The Architecture of the City of Cairo Between Tradition and Modernity in the Azbakeya Park

The origins of Azbakeya (أزب ك ية ) date back to the period of the Fatimid caliphate, passing through the Mamluks until it assumed the connotations of a place of recreation in the fifteenth century with the excavation of the homonymous lake fed by the western channel of the Al-Nasir. In 1798 Azbakeya was still a large body of water and only in the second half of the 1900s following its burial will it be redesigned as an octagonal French garden. The story of the Azabkeya Park reaches up to the present day becoming a project site for the students of the architectural design laboratory engaged in the conception of a Book Market Hall. In fact, the research aims to analyze the works carried out during the winter semester at the German University in Cairo (GUC) both from a methodological point of view and in terms of a critical reflection on the project. A reflection on the teaching of a way of confronting the art of building in a context, that of Cairo, full of significant elements, but at the same time critical of the reading of the city, of the references and how to make them significant in designing the artefact. The new Book Market Hall arises from the need to redefine the identity of a place distorted by the construction of the underground line below in an attempt to give new shape, through the project, to a part of the city excluded at this moment from its life and with a market of the used book relegated to the edge of the park. However, Azbakeya still represents an element of natural transition between the urban fabric of the Islamic city to the east side and the Haussmannian plan of Downtown to the west side. But what design strategy can lead the interrupted discourse towards a new architecture of the city? The answer is in his knowledge or in the study of reality along the still visible layers of history. 23 groups of 2, 3 and 4 students initially worked on reading the historical, morphological and typological context and then proceeded with the identification of case studies appropriate to the theme before proceeding with the composition process. The book market, therefore, becomes the pretext for transmitting to students a design strategy capable of leading to a new existence, the Book Market Hall which is the prelude to a possible pre-existence for the future developments of the city.