wanted a wall around his garden but didn't want to lose a tree, so the builders incorporated the tree into the garden wall. As I recall, trees tend to grow so eventually the wall will fall, but for now it's sort of surreal and fun.

What Do You Suppose?

If you live in an area of Cairo where there are villas you might see this, but you will definitely see it. And what is it? Gardeners will tie a line to the upper branches of a bougainvilleia, tie a brick to the other end of the line and then toss it over a wall. Walking past the wall, you can see what appears to be a floating brick against the wall.

The Bone of Contention

I'd seen this building coming up next to the highway and admired its lines, but I had no idea what it was. Then the riot police took up residence on the edge of the highway and the pieces fell into place. This church was ordered to stop building because of an incorrect permit, (Since when do people actually pay attention to building permits in Egypt?) and the congregation were seriously ticked off. Since it is a common practice in the countryside to build a small mosque and then attach a house to it to get past the rule against residential buildings, there's some room for discussion here, to say the least. Yesterday afternoon, the guys on the highway looked more bored than anything else, but there was some serious rumbling in other areas.

Living Colour

There are no building codes in Egypt, at least not that I'm aware of, and people are free to use their whims and imaginations when it comes to decoration. The villagers seem to have pretty colourful imaginations.

Preparation

Palm is actually a grass and is probably the first plant domesticated by man. The hard ribs of the fronds are used to make boxes, the leafy part of the frond is used for mats, baskets and the like. The brown fiber that covers the base of the frond makes some of the strongest rope I've ever used, though pretty scratchy, and is formed into brooms and other cleaning implements. The wood is quite soft and porous but in our dry climate can be used for some building purposes. Unprepared, the logs are often used for informal bridges across canals or for walls. The prepared logs are often used in house construction.