4.615 | Spring 2002 | Undergraduate

The Architecture of Cairo

Calendar

For full reading citations, please see the readings section.  And for a printable version of this calendar, please click here (PDF).

Part 1 - Beginnings - History, Geography, and Religion

SES # TOPICS REQUIRED READINGS
1

Egypt from Alexander to the Islamic Conquest

  • History and geography.   
  • The Nile and the site of Cairo.   
  • The legacy of ancient Egypt.   
  • Egypt on the eve of Islam     
    Hellenism.   
  • Christianity and the Copts.   
  • The coming of Islam: Arabia and Egypt.

Behrens-Abouseif, Doris. Islamic Architecture of Cairo: An Introduction. Leiden: Brill, 1989, pp. 3-34 and 47-57.

Raymond, Andre. Cairo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000, pp. 7-30.

Kaegi, Walter. “Egypt on the Eve of the Muslim Conquest.” In The Cambridge History of Egypt. Vol. 1, Islamic Egypt 640-1517. Edited by Carl F. Petry. Cambridge, 1998, pp. 34-61.

Rodenbeck, Max. Cairo: The City Victorious. New York: Knopf, 1999, pp. 1-56.

Abu-Lughod, Janet. Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious. Princeton, 1971, pp. 3-25.

Briggs, Martin. Muhammadan Architecture in Egypt and Palestine. New York, reprint 1974, pp. 47-62.

“Kahira.” In Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Vol. 4.

Dickie, James. “Allah and Eternity: Mosques, Madrasas, and Tombs.” In Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning. Edited by G. Michell. pp. 65-79.

2

Foundation of al-Fustat

  • What is a misr?   
  • The Mosque of ‘Amru ibn al-‘As: the first mosque in Africa.   
  • The vocabulary of the mosque: the minaret, the mihrab and the minbar.   
  • The Nilometer.

3

Abbasids and Tulunids (8th and 9th Century)

  • Imperial ambitions: Ibn Tulun and al-Ikhshid.   
  • The foundation of al-Qata‘i.   
  • The Mosque of Ibn Tulun.   
  • Buildings of the Ikhshidids.

Part 5 - Modernization and After - Muhammad ‘Ali to the Present

SES # TOPICS REQUIRED READINGS
17

Cairo From Napoleon to Muhammad `Ali

  • The architectural and urban works of Muhammad Ali.   
  • The Mosque at the Citadel.   
  • The Westernization of the palatial architecture.

Behrens-Abouseif, Doris. Islamic Architecture of Cairo: An Introduction. Leiden: Brill, 1989, pp. 167-70.

Abu-Lughod, Janet. Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious. Princeton, 1971, pp. 83-117.

Raymond, Andre. Cairo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000, pp. 291-377.

Idem. “Cairo.” In The Modern Middle East. Edited by A. Hourani, P. Khoury and M. Wilson. Berkeley, 1993, pp. 311-37.

Lane, Edward William. Cairo Fifty Years Ago. Edited by Stanley Lane-Poole. London, 1896.

al-Asad, Mohammad. “The Mosque of Muhammad ‘Ali in Cairo.” Muqarnas 9 (1992): 39-55.

Idem. “The Mosque of al-Rifa’i in Cairo.” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 108-24.

Asfour, Khaled. “The Domestication of Knowledge: Cairo at the Turn of the Century.” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 125-37.

Michael Meinecke, ed. Islamic Cairo: Architectural Conservation and Urban Development of the Historic Centre. AARP, June 1980, pp. 8-46.

Ilbert, Robert, and Mercedes Volait. “Neo-Arabic Renaissance in Egypt, 1870-1930.” Mimar 13 (1984): 26-34.

Rabbat, Nasser. “Writing the History of Islamic Architecture of Cairo.” Design Book Review 31 (Winter 1994): 48-51.

Idem. “The Formation of the Neo-Mamluk Style in Modern Egypt.” In The Education of the Architect: Historiography, Urbanism and the Growth of Architectural Knowledge.

Pollak, Martha. Essays Presented to Stanford Anderson on his Sixty-Second Birthday. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997, pp. 363-86.

Idem. “Restoration Projects in Islamic Cairo Critiqued.” Medina 13 (May-June 2000): 48-51.

Lewcock, Ronald. “Working with the Past.” In Theories and Principles of Design in the Architecture of Islamic Societies. AKPIA, 1988, pp. 87-96.

Williams, Caroline. “Islamic Cairo: Endangered Legacy.” Middle East Journal 39, no. 3 (1985): 231-246.

Bierman, Irene A. “Urban Memory and the Preservation of Monuments.” In The Restoration and Conservation of Islamic Monuments in Egypt. Edited by Jere Bacharach. Cairo: AUC Press, 1995, pp. 1-10.

Rodenbeck, John. “The Present Situation of the Historic City: a Road Not Taken.” In The Cairo Heritage. pp. 327-40.

18

The Modernization of Cairo

  • Orientalism and the fascination of Egypt.   
  • Ethnographer-painters and the romanticization of Cairo.   
  • The Comité de preservation des monuments du Caire and preservation.   
  • Cairene architecture in the late nineteenth century.   
  • Historicism and the Mamluk revival.     
    Other Orientalizing styles.  
  • Cosmopolitan architecture.

19

Competing Neo Styles in the Early Twentieth Century

  • The emergence of vernacular style in the 1940’s.

20

Historicism in Twentieth-Century Cairo

  • Cairo’s expansion and modernization.   
  • The works of Hasan Fathy, Ramses Wissa Wasef, and their students.   
  • Population explosion and urban chaos.   
  • Problems of preservation and accommodation.   
  • The image of Cairo: past and present.

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Spring 2002