Workshop - Modern movement Architecture as Heritage - Case study by Farida Sherif

The case of Mogamaa’ El-Tahrir Cairo, Egypt Farida Elghamry

Tahrir Square, Cairo, February 13, 2011. photo: Tara Todras-Whitehill/Ap.

Master in Conservation of Monuments and Sites [H00X3A] Workshop Dr. Aziliz Vandesande Prof. Luc Verpoest

Introduction This article explores the relation between Modernist architecture and Egypt, taking the Mogamaa’a El Tahrir as the object of study. The paper asks to what extent the Mogamaa’a can be interpreted as a Modernist building. In the analysis, the first section gives an overview of the literature on Modernist architecture, specifically on “Other Modernisms” and cultural regionalism. Then, this repository is enriched with the views of some of the international guest lectures of the international experts that were invited for this workshop. Finally, we will narrow the scope and focus the analysis on the Mogamaa’a.

Modernist architecture In 1943, Russian-American novelist Ayn Rand published her first best-selling book, The Fountainhead. The protagonist in the story is Howard Roark, a young and ambitious architect who tries to break down the barriers of the classicist paradigm in 1920s New York City. Roark is a stark individualist, who, contrary to his colleague Peter Keating and socio-cultural critic Ellsworth Toohey, aims to design buildings along the lines of “form follows function” and “ornamentation is a crime.” A forerunner of the Modernist school that was soon to define New York City’s skyline, Roark is depicted as the typical artist who is not appreciated during his lifetime - or, in this case, not until the novel’s end.

The Fountainhead does not simply reflect the author’s interest in Modernist architecture. Like all of Rand’s books, it embodies her belief in individualism and capitalism, which she juxtaposes against the evils of collectivism and socialism. As such, The Fountainhead provides a window onto the coalescence of Modernist architecture and its cultural background. Indeed,

like individualism and capitalism, Modernist architecture is often seen as a product of Western civilisation (Nia and Rahbarianyazd 2020, 66-76). It took root in early twentieth century Europe before landing on North American shores, where Frank Lloyd Wright, upon whom Rand based Roark’s character, played a ground-breaking role in introducing functionalism and minimalism into the United States. From there, it became a world-wide movement, hence the interchangeability between the terms Modernist and Internationalist architecture.

This conventional wisdom is prevalent into the defusing of Modernist architecture across the globe, too. For instance, traditional Arabic-Islamic architecture is often seen not to be enriched with, but compromised by the Western Modernist movement (e.g. Abu Awwad 2018, 6984-5). Nevertheless, in some Islamic majority countries, like Saudi Arabia and Kosovo, there is a growing recognition, perhaps somewhat post-facto, of a merging of indigenous and Modernist architecture that adheres to critical regionalism (Jashari-Kajtazi and Jakubi 2017; Ibrahim 2018). This relatively new architectural school is influenced by the Modernist as well as the Postmodernist movements but at the same time rejects the premises of both. On the one hand, it seeks to overcome the lack of identity of the Internationalist style; on the other, it denounces the lack of respect for historical context of the Postmodernists. In short, it seeks to bridge the gap between the Modernism and the cultural and geographical environment in which a certain building is erected. ( Szacka and Patteeuw, 2019)

Again this backdrop, the shift towards critical regionalism was recognized during an international Docomomo conference in Ankara in 2006. The participants argued that “the exclusive, totalizing and teleological histories of modern architecture are highly suspect, and the presumed internal

consistency and morphological integrity of modernism is no longer taken for granted by recent critical approaches in line with contemporary scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.” The latter, of course, is a reference to the Postmodernist turn in academia, in which Eurocentrism is

widely

condemned and replaced by bigger emphases on non-Western agency. Indeed, recent applications of Modernist architecture in Asia, Africa and South America, they continue, have changed the trajectory of the Modernist architecture as a Western enterprise and have heralded the new reality of “a plurality of modernisms both within the global content and within individual societies comprising it.” The conference was titled “Other Modernisms,” which was understood to provide an umbrella term for a wide range of architectural and urban practices across the globe that go beyond the canonical interpretation of Modernist architecture (Docomomo 2006).

Workshop with international experts Several international experts voiced similar theoretical arguments during their guest lectures for this course vis-à-vis heritage. Provocatively, Andrea Canziana posed the question: “Who is adapting to whom? Is it the building adapting to the project or the project adapting to the building?” Indeed, just as style and context merge in critical regionalism, so is a heritage project a product of both past and present. For these purposes, the term “adaptive reuse” came into being according to Canziani.

While Canziani underscored the importance of theory within the field of heritage studies, Gabriela Lee stated in her contribution that there is often no one unified theory which is applied in architectural or heritage practices. She pointed to the example of Modernist architecture in Mexico, where she uncovered a variety of values that all together represent Modernist

architecture. In particular, she distinguished three underlying categories. One the face of it, built heritage is of course defined by its applied technical innovations, such as the employed technology and materials. However, every building also has a specific function. Therefore, the functional format serves as a second indicator. But the make-up of a building does not stop short of its material and functional structure. Its ornamental form, finally, does not merely serve aesthetic purposes but seeks to epitomize a certain cultural identity, too. Be it the building as a whole of specific features of it, architectural products often symbolize a search for identity.

This is especially true for public buildings, Lee goes on to say. That is not surprising, since identity is at the forefront on political discourse. A company might want to boost its image by constructing aesthetically impressive headquarters, but in the private sector identity plays only a limited role in the designing process. After all, companies have their hands full in marketing their products and services on the free, competitive market. Governmental bodies, however, have to engage in fostering “imagined communities” in order to build support for their rule (Anderson 2016). Therefore, we can expect public buildings to carry nationalist symbols that serve the purpose of promoting national identity among the citizenry.

Both Lee and Adonis El Hussein, another guest lecturer, have therefore drawn attention to the role of politics in large-scale public buildings. According to Lee, for instance, governmental buildings serve to tell a story in Mexico; indeed, they fit in a nationalist - often even educationalist - narrative. For his part, El Hussein pointed out that the International Fairgrounds Complex in Tripoli, Lebanon, was upon its construction in 1962 aimed to become a central pillar of social modernization as a means of political self-determination in post-independence Lebanon. It was constructed by the Brazilian architect

Oscar Niemeyer, who contributed to Brazilian Modernism, one such “Other Modernisms” which were highlighted in the above-mentioned DOCOMOMO conference. When Lebanon fell into civil war and the public was no longer allowed into the Tripoli Complex, however, the building fell into deappreciation and became a sign of the failed Lebanese nationalist project. Indeed, the building’s image shifted and was adapted in the mind of the public in line with shifting socio-cultural realities that no longer reflected the early optimism of the Arab nationalist age.

In this sense, the evolution of the Tripoli Complex’ identity is starkly similar to the history of Egypt’s Modernist architecture movement. As one of the world’s richest and diverse repositories of built heritage, Cairo in particular carries within its present-day form lieux de memoire from many different ages of Egyptian history in spite of the lack of fertile land in the overpopulated desert city. In addition to Pharaonic and Islamic architecture, according to another guest lecturer Shaimaa Ashour, the Modernist movement burst on the Egyptian scene during the era of Mohamed Ali, who along with his descendants ruled Egypt for 120 years until the Free Officers’ coup d’état in 1952. Under Mohamed Ali, who tried to reinvent Egyptian society along Western lines, educational missions to Europe and the United States were promoted. Therefore, Egypt’s Howard Roarks and Frank Lloyd Wrights were, like so many Modernist forerunners in the Third World at large, educated in the West. By 1917, enough had returned for the establishment of the Society of Egyptian Architects, which grouped several prominent Western-educated Egyptian architects who went on to hold important positions in government institutions.

By the first half of the twentieth century, Ashour argued, we could distinguish three schools of architecture in Egypt. A first pliantly followed the Western-

founded Internationalist style, but the other two can be counted as examples of cultural regionalism. These are Pharaonic and Islamic architecture, which both merge elements of Modernism with local history. The former, however, tends more towards Postmodernism, since, as the recent inaugural parade for the Grand Egyptian Museum (see fig. 1) once again demonstrated, it employs references to the Pharaonic past somewhat liberally. The latter, on the other hand, does not have the same problem, because Islam is still a constitutive religion in Egypt and cannot be as easily usurped for purely ornamental purposes. Even public buildings, which in the twentieth century were mainly designed along the Western Modernist model, are therefore often inspired by both Pharaonic and Islamic architecture. These inspirations can be seen as serving an identity promoting role, whereas the technical and functional indicators, to borrow from Lee, follow Internationalist patterns that where globalized in the course of the twentieth century. The perception of this identity, however, is often more malleable to change than the

physical

building in and of itself. Just like the de-appreciation of the Tripoli Complex in Lebanon, a similar change in identity change took place in the case of Mogamaa’a El Tahrir, as we will see in the next section.

Fig. 1: The lighting of Mogamaa’a El Tahrir during the Mummies parade event, April 2021.

Mogamaa’a El Tahrir The (in)famous Mogamaa’a El Tahrir in Downtown Cairo occupies one of the, if not the, most central positions in Egyptian collective memory of built heritage, at least as far as Modernist architecture is concerned. Constructed in 1945 under King Farouk, the Mogamma’a served as a symbol of Egypt’s independence. This epitomisation was carried further under the nationalist president Gamal ‘Abd El Nasir, who, contrary to popular belief, did not oversee the Mogamaa’a’s construction with the aid of the Soviet Union. That myth did not come out of nowhere, however, because the all-in-one governmental building soon became a symbol not of national proud but of nightmarish bureaucratic practices both under Nasir’s socialist and consequent nepotistic regimes down to the present. In this way, the Mogamaa’a became immortalized in Egyptian collective memory.

Reflecting this immortalization, the Mogamaa’a is often referenced in Egyptian cinema from inertial bureaucratic and nostalgic viewpoints. Epitomizing the complex position in the collective memory, sometimes both perspectives are combined in one whole, such as in the 1992 black comedy AlIrhab wal Kebab (“Terrorism and Kebab”). In this classic, the familiar struggle of the common man with the Mogamaa’a’s machinery leads the protagonist in a happenstance series of events to take hostages during his

desperate

attempts at winning his bureaucratic battle. His hostages end up developing a Stockholm syndrome, however, eventually allowing him to leave the building in disguise as a fellow hostage. Al-Irhab is not an exception, though, for, as a reviewer for Harvard University put it, the movie is “a classic Egyptian comedy about government corruption, bumbling and the good hearted nature of the sha’ab (people) of Egypt” (Wikipedia 2021).

Al-Irhab provides a window onto the mixed legacy of the Mogamaa’a - or, more broadly spoken, of Egypt’s struggle with modernity. On the one hand the Mogamaa’a aimed to represent Egypt’s liberation, but on the other it came to denote the ubiquitous, autocratic, Soviet-style interpretation of the state into every aspect of life. The bureaucratic mammoth is therefore aptly situated on Tahrir Square, which likewise squares the circle between liberation (the literal translation of “tahrir”) and repression. Originally known as Isma’ilyya Square, this strategically located space in Downtown Cairo visualized the interdependence between cultural imperialism and military colonialism (Rabbat 2011). Indeed, first envisioned by Khedive Isma’il Pahsa as an open meeting place in the Western-style posh neighborhood he erected, the site also came to house the main royal barracks of the British colonial forces at the turn of the twentieth century. After the 1952 revolution and the expulsion of the British military barracks, it was renamed as Tahrir Square. Yet, when Egypt descended into a decades-long military dictatorship, Tahrir Square, along with the Mogamaa’a, came to occupy a double meaning for the country’s citizens. This was laid bare during and after the 2011 revolution. One the one hand the revolution gave the name of the square its true meaning, but on the other the continued militarized police presence and ban on Friday gatherings ever since symbolizes the unabated rule of the militaristic regime of ‘Abdul Fatah El Sisi.

The Mogamaa’a’s duality is embodied by its architect, too. King Farouk contracted Mohamed Kamil Isma’il, one of Egypt’s most prominent architects at the time. Nevertheless, Isma’il became most famous for his later reconstruction designs in the 1980s for the Masjid El Haram and Masjid El Nabawi in Saudi Arabia, Islam’s two most holy sites in respectively Mecca and Medina. Deeply religious and honored as he must have been, the architect did not shy away from using special Greek stones for the floor, which

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absorbed the cold of the night and kept the surface cool throughout the day. Here, we can see the convergence between Islamic architecture on the identity level and modern innovations on the technical and functional level. Indeed, Isma’il did his advanced studies in France, but he also held a PhD in Islamic architecture. (Taher, 2017)

This convergence is also prevalent in Isma’il’s design of the Mogamaa’a. Overall, the building has a clear Modernist structure. The sheer size of the 55 meter high, fourteen-story structure and the replication of quasi-identitical windows is highly reminiscent of the typical functionalist Internationalist style oft-seen around the modern world. From the inside, too, the bureaucratic behemoth appears similar to a Western corporate building in terms of functionality. The internal space covers an area of 28.000 square meters and has 1.300 rooms arranged around the perimeter of the structure. The entry hall leads to a colonnaded atrium, which acts as a distribution point to the hallways. Ten elevators help to move personnel and visitors from one floor to the other, while four large air shafts seek to breath fresh air and natural light into the interior of the immense structure. (ElShahed, 2019. p.92)

Mogamaa’a El Tahrir during its construction 1951-52. https://hashtagmasr.net/

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Yet, the Mogamaa’a is not simply a standard Modernist building. Most notably, it has a touch of Art Deco, an architectural movement that was at its height in the interwar period. Art Deco is eclectic in the sense that it groups several styles of the period, but it chiefly differs from the Internationalist style, which became dominant after World War II, in the confluence of Modernist elements (e.g. functionalism) and fine craftsmanship with rich materials, extolling the luxury and glamour of the modern age with its faith in social and technological progress. So, the main portal of the Mogamaa’a is marked by five immense nine-story columns that seek to add to the grandness of the building without sliding into the exuberance that is often characteristic of Art Deco. Similarly, the rounding of the top corners into a slightly oval shape, which creates two arms that define the front plaza, is a humble but pertinent sign of grandeur. As one Egyptian commentator put it: “[The Mogamaa’a] is considered a historical monument in the history of Egypt. The Tahrir complex is of many shapes. From the outside, if you look at it while standing before Omar Makram Mosque, it will appear to you as the bow of a ship with a great deal of grace, its side lines flowing smoothly. But if you look at it from Sheikh Rehan Street, that is, to the back of the complex, you will see what looks like part of a circle, the top of which is creeping towards you, characterized by its vitality. And if you stand in the middle of Tahrir Square, the complex will take the shape of an arch” (Elqahria 2021, translated by the author)

Though easy to escape from view from afar, there are influences of Islamic architecture, too. The five grandiose columns mentioned above rest on top of the main portal (you can see it when you are on top of the American

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Mogamaa’a El Tahrir from different views @ Ehab Zaakouk , 2015

University building opposite to the building,) which is subdivided into five gates. Although these five gates are detached from one another by four miniature versions of the Art Deco columns, the gates themselves are clear products of Islamic architecture. The gates have an ogee shape, which is one of the four distinctive formats of Islamic arches. Moreover, the decorations around the arches are also typical of Islamic architecture. Indeed, some observers have drawn parallels with the arches of the Sultan Hassan mosque in Historic Cairo (Mostafavi 2012, 202).

Unfortunately, it is nowadays difficult to see the beauty in the coalescence of Modernist, Art Deco and Islamic architecture in the Mogamaa’a. As a result of the dusty and polluted air, the building has to be repainted every now and then. Overall, however, a greyish appearance dominates its facade, denoting the general neglect of this government enterprise. Indeed, as Dr. Soheir Hawas of Cairo University has pointed out, the paint jobs are a cheap trick to hide what must truly be done, i.e. cleaning the facade. That would be a better,

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more sustainable solution (El Watan 2020). The inside is even worse, for the interior is littered by decaying walls, dirty toilets and broken lamps that nobody bothers to change. The sense of delinquency was hastened when the government started to finally move away from the idea that a myriad of government services should be centralized in one building. By 2019, the relocalization and digitalization process was finished, thus officially rendering the Mogamaa’a vacant.

Though restoration work has already started, the fate of the building is so far unknown. Two main questions remain unanswered. How will the building be restored without losing its authenticity? And how is the Mogamaa’a going to be reused? Debate has already arisen about this second question. The government’s plans to turn the building into a luxurious hotel have been roundly criticized by Egyptians. The people might want to despise the bureaucratic culture associated with the Mogama’a, for better or for worse it does occupy a central position in Egypt’s modern collective memory. Therefore, many argue that the building should remain public, or at least remain accessible to ordinary Egyptians. While there is no shortage of luxurious hotels in the area, it is hard to believe that it could not function as residential, office or governmental spaces - of a combination thereof. All in all, the creators of the building must be credited, for they have embedded the Mogamaa’a in the collective memory, thereby fostering the popular support necessary for the present-day resistance to privatization. In a kind of unintended way, they have achieved their goal of immortalizing this historical piece of architecture.

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Conclusion From this review, we can deduce that the Mogamaa’a is a Modernist building, but it should not be defined only by this architectural style. The main structure might have a Modernist appearance, as we have seen it is also influenced by Art Deco and Islamic Architecture. Whereas on the technical and functional level, to use Lee’s terminology, the Mogamaa’a follows Modernist patterns, these additional influenced probably had an identity boosting role. The columns symbolized the grandeur of the state, while the arches of the main portal upon which they rested demonstrated the foundation of Islamic architecture. In short, the style of the Mogamaa’a overlaps two of the three of Shaimaa’s categories of modern architecture in Egypt, i.e. Western-inspired Modernism and Islamic architecture. As it appropriated Modernism without losing sight of the indigenous context, the Mogamaa’a is hence an application of “Other Modernisms” or cultural regionalism.

Bibliography Anderson, Benedict (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Abu Awwad, Bassam Ali (2018). “Comparison between modern western architettura and Islamic Arabic architecture"imitation and differences.” International Journal of Engineering & Technology, , 7 (4) (2018) 6981-6985 . DOCOMOMO (2006). “IXth International Conference.” Available at:https://docomomous.org/news/docomomo_intl-ixth-international-conference. Accessed on: 03/06/2021. ElGohary, Rehab (2021). “Mogama’a El Tahrir.” Alqahria. Available at: https:// alqahria.com/2021/05/21/‫التحرير‬-‫مجمع‬/ Accessed on: 03/06/2021. Elshahed, Mohamed (2019). Cairo Since 1900; An Architectural Guide. Cairo: AUC Press.

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Fayez, Wael (2020). “‫ مجمع التحرير كان يحتاج تنظيف الواجهات وليس طالءها‬:‫ ”أستاذ عمارة‬Available at: https://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/4971134?t=push. Accessed on: 03/06/2021. Ibrahim, Ahmed (2018). “Modernization in the Architecture of Saudi Arabia: Vernacular modernism and Post modernism Architecture Styles.” Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 325039324_Modernization_in_the_architecture_of_saudi_arabia_Vernacular_moderni sm_and_Post_modernism_Architecture_Styles. Jashari-Kajtazi and Jakubi (2017). “Interpretation of architectural identity through landmark architecture: The case of Prishtina, Kosovo from the 1970s to the 1980s.” Frontiers of Architectural Research (2017) 6, 480–486. Mostafavafi, Mohsen (ed.) (2012). In the life of Cities. Zürich: Lars Müller publishers. Nia, H.A and Rahbarianyazd R. (2020). “Aesthetics of Modern Architecture: A Semiological Survey on the Aesthetic Contribution of Modern Architecture.” Civil Engineering and Architecture 8(2): 66-76. Rabbat, Nasser (2011). “Circling the Square.” Artforum International. 182-191 Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297912386_Circling_the_Square? fbclid=IwAR3t0N_DhOg822C8L3aV786sBlsVDzXDnNmrlqF0qLthFHvRH9pq7epfUkI. Szacka, Léa-Catherine and Patteeuw, Véronique (2019). “Critical Regionalism for our time”. Available at: https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/critical-regionalismfor-our-time?tkn=1. Accessed on: 03/06/2021. Taher, Omar (2017). Ahram. (https://gate.ahram.org.eg/daily/News/131758/101/460380/ ‫إسماعيل‬-‫كمال‬-‫محمد‬/‫الجمعة‬-‫مقاالت‬%E2%80%8F%E2%80%8F-‫التحرير‬-‫مجمع‬-‫صنايعي‬.aspxAccessed on: 03/06/2021. The Architect’s Newspaper (2011). Tahrir Square, A collection of Fragments. Avaialble at:https://www.archpaper.com/2011/03/tahrir-square-a-collection-of-fragments/? fbclid=IwAR2Hi4vERedWnjT3Rae6zAbbYGfrRtzupTbuNzqMUlKkAvksm_ j8fIQGSGc Accessed on: 03/06/2021. Wikipedia (2021). “Terrorism and Kebab.” Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Terrorism_and_Kebab?fbclid=IwAR0NvIvVxFeyw46T9B2HEp2REzFCgxupUQRl_itqo8LXMMt69LxlYiSHJA. Accessed on: 03/06/2021. 1

1 The original link of the Harvard review is broken.

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Annex

Colored Black and white pictures of El Tahrir Square and El Mogamaa’a. https:// alqahria.com/2021/05/21/‫التحرير‬-‫مجمع‬/

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Scenes inside El Mogamaa’a from the movie Terrorism and Kebab

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One of the proposed projects for Mogamaa’a El Tahrir Re-imagined by Cluster architects

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

Auto-cad plans obtained from Cluster architects.

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

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Restoration of El Mogamaa’a. https://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/4970786?t=push