Interweaving Cairo’s urban fabric: the Historical, the Informal, and the Contemporary.
Disciplines
Architectural History and Criticism | Art and Materials Conservation | Civic and Community Engagement | Community-Based Learning | Community-Based Research | Historic Preservation and Conservation | Other Anthropology | Other Architecture | Place and Environment | Tourism | Urban, Community and Regional Planning | Urban Studies and Planning
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Architecture is a continuum, an ongoing dialogue between past, present, and future. It is a conscious act of preservation or erasure, remembrance or forgetting. Through design, we embed histories, needs, and identities into the built environment. Cairo, the palimpsest city, now faces an architectural crisis: the contemporary steadily encroaches upon the heart of the historic. The tabula rasa advances indiscriminately, threatening to erase entire neighborhoods, whether historic or informal, with equal indifference. While the value of preserving Cairo’s historic fabric is widely accepted, an urgent question arises: should we also preserve the informal? Manshiyat Nasser, often known as Garbage City, stands as one of Cairo’s most emblematic informal settlements. Nestled between Islamic Cairo and the modern developments of Mokattam Hill, this neighborhood has, for over five decades, sustained itself through the informal collection and recycling of the city’s waste. The Zabbaleen, its inhabitants, have developed a deeply integrated communal system capable of recycling up to 80% of collected waste, surpassing even global leaders such as Germany. Here, recycling is not only labor but culture, a form of living heritage that embodies resourcefulness and community resilience. Yet this invaluable fabric stands on precarious ground. To its west rises a tourist promenade; to its east, sprawling luxury developments. The forces of erasure press in from both sides. Drawing from the ethos of Megawra – The Built Environment Collective and inspired by Hassan Fathy’s vision in Architecture for the Poor and Alois Riegl’s “the modern cult of Monuments,” this research redefines what is worth preserving. It argues that the everyday, the lived-in, and the adaptive possess intrinsic cultural value. This thesis proposes an architectural framework that interweaves the informal, historic, and contemporary, envisioning Garbage City not as a relic to conserve but as a living organism to empower, sustain, and evolve.
AI used to summarize to 300 words.
Use of AI Disclaimer
yes
Academic department under which the project should be listed
CACM – Architecture
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Ameen Farooq
Interweaving Cairo’s urban fabric: the Historical, the Informal, and the Contemporary.
Architecture is a continuum, an ongoing dialogue between past, present, and future. It is a conscious act of preservation or erasure, remembrance or forgetting. Through design, we embed histories, needs, and identities into the built environment. Cairo, the palimpsest city, now faces an architectural crisis: the contemporary steadily encroaches upon the heart of the historic. The tabula rasa advances indiscriminately, threatening to erase entire neighborhoods, whether historic or informal, with equal indifference. While the value of preserving Cairo’s historic fabric is widely accepted, an urgent question arises: should we also preserve the informal? Manshiyat Nasser, often known as Garbage City, stands as one of Cairo’s most emblematic informal settlements. Nestled between Islamic Cairo and the modern developments of Mokattam Hill, this neighborhood has, for over five decades, sustained itself through the informal collection and recycling of the city’s waste. The Zabbaleen, its inhabitants, have developed a deeply integrated communal system capable of recycling up to 80% of collected waste, surpassing even global leaders such as Germany. Here, recycling is not only labor but culture, a form of living heritage that embodies resourcefulness and community resilience. Yet this invaluable fabric stands on precarious ground. To its west rises a tourist promenade; to its east, sprawling luxury developments. The forces of erasure press in from both sides. Drawing from the ethos of Megawra – The Built Environment Collective and inspired by Hassan Fathy’s vision in Architecture for the Poor and Alois Riegl’s “the modern cult of Monuments,” this research redefines what is worth preserving. It argues that the everyday, the lived-in, and the adaptive possess intrinsic cultural value. This thesis proposes an architectural framework that interweaves the informal, historic, and contemporary, envisioning Garbage City not as a relic to conserve but as a living organism to empower, sustain, and evolve.
AI used to summarize to 300 words.