The Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage Documents 550 Historical Building Downtown Cairo
Posted on
Alexandria—
The Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) held on Monday, 4 June 2007, a seminar entitled "The Use of Modern Technology in Preserving and Documenting Heritage" at the Center Headquarters, Smart Village.
Dr. Reem Bahgat, Deputy Director, CULTNAT, spoke on the achievements of the Center in documenting and registering Egypt's architectural and historical heritage in downtown Cairo. She announced that the Center has finished documenting 550 historical buildings dating back to the nineteenth century.
She added that the second stage of the project includes documenting historical buildings in Heliopolis, East Cairo both present or previously torn down, with the help of the Heliopolis Archive provided by the Company for Housing and Construction. The Center's team of researchers work closely with the company, scanning available maps.
Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Library of Alexandria had previously stated that 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 previously documented one aspect or another of Cairo's architecture. Some researchers have documented the history of certain neighborhoods that have unique characteristics, like Maadi, Heliopolis, and Garden City, while those who examined the Downtown area mostly focused on nineteenth and twentieth century developments and despite their usefulness, such efforts lack continuity. Only one offered a thorough systematic documentation of individual buildings and certainly none are in digital format, moreover, these publications are not easy to browse and do not facilitate the task for researchers.
Dr. Fathi Saleh, Director, CULTNAT, stated that 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 equaled. Post-1940 architecture unfortunately lost any sense of uniqueness as the international style predominated the architectural scene. He explained that the objectives of this project are to conduct a systematic survey for all historic buildings; to compile a database of all buildings; to gather all possible information on each building; to photograph each building in its actual condition; to provide old photos and architectural drawings for each building (when possible); to provide guidelines for the restoration of selected buildings; to provide guidelines for the redevelopment of selected blocks; and to provide a simulated tour showing the before and after restoration condition.
Dr. Saleh also explained that the Center's 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.