HE President Mubarak and Mrs. Mubarak Attended the BA Fifth Anniversary Celebrations
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Alexandria—
HE President Mubarak and Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak attended the BA celebration marking its fifth anniversary on 23 October 2007, with the participation of more than 300 dignitaries, Nobel Laureates, Ministers, men of letters, intellectuals, foreign and Arab countries' Ambassadors, BA Board of Trustees (BoT) members, BA friends from all over the world, and Directors of the Foreign Cultural Institutes in Alexandria.
Following his arrival at the BA, HE President Hosni Mubarak; HRH Prince Karim Aga Khan, the Founder of Aga Khan Award for Islamic Architecture; and Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Library of Alexandria, inaugurated Architecture and Society exhibition, organized by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) in collaboration with the BA. The exhibition features models of the Award for Architecture, the historic cities program and other outreach activities, supported by the AKTC. The Award won by the BA in 2004 was also highlighted in the exhibition. Following the inauguration of the exhibition, HE President Mubarak gave an address on the occasion of the BA fifth anniversary.
A documentary on the history of the BA, since the Aswan Declaration, and the activities of the Library throughout the past five years was screened as part of the celebrations. The film scripts were written by Dr. Ismail Serageldin; produced at the BA Studio, affiliated to the Media Department, in cooperation with the Ministry of Information; and directed by Ahmed Maher.
Dr. Ismail Serageldin invited Mrs. Mubarak to place on the Library shelves the 555,555th book, Elements by Euclid, a newly acquired edition dating back to the sixteenth century and published in Germany. The book is an invaluable edition of a work originally written in the third century BCE by Euclid, the Father of Mathematics.
Members of the BoT presented HE Mrs. Mubarak with a special token of appreciation for her untiring support to the New Library of Alexandria.
The performance by the BA Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Sherif Mohieldin, BA Arts Center Director, started by a song "Hob El-Watan" (Love to the Nation) by Wael Samy. The BA Children Choral and the German School Choral sang "Ah ya Zein" (Oh Zein) from the Egyptian folklore. This was followed by classical music, and video clips, in which Dr. Ismail Serageldin narrates sayings of the most renowned scholars, men of letters, and artists from all over the world. The celebration concluded with the BA inauguration song, a mixture between western music and Egyptian traditional musical instruments.