Citadel of Cairo: Seat of Design Energy Pavilion / Dar Arafa Structure

Textual content description offered by the architects. Everyone seems to be conscious of the Citadel of Cairo as Egypt’s seat of political energy since its institution by Salah Al-Din within the twelfth century, internet hosting all of its rulers since then. The Ayyubids, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, and Muhammad Ali Pasha’s Household all dominated from the citadel till the seat of energy moved to the Palace of Abdin within the time of Khedive Ismail. Nevertheless, only some are conscious that the Citadel has been the seat of Design Energy. Whereas its political energy has now definitely pale, its place as a transcendental Seat of Design Energy, figuratively and actually, continues to be evident.

Along with all of its navy engineering improvements and wonders, akin to its varied towers, partitions, gates, fortifications, and unbelievable waterworks, the Citadel has been and continues to be house to many civilian architectural typologies and iconic design types. Mosques akin to that of Al-Nasir Mohammad, Sulayman Pasha al-Khadim, and Mohammad Ali Pasha’s Mosque, to call a number of, in addition to palaces, royal halls, and iwans such because the Nice Iwan and Al-Ashraf Khalil’s palace, Al-Qasr al-Ablaq, Al-Jawhara palace and the Justice Palace signify a formidable timeline of Cairean structure.

The design influence of objects produced in and by the Citadel was not merely restricted to structure. Throughout the premises of those architectural marvels, extra design was displayed and produced. Sculptures and graphics, as early as Salah-Aldin’s Rank, Baybars’s lion’s statuettes, and the graphics displayed on cash that had been produced within the Citadel’s mint or Dar al-Darb are all design contributions that proliferated and impressed the world of design. This isn’t an exaggeration, particularly once we know that the Kisswa, the duvet of the Ka’baa, commemorated, seen, and infrequently saved by thousands and thousands of Muslim pilgrims over time, was produced within the Citadel.

GEMMA is keen to spotlight this unbelievable historical past and affect over Cairo design in the course of the Cairo Design Week. Our proposal seeks to rejoice the continuum, the DNA that permeates all of those design layers and outcomes that the Citadel of Cairo fashioned, because it stands at the moment, utilizing GEMMA’s beautiful merchandise. DAA’s design response to GEMMA’s need, resorted to celebrating the fundamental working-lines geometries, which are typically ignored and hidden by the extra apparent layers of typological and stylistic ultimate design merchandise, additionally it is a celebration of all of the misplaced and demolished wonders that after existed within the Citadel.

Citadel of Cairo: Seat of Design Energy is a phantom iwan that belongs to and connects the previous, current, and future and dances between the fabric and the immaterial worlds concurrently.