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HANDS ON Traditional Crafts at The City of the Dead in Cairo

Complex of al-Waqqad Family (unlisted) second half of the 19th cent. A.D. / late 13th cent. A.H.

This huge structure was reportedly a palace originally built by Khedive Isma’il for his mother Khushiyar, and then acquired and re-built by the al-Waqqad family in the 1870s. The large stone-built complex blends neo-Mamluk motifs with European designs. The grand façade on Sultan Ahmad Street is of Classical composition overall. The simple and bold stone-carved architectural decoration gives the façade a powerfully muscular appearance. The complex includes a grand entrance hall with extremely impressive wooden doors, a huge colonnaded prayer hall, a reception hall (all in different stages of ruin), and an internal residential/service area, which has now been turned into a village-like cluster of houses.

This website is a result of a conservation and research project at the Hawd of Sultan al-Ashraf Qaitbey in Cairo's City of the Dead. The project was financed by the European Union Delegation to Egypt with a contribution from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and implemented in 2014 by Cairo-based ARCHiNOS Architecture in association with the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo under supervision of the Ministry of Antiquities and Heritage.

The web site is funded, produced, and designed by ARCHiNOS Architecture.

Website designed in 2014 by Maha Akl for ARCHiNOS Architecture.

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