Egypt (1914-2014): Global architecture before globalization

Chapitre de l'ouvrage "Architecture from the Arab World (1914-2014): a selection", sous la direction de George Arbid, publié à l'occasion de la participation du Royaume du Bahrein à la 14ème exposition d'architecture de la Biennale de Venise.The article provides a survey of the main tendencies of modern architecture in Egypt over the past century, from 1914 to 2014. It argues that an established tradition of borrowing and naturalizing European techniques and aesthetics characterized Egyptian architecture as it entered into the 20th century and continued thereafter. The architectural outcome of the globalizing forces at work in the country has been of marked heterogeneity. Structures of every possible origin and essence, designed both by Egyptian and non-Egyptian architects, coexisted almost side by side. In the 1920s and 1930s, concerns with the fashioning of a national style were gradually replaced by the issue of housing for the unpriviledged, leading to diverse experiments in the field of low-cost and subsidized housing