Between Order and Modernity

Introduction

When inaugurated in the late nineteenth century, the Eiffel Tower celebrated the centennial of the French Revolution and gradually turned into a global cultural icon. The Cairo Tower, constructed in 1961, similarly held a narrative of success. The freestanding concrete tower, imitating styles of the pharaonic antiquity, was designed to become a masterpiece landmark of structural excellence to celebrate the rise of the new republic under Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rule. Following the Free Officers revolution in 1952, and proclaiming Egypt’s independence, the tower’s completion was a matter of civic pride to “express defiance of foreign influence in Egypt.” ¹ Writers claimed that its construction was a game of restoring the balance in Egyptian-American politics, but this remains in question till this day. ² The modern tower that stood in the heart of Cairo provided endless sights of the city’s modern and historical districts. ³ It complemented a series of recently constructed buildings in nearby downtown Cairo, for example, the Nile Hilton Hotel, the Arab League building, and the Socialist Union Headquarters, that played an auguring role in the development of popular opinion and national identity. ⁴ These buildings were a highlight of the modern urbanism envisioned to articulate a distinctive phase of the new Egypt, as Nasser dreamt of and manifested in his thoughts and writings (Figure 1). ⁵

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Figure 1.

The Cairo Tower constructed in 1961.

Historians of this period have mutually depicted the intertwined planning ambitions in nineteenth-century European cities as compounded with politics for reshaping their cities. ⁶ This phase of politicized urbanism is evident. ⁷ Outcomes of the city urbanism were products of endless debate and compromises, which represented an anxious union between political powers, private gain, and public good. ⁸ Master plans, in their graphical forms, reveal the prevailing ideologies of regimes they sustain. ⁹ Paris, for example, was planned in an exclusive spatial model, “which remains after Haussmann and the fall of the Empire a conditioned town planning approach.” ¹⁰ On the other hand, the prosperity of postcolonial cities was less discussed in scholarly writings, probably for its disappointing outcomes. ¹¹ Critics have been heaping scorn upon plans that only documented phases of capitalism and the exploitation of the people. ¹² Contemporary academic commentary has resuscitated the query stemming from the paradox of urban modernity; how it set targets and instrumental actions in reshaping urban spaces with relatively coherent goals of political stability, spatial order, the will to improve the city, and primarily the question of how governmental interventions have been indoctrinated, opposed, hybridized or ignored.

Following the revolution, Cairo’s resurgence was shaped by the shift from the colonial past towards a future exposed to the outer world. For Nasser, the past was summarily sacrificed to justify the revolution’s success. From one perspective, urban planning was a representative document of the course of a new spatial discourse practiced under Nasser’s socialist government. The government, predominantly led by his loyal officers, expanded its sphere of activity in the organization of space to counter the effect of economic and demographic forces. ¹³ During that period, the government continued to draw migrants into Cairo to contribute to its industrial development and modern commerce. This led to the population increasing from 267,000 people in 1947 to 350,000 in 1960. Many of the new residents settled in informal housing in the inner parts of the city lacking basic infrastructure. ¹⁴ Several social housing blocks were constructed in vibrant locations to absorb the growth, which soon caused its own problems. The projects in most cases ignored the social and physical contexts, thus impacting overpopulation and unregulated mixed-use spaces.

Both trends to modernize Cairo’s urbanism and organize its urban growth were the vehicles feeding Nasser’s progress visions during his presidency. Driven by ambition, the reception of master plans drafted to modernize Cairo’s old districts operated under limited appreciation. The schemes were received as aggressive acts of urban change that overlooked fundamental principles of urban regeneration and to replace low-class communities. One indication is that their implementation was overlooked, despite that planning ideas were practiced under further scrutiny of application that included stabilizing the apparatus of the machines, and the formal bodies and systems needed to establish urban change. This paper aims to investigate Nasser’s ambitions to transform Cairo’s urban form under ideas of spatial modernization and resurgence. The argument proffered is that Nasser’s socialist visions for creating a reformed state relied on typical models of modern urbanism that proved unsuitable for the older districts of Cairo. The paper will explain how modernization attempts, under Nasser’s rule, were translated into superficial actions, legislations, and practices in the sense of the supersession of the modernization conceptions that was not only informed by the districts’ urban problems but at the same time was thought to reflect a willingness to engage the city in a modern resurgence of distant splendor. This should not reflect on criticizing the outcome as the justification of the process, but the chronicling of visions that informed resurgence planning at that time. It looks at how the process of imposing an imaginary superficial modernity became attuned the inherited spatial traditions of these districts to anticipate satisfactory outcomes and to define modernized urban spaces.

For this, when tackling issues of urban planning in Cairo, it is only appropriate to touch upon the complex practices of the planning institution as the main driver of the discipline. The Cairo Governorate, which initiated all planning endeavors under Nasser, thus becomes a reasonable showcase. The paper entails an interdisciplinary approach to investigate these practices, relying widely on key literature and firsthand resources. Fortunately, limited drawings and visual materials still survive in the Governorate archives, while all planning acts were regularly published in the Egyptian Gazette and provided a continual record of the live accounts of planning in Cairo. Significant scholars who researched Cairo with critical accounts of this period were rich resources and are repeatedly cited, such as Janet Abu-Lughod, Nasser Rabbat, Max Rodenbeck, Nezar alSayyad, and others. Each section of this paper responds to a subsequent layer of the discussion, initially through contextualizing ideas of the city modernizing that was captured under colonization for decades, and therefore it highlights how Nasser’s modernization visions recalled global ideas to transform Cairo. The discussion then moves to assess the planning institution actions, planning legislations, and building control and procedures, which reveal the credibility of ideas of modernity: how were they employed and thought to be spatialized? The final section explains how the planning institution performance and outcomes were artificial and ill-defined and struggled to proceed with modernizing the city’s older districts.

The Urbanism of Liberation, Order, and Modernization

Urbanism is itself political. . . . The city must be considered a functional element of the nation ¹⁵ .

The relationship between state politics and the built environment is blurred. Physical structures of the public realm had been constantly shaped by political powers and systems of governance. ¹⁶ Literature on colonial urbanism emphasized that its authoritative contexts of political powers ¹⁷ tend to attain urban order and disciplined solidarity of social engineering by the imposition of master plans. ¹⁸ Historians argue that planned districts and model housing were territorial mechanisms designed to represent the legitimacy of their empires, ¹⁹ as spatial displays of the geographical imagination of colonialism. ²⁰ With limited exceptions, the colonial city portrayed the image of a dual city: one section represents the city’s native places and ignored districts; while the other composed quarantined, delicately planned areas featuring European architecture and urbanism.

As liberation recalled ideas of national identity and socialism, not surprisingly, re-planning those cities followed similar lines of urban intervention associated with regimes sharing a highly centralized structure of power. ²¹ The legacy of previous colonial control necessitated a break with the old political order to proclaim the transformation of all spheres of life, including the public realm. Under the rising call for modernization and urban order, grand Haussmann-style boulevards replaced the authentic urban fabric of many cities with the display of strong visual structures of buildings, squares, and streets as symbol of authority, supremacy, and discipline. In the 1920s, for example, Rome and its history had been engaged in celebrating a modern, dynamic, and progressive capital worthy of its new leader. ²² Buildings that displayed power are still visible around that city and would have been even more widespread had the Fascist regime lasted longer. A further personified mentality for planning Moscow following the revolution of 1917 was evident in the architecture of the time, many examples of which would later be judged “not by what was actually built, but on what they were not allowed to include.” ²³

One view is that the urban experience has been greatly misused with the premeditated integration of planning practices into rigidly choreographed reform operations, ²⁴ where the focus on the image ignored local social matters to the extent that visions for change remained unchanged from preceding practices. ²⁵ A central role in the enforcement of political control was sustained often under the pretext of national Western styles. ²⁶ On one hand, this phase of urbanity did not necessarily display successful outcomes, and failed to resolve conflicts that plagued the original urban fabric of those settlements. ²⁷ Conflict reached the level that governments were sometimes “forced to use the terms of the existing order, with all its baggage of physical realities and ideological constructs” in order to achieve this new stage of sovereignty, ²⁸ where ideas of standardization, segregation, and neglect remain common practices. ²⁹ Being obsessed with modernity destined imitating Western models of urban development as the ultimate reference, ³⁰ in anticipation of subverting not only the physical products of their occupation but also the individual occupant’s memories. ³¹

Planning Cairo during Nasser’s regime was not an isolated effort to modernize the nation. This period, to a certain extent, remains for all Egyptians a genuine association with Muhammad ‘Ali’s modernization project during the nineteenth century. The latter was described as the “founder of modern Egypt” ³² and the former known as the “booster of modernisation.” ³³ Both leaders commonly engineered visions that pulled out Egypt from its shadowed ages of traditionalism, both establishing a strong industrialization base and determination of reviving the city’s built environment. However, Nasser went far beyond those of ‘Ali, with an intention to create a secular Arab nationalism in the Middle East to unite all Arab nations. ³⁴ The years of his rule recorded new social reform policies and remarkable structural change for advancing reorganization in his socialist state. ³⁵ Part was to write a modern planning constitution of urban development that would manage restructuring Egypt’s builtscape after the British occupation withdrawal. ³⁶ Essential to this vision was the physical appearance of modern buildings and planned districts that visualize the ideals into everyday experience particularly visible through the new government. Projects for an independent national economy required new governance bodies to head progressive policies and oversee implementation. ³⁷ Grand projects such as the Aswan High Dam, national buildings and bridges, and social housing were all constructive initiatives to materialize the striving for such ambitions.

The location of Cairo as the metropolitan center of the new state led Nasser to grant strategic locations in its central heart, to prove that Egypt was moving away from its past. The gigantic Mogamma complex was the first building associated with Egypt’s liberation inaugurated in the southwest corner of Isamiliyya Square, later renamed the Tahrir Square after the revolution. ³⁸ Not surprisingly, the regime associated the square with memories of colonization, since British troops had taken over the Qasr al-Nil barracks as part of their conquest of the country in 1882. According to Nasser Rabbat, the square “evolved to reflect the changing political ideology of the government after the revolution,” as the name was no more than a reference to the revolution’s success in terminating the British occupation and hence liberating Egypt. ³⁹ Year after year, the Tahrir zone became filled with modern buildings that commonly shared similar lines of the national style architecture, in which the Cairo Tower was no exception (Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Map of Greater Cairo region, 2003.

Modernizing Cairo also encapsulated methods of social engineering and disciplined solidarity. Nasser represented an Egyptian effort to implant “scientific socialist planning . . . and . . . an extremely structured environment.” ⁴⁰ On the planning front, modernization envisaged features of classical planning that carefully displayed linear streets and organized living. New districts in Cairo with sliced grids of wide streets and building blocks emulated modern urbanism ideals, such as Sahafeyyen (the journalists’ quarter), Mohandseen (the engineers’ quarter), and Nasr City (the city of victory), all assigned to a particular professional occupation ⁴¹ to set the exemplar life patterns for ordinary Egyptians living in new settlements. ⁴² Also the Tahrir (liberation) province was “a model for the conversion of old lands to modern collective agriculture, which would increase the available land for cultivation.” ⁴³ Planning these districts not only aimed to provide housing capacity to the growing middle-class population ⁴⁴ but also intended to be emblematic of Cairo’s modern era of rational and technocratic planning. ⁴⁵ Nasser was in fact advocating similar developments as the primary solution to curb population growth despite that some projects showed rapid signs of failure in early 1960s, which led Nasser in 1965 to admit in an interview that it was an example of “muddled planning and confused thinking” (Figure 3). ⁴⁶

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Figure 3.

Planning of Nasr City in 1956.

At this stage, it could be argued that planning interventions in Cairo’s public realm since the mid-twentieth century independence followed immensely politicized tones. By using the term “politicized,” the paper reflects on the process of engineering visions and procedures to idealize the planning bodies and planning legislations and ensure commitment in satisfying economic-political goals and also to confirm financial resources for its operation. Nevertheless, such types of plans are not only shaped by the planners’ aesthesis, but also based on cultural and social concerns that act in shaping different objectives and outcomes, which is also considered political. For this, politicized urbanism determines a process that invades the legislations, procedures, and course of implementation. This forms the theoretical and physical trends, which accordingly is translated to schemes that later revealed negative implications to the physical urban fabric. It prioritized the interests of state government over planning ambitions. In addition, political influences can intrude on designs, not only by controlling the process and its priorities, but also by seeking to appropriate the built environment with reference to certain values.

To understand this phase of Cairo’s development, the paper will proceed with a deeper investigation to understand the context of the old districts of Cairo and to shed light on the actual sources of their decline. In the following discussion, I will argue that the political instability since the 1952 revolution led to a confused vision of modernity that brought about further chaos and damage to these areas. Steering Cairo’s urban fabric in the path of industrial urbanism, moreover, confronted the city’s traditional structures with accommodating large factories and houses for workers. In particular, problems with the newly introduced legislative planning system were compounded by delayed response from the Governorate, which resulted in areas falling into a continuous state of decline. ⁴⁷

The Proliferation of Disorder in Cairo’s Urban Fabric

The traditional and old districts of Cairo are places where memories of the past could be found and where layers of spatial transformations over centuries have left their imprints on living patterns and local customs. ⁴⁸ History and sociological researchers have described these districts as discrete entities, characterized by clear physical boundaries, narrow and tight alleyways, which constituted the primary urban units of Islamic Cairo. ⁴⁹ A glued compact tissue of low-rise houses and buildings dominate the alleyways and define its spatial structure. For centuries, Cairo’s Islamic core was a well-established metropolitan center that represented all sections of society with discrete and authentic character until the late nineteenth century. It was then greatly hit by the state’s neglect following the Khedive Ismail’s plans for introducing new European districts in Cairo. Over the first half of the twentieth century, and following decades of migration waves from the abandoned countryside in search of secured and regular wages in the capital, a lower-class population with unregulated commercial activities characterized the alleyways’ urban life. ⁵⁰ The population increase and lack of maintenance also had a crucial impact on the proliferation of decline in these old districts, which led to their being collectively characterized as impoverished areas.

The old districts’ decline reached a precipitate stage following the Suez crisis in 1956, which forced immediate migration to Cairo. A second wave occurred following Nasser’s industrialization venture initiated in the same year. Districts such as Sayyda Zainab, close to the industrial poles, soon became filled with workers, pushing out middle-class residents, who left for newer districts, such as Mohandseen and Dokki, located in the western and northern sections of Cairo. The authentic districts absorbed massive numbers of these migrants, who remain until today, not far from Tahrir Square. They initiated a considerable amount of industrial activity, causing additional disruption to street patterns and land uses. In a total absence of adherence to building regulations, new constructions combined shops and warehouses with historical or religious buildings in complex and mixed-use structures. Indeed, the image of decline was framed starkly against Nasser’s plans to modernize the country (Figure 4).

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Figure 4.

Timber workshops in one of Cairo’s old quarters mixed with other types of housing and religious land uses.

Nasser’s rigor to increase the spread of his socialist agenda was not limited to developing new locations, but also focused on improving inner sectors of the inhabited city. The problem was much more sophisticated than it appeared, and restoration required professional action. In the early 1960s, several meetings were arranged by the 6th Committee (lagnat al-Sitta) at the Governorate to discuss upgrading possibilities and the importance of making significant changes to the urban settings. ⁵¹ The aim was to employ a studied strategy to assist two hundred thousand people living in crowded dwellings that were basically concentrated in Sayyda Zainab and Misr al-Qadima. It was also denoted that the increasing decline had condemned the residents to very poor living conditions that affected their assets and habits in a way that could never be resolved. A social researcher survey conducted in one of the districts stated that

in haret ( alleyway) Muhammad ‘Ali in Bulaq . . . in an apartment of two rooms lived Moaoud abu al-Magd’s family, a worker at the rail station. The family is composed of nine persons, their monthly income does not exceed nine pounds, their home was never supplied with electricity so they rely on gas bulbs for night lighting and they are dependent on water peddlers for water supply. Also, they never visit the doctor as they rely on cheap traditional prescriptions; the street is their only chance to learn their attitudes and habits, and finally, educating a girl is an unforgivable iniquity. ⁵²

The challenge in Cairo was not easy and required a critical long-term improvement strategy. Nasser realized that boosting modern urbanism required a solid system of planning institutions capable of managing and carrying out long-term plans through direct intervention and, somehow, forceful action. The materialization of plans required the influence of proper legislative mechanisms through a new perspective of a reality juncture and modern authenticity of modernization. Indeed, such ambitions continue to the present day, with a persistent focus on restructuring Cairo’s physical settings. However, this paper limits its exploration to the period of Nasser’s years of politically driven planning, during which early hopes for developing Cairo’s urbanism were significant footsteps to establish this new context of reality: by formalizing an agency of change with a dominant ideology in the new administrative and governance structure and by establishing the apparatus that is the substance of practical procedures to realize a modern image of the city. The numerous conditions that contributed to the destruction of the old districts had reached a level that obliged Nasser’s government to pay significant attention to it, in light of the previous lack of prioritization.

Planning Cairo’s Districts: Ambitions of Modernity

In the wake of the revolution, long-established centers of power and the dominance of certain institutions typified the political scene. By 1952, while Cairo was managed by a strong system of central government, municipal control was largely ineffective. Four years later, Nasser subjugated his political opponents, while initial signs of control became visible and paved the way for his anticipated change and display of modern society. ⁵³ He believed that gradual action would support the government’s initiative to implement institutional and ideological change. Hence, the positive path to modernize Egypt, in his view, inevitably necessitated establishment of a body of institutions to take responsibility for rendering his vision a reality.

Following the overhaul of the colonial era institutions, and despite their conservative methods of municipal implementation, Nasser recruited ex-officers in high-rank administrative positions to support introduction of reform in national institutions. This was a substantial challenge for these military personnel, whose experience and abilities in governing a nation were rather limited. ⁵⁴ Major figures in the military were explicit about inaugurating grand projects to communicate the revolution’s visions, with some having “a unique ability to dream, to deliver and to visualize these dreams.” ⁵⁵ An enthusiasm that grasped Nasser’s passion to exert a meaningful influence on changing the urban experience, as part of the revolution’s success, and had a significant role in outlining building legislation acts that followed.

Building legislation had frequently been introduced to assume control over the built environment in both the short and long term. They were anticipated to provide more clarity for the planning authorities in steering modernization, whether during the Muhammad ‘Ali, Ismail Pasha, or Nasser’s era. During post-1952, Cairo’s spatial appearance focused on regulating streets and building forms, including size, height, style, and character, which in effect constituted the characteristics of the visual quality of outdoor spaces. In retrospect, Law 51/1940, for example, was an early legislation to regulate on building construction within residential blocks/areas. ⁵⁶ While governing building heights was an attempt to permit the proper amount of daylight and ventilation to access buildings and public streets, it formed an effective method of controlling the floor area ratio, the road network and public infrastructure and services. But the law did not list any exceptions to this rule or the building height principle, which leads us to assume that it was applicable to all sections of the city as it “was prohibited to build or modify any building unless it followed the mandatory rules listed in the building act.” ⁵⁷

Further formalization of modernization visions occurred in 1954 when the planning institution issued Law 656/1954 to address what seemed to be inadequate implementation of previous acts. Supplementary articles appeared to chiefly authorize and reinforce involvement of the Governorate regarding new developments, such as the rapid increase in private car ownership. ⁵⁸ For example, one article stressed that “no administrative body is allowed to intervene or impose specific regulations in certain areas, such as land use, building style, colours or materials that affect the visual appearance of buildings.” ⁵⁹ Other clauses set requirements for building setbacks and obligated owners to supply parking spaces in accordance with the buildings’ average level of occupancy. Moreover, regulations that governed street network (width and overlooking building heights) in the older sections of Cairo were prioritized over a more comprehensive approach. This proved problematic in terms of regulating a standard system for building heights. Even though previous regulations controlled building heights in mathematical relationship to street width, contradicting laws could yet be detected. Law 656/1954, in contrast, allowed flexibility through the potential for building height to be extended within a method of recessed blocks to add additional floors and authorizing for different scenarios and situations that in fact supported inaugurating high-rise buildings in Cairo for the first time (Figure 5). ⁶⁰

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Figure 5.

The imaginary plane for building heights. Left: the method of the imaginary plane for extra building heights. Right: The resulting quality of central areas in Cairo, implemented according to Law 656/1954, and what followed.

Apparently, the construction of economic housing units adjacent to the residents’ workplaces was a common theme delivered by the Governorate officials, but strikingly, the units were built in saturated districts close to industrial poles. That said, there was a tendency to create uniform images of living, which reflected an unmistakable ideology of politicized socialism and would vitally support anticipated visions of nation building. Improving spatial settings was nothing to do with gaining the satisfaction of the users of these spaces. Rather, the urge to eradicate visible signs of deterioration or select certain areas for development was, in principle, due to the centralized drive to upgrade spatial settings for developing economic activities and attracting investment. In a number of situations, people resisted such action, fearing the permanent loss of their properties, part-houses, or even privileges in the local context as a consequence of such urban improvement plans or expropriation decisions.

While private companies were regarded as feasible instruments for boosting modernization alongside public planning bodies, their influence was minimal and strictly controlled. Following the Suez Canal nationalization in 1956, the majority of these companies and developers were nationalized and came under the direct control of larger public sector and cooperatives organizations. ⁶¹ Only under this umbrella did they become involved in the arena of housing supply and participate in the general development policies. However, conflict over authority between the municipality of Rural Affairs, the municipal body of that time, and private organizations proliferated, particularly as the housing shortage in Cairo became more acute when census reports showed that forty thousand buildings in Cairo were in a dilapidated state. By introducing new programs of upgrading and slum clearance, as stated above, different government agencies and suppliers got involved in housing developments. Nevertheless, the cooperative institutions favored the construction of middle- and high-income housing projects in order to gain higher profits, while low-income housing was in fact left in the hands of the Governorate, with its limited budget and lack of management.

The Agency of Awareness and Response

The 1966 planning scheme of Cairo had the double intent of sticking the bits of the city together again and of preventing a bigger catastrophe. ⁶²

The establishment of the Governorate structure marked a new era for spatial development in Egypt, mainly through government recognition of the destructive impact of industrialization. This awareness held an enthusiastic attitudes towards urban renewal as merely surface solutions to deeper problems, particularly when major tragedies in Cairo’s infrastructure emerged. One incident transpired prior to the revolution on 26 January 1952, when fire blazed through the streets of Cairo downtown, affecting cinemas, bars, shops, hotels, and clubs. Many houses had to be evacuated and four hundred buildings were destroyed. ⁶³ Due to the extent of the damage, repairs took a long time, with efforts being focused on the central section and main roads. Apparently, the mission was only partially accomplished, as, for example, houses were either not repaired or were superficially cleaned up on the outside. ⁶⁴

Instant measures to implement the modernity visions were under way shortly after the new system was in place. With the official establishment of the Governorate in the early 1960s, a phase of awareness toward the quality of the built environment resulted in a cohesive mechanism of design control for building regulations to follow. ⁶⁵ The institution’s response, however, was dictated by the perceived modern practice of modular designs and mass housing projects. The vernacular urban fabric of the old city was seen as images of the past that must give way to the future. This response was also marked by the introduction of an impressive body of laws and regulation, which were enacted to respond to all aspects of urban development, from land subdivision to master planning, building codes, and infrastructure. ⁶⁶ The regulations were intended to introduce some control over quality of design in the broader development plans of the city. Although previous planning guidance drew heavily on similar issues, Law 45/1962 was introduced to foster particular obligations over built spaces in Cairo. The introductory statement of the explanatory note stated that

It is evident that law 656/1954 had failed to cope with the modernization of the city’s administrative systems which requires further simplification of several procedures. It was also noticeable that all engineering and technical building regulations listed in the previous law, and which are basic requirements of any buildings, are not compatible with the modern development of architectural and planning trends of the city of Cairo. This lack had caused an imbalanced contrast of visual and physical characteristics in different areas of the state which requires urgent consideration and action. ⁶⁷

The first six articles focused on administrative matters regarding the process of issuing building permits and the circumstances for their approval. The limitations became apparent in article (10), which acknowledged the failure to adhere to standard building regulations and the lack of public utilities. The act was developed to tackle the problems of the many buildings in old districts that were illegally constructed, but its implementation proved, in the long term, to be impractical. The deprived context and lack of infrastructure and access to public utilities not only had damagingly affected local public health, but also had a remarkable impact on the built space quality. Moreover, problems of failing infrastructure and high population put these areas in urgent need of spatial improvement, particularly as acts in Law 45/1962 emphasized instant actions of urban resurgence by opening new streets or regulating existing ones. Many illegal structures, which stand evident until today, such as temporary and shelter houses, had never been supplied with public services such as sanitation, water supply, and electricity. From the mid-1960s, the Governorate initiated upgrading schemes to offer “expedient solutions to the chaos found in these districts.” ⁶⁸ Namely, the Cairo Renewal Project aimed to build twenty-two new districts in the Greater Cairo Region and to combine ten thousand economic housing units into 245 large buildings of different types of apartments. ⁶⁹ Residents of several of these areas were informed of the plan to displace them from zones approved for clearance, demolition, and re-planning. ⁷⁰ Schemes displayed the design and amendments of street paths as common features, without being specific about the exact space that would be added to street width, or how these amendments would affect building heights. This was, in fact, part of a silent government plan to displace lower-class population from central urban districts to the periphery of the city. The Governorate, after denying them access to public services, designated these sites for development and issued decrees for urban clearance and the local popualtion relocation.

The Governorate’s unconvincing attitude led to negative reactions from the residents, particularly in those controversial clearance situations. Recorded accounts of the residents showed a clear frustration and deliberate resistance. The outcomes of a social study conducted in 1962 to investigate the practicality of the displacement plans revealed further obstacles to the implementation of the renewal projects based on the new acts. ⁷¹ On one hand, frustrated accounts of those relocated to the peripheral Tahrir province, for example, emotionally fuelled the residents with fears of ending up living in desert lands. ⁷² The majority, mainly migrants who did not usually abide by the law, refused to abandon their homes, and were prepared to carry on living in these districts while facing daily problems of water and electricity shortages. ⁷³ On the other hand, officials’ dismissive perceptions of the rural culture and entrenched attitudes among the residents had impacted relocation decisions, leading to confrontation and forceful behaviour. ⁷⁴ This was largely perceived as an indication of hidden plans for permanent and large-scale relocation of vulnerable groups and their workplaces to the city outskirts, with no possibility of return. This legacy of distrust and suspicion of hidden intentions between the people and the state has demarcated the urban scene in the city until this day. No matter whether the original cause of the problem was the low-income groups or the lack of proper housing and living conditions, these ineffective and dubious governance practices not only affected the state’s resurgence ambitions but stood against its authority to change the face of Cairo. It became apparent that the implicit intention to captivate the dream image of the clean and prosperous modern city to Nasser’s satisfaction was the ultimate goal of the government, if not its only mission (Figure 6).

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Figure 6.

Bold lines show the cutting through 50-metre street proposed for the district of Bulaq.

Perhaps the reality of the intentions behind these actions is better understood through the detailed action plan that fell short of any sense of practicality. Since the vision for clearance was revealed only through the press, no alternative plans for compensation or relocation were offered to the residents. Although officials revealed that these schemes were drafted mainly to regulate streets, an undisclosed deal for state-led development with the nationalized private sector was partially agreed; investment grounds in such locations were assured. Yet private investors were wary of investing in projects on occupied urban lands, which seemed quite risky and expensive, and required substantial funding towards any fixation procedures. This resulted in further problems, and the old districts remained in a state of decline for many years to follow. Despite the lack of authentic identity, the outcomes of planning attempts in Cairo were relatively successful and harmless in the development of new areas on the outskirts of the capital but had devastating effects on the more complex and problematic districts, which needed a more comprehensive and regulated process to deal with multifaceted problems beyond the physical characteristics; and the realization of such a task was largely beyond the cognition of the system in place.

The Artificial Display of Abstract Modernization

Henry Sanoff argues that the quality of the public realm is structured according to our perceptions of the daily life, social performance, activities, and interaction attitudes of the urban space users. These perceptions develop in accordance with the values people attribute to their lived spaces, which in return enhance the meaning of the space. ⁷⁵ The visual quality and the meaning and values of the lived space maintain a reciprocal process of integration and mutual influence, in which each contributes to and influences the development of the other. While planners and planning institutions in Egypt tended to promptly apply measured assessments to evaluate the built environment, it emerges that what constituted a successful plan for the past was no longer acceptable for the present, and what was minimalist and poor in quality has become appreciated and has retained eventual valuable meaning. ⁷⁶ For example, wide streets and high-rise buildings were formerly seen as unsafe places and disconnected from active social life in medieval Cairo; hence, the meaning and values of the latter became associated with poverty and lack of resources and regarded as undesirable. Yet planning ideals represented by wider streets and high-rise buildings later become remarkable indicators of modernized environments.

Such changing perceptions and values fundamentally influenced actions for modernizing Cairo from one era to another including Nasser years. Understanding the shared values and sometimes ambiguous meanings of urban contexts proved essential to determination of the appropriateness and achievement of Cairo’s spatial qualities. Their scope, arguably, needed firmer resloutions and an in-depth examination of the meaning and values people attribute to their urban space experience, and therefore their control through appropriate legislations has always been inevitable. Indeed, legislations have no direct involvement in shaping our values, but are fundamental guides to the process of re-shaping the urban fabric through the managed control of urban transformation from one state to another; from low-rise and dense developments to multistory stretches of urban landscape. While the planner/designer develops visions through a detailed program of actions, legislations provide the legal framework to facilitate its implementation. For this, setting what was thought to be appriopraite legeslations to re-shape some areas in Cairo was considered the principal tool in either ensuring the success of the transformation process or supplying the reason for its failure. ⁷⁷

Builading legislations also tended to facilitate change by formalizing building restrictions on heights and setbacks. Demolition laws, for example, were put in place when it was proved that renewal actions were not viable options in light of the extreme decline and economic necessity. Therefore the implementation of certain measures of legal control becomes subject to its relevance to the process and actions of change. In fact, many of the relatively modern areas in Cairo, built under colonization, such as Cairo downtown, evidently celebrates a distinctive spatial quality that is in a stark contrast to districts in old Cairo, which experienced successive historical layers of urban transformation. It would be almost impossible to spatially maintain each of these areas unless planning regulations acknowledges their habitual and spatial differences or what people regard as their distinctive urban character. Similarly, the attributes of the district of Garden City founded during colonization in the early 1900s, are entirely different from those of Nasr City, for instance. Hence, a unified planning regulation system proved problematic and unjustifiable in various respects. The system should conede the infinite variety of human activity and include renewal and conservation policies, expressed through development plans and under full awareness of the implications of redevelopment.

The planning authorities in Cairo, on their part, struggled to define the actual needs for delivering modernized places, or an overarching strategy for the long-term improvement of the city. The rules and law issued in relation to the development of Cairo lacked any supporting consultation, feedback, or study of the locals’ needs, or what makes their living spaces of certain value. The urban fabric “gradually deteriorated and many historic structures were lost to urban upgrading projects.” ⁷⁸ It could be argued that this derived from the lack of reference to academic studies to investigate, describe, and evaluate the needs. Local planning applications in Egypt, in general terms, do not require any social study or investigation of people’s responses, in stark contrast with counterpart European legislations. Despite the long history of Egyptian planning practices, and their association with Europe, their slow progress in developing a substantial structure of well-informed planning legislation affected the operation of associated urban legislations. It was not until 2009 that planning policies started to incorporate and consider aspects of planning needs and drivers, such as social control, economic growth, and issues relevant to spatial quality. ⁷⁹ Specifically, the need to design policies for its achievement was somehow underestimated in the tradition of re-shaping places in Cairo. As a critical practice of urban design, planners in Cairo needed to expand their scope to plan for quality outcomes and people’s participation in the resurgence process.

The arena of planning legislation, building codes, and their executive regulations introduced during Nasser’s rule was filled with a plethora of complex and overlapping laws and decrees. Laws and building codes approved during the 1970s in Egypt were also questioned in terms of their effectiveness particularly when negative impact on the spatial qualities outcomes was evident. The lack of legal stability of the legislations was apparent to the extent that every failure was followed by a series of ill-thought-out laws that, arguably, lacked the necessary practical basis and enflamed the built environment decline. Later in the 1990s, controlling the quality of these areas was considered, for the first time in Cairo, to be possible through remaking, rather than making: adjustment and enhancement of the existing urban fabric rather than clearance and imposing new physical structures. Despite that modernizing plans for the old districts were barely executed, its upgrading remained part of the reform ambitions as captivated by ideals of socialism and the evident desire for a national character of modernity. Modernization endeavors, however, remained vague and widely impractical, which was one of the flaws of a regime that was “promising a lot and delivering little.” ⁸⁰ The government initially targeted several areas to end problems of informality and overpopulation, specially when “thousands of hectares of farmland were converted into urban areas” and living places became inadequate, as the state propaganda suggested. ⁸¹ Yet, officials consecutively failed to justify reasons behind the lack of moving forward with their plans, which compromised the Egyptians’ confidence in the system.

As explained, under the rising notions of urban order and modernity married with socialist ideals, Western models of urbanism were injected into the authentic fabric of the city. The strong display of visual structures of buildings, squares, and streets was anticipated to signify authority, supremacy, and discipline, and therefore turned into acknowledged models of success. Even for the colonizers during post-liberation periods, a determined pattern for Cairo’s urban development was flagged with living conceptions designed only for the foreign elites. ⁸² Historically, since the mid-nineteenth century, Cairo’s urbanism was mixed with aristocratic and high-standard living developments inaugurated by the protectorates. Districts such as Garden City and Heliopolis flourished in the Cairo cityscape to symbolize the rise of a new type of modern society. In fact, Nasser was circumscribed by his political operations to the degree that the government was in no position to produce any new solutions for the city and moreover, over imported designs and materials that would support this trend (Figure 7). ⁸³

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Figure 7.

Map and Aerial View of the Garden City District in Cairo.

The ongoing decline of Cairo’s older districts reveals elements of unreliability on the part of the planning institution in carrying out a controlled change towards a modern urban reality. For this, the institution was reluctant to undertake upgrading projects. On the other hand, the complex bureaucratic regulatory planning system set up in Egypt by the government and professional planning authorities had become a great obstacle in the remaking process. The more urban planning regulations are approved, the more confrontations with residents emerge, and the less development is achieved. While ending problems of deterioration in Cairo, like other major cities, is a higher priority for the government and planning authority, limited response has hindered the achievement of a rapid solution. The search for a possible way out has revealed the need for a redefinition of the working structure of the institution and its tasks. ⁸⁴ There is an apparent need to justify, control, formalize, and improve the city’s urban quality in general and its spatial quality in particular. However, in the absence of a discrete and unified legislative system to integrate and coordinate aspects of the urban space, physically and socially, these basic objectives will not become a reality.

Conclusion

When Nasser died in 1970, the military largely dominated the vast and complex bureaucratic system and structure that had led Egypt’s political scene for decades. In the early days of the 25 January 2011 revolution, millions of Egyptians took to Tahrir Square to revolt against Hosni Mubarak’s regime and its military roots. Nasser’s Socialist Union building, which later became the National Democratic Party (NDP) headquarters, was set ablaze: an event seen as symbolic of the collapse of the former regime. ⁸⁵ Tahrir Square stirred up memories of freedom and pride, in the search for liberal and democratic systems of good governance, whereas the NDP had long exhibited the opposite values through a corrupt regime and abuse of power. Two and a half years later, and following the struggle between secular parties and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Islamic government to reach consensus on civic democratic institutions, the military re-emerged as power broker and protector of the state. Today it is as clear as ever that Nasser’s strategy of a military-influenced governmental structure has become the main ingredient of state management in Egypt. In Nasser’s days, the square and surrounding buildings mediated symbols of modernization. The contest over power and leadership, between the military’s conservative approach from one side and the revolutionary civilian parties from the other, remains undecided. ⁸⁶

Indeed, Cairo is a different city today than it was at the time of Nasser and the officers’ revolution, not least because of the growing influence of such political implications. While modern Egypt is fashioned with more Islamic traditions, particularly set in the city’s impoverished old districts, yet it has never lost its faith in tolerance and inclusivity, dreams that were endangered during the short-lived MB rule (Figure 8). The paper has elucidated how modernization of Cairo under Nasser’s leadership became a strategic priority to prove that Egypt was moving away from its past. This was evident in the visual appearance of the city, which became, for the first time, characterized by high-rise building, and notions of global international styles of architecture and planning. Whilst the Cairo Governorate remains the powerful planning institution, its system of operations and decision-making has not changed much since Nasser’s time. Throughout all its planning proposals, the people in old districts have been subjected to tremendous pressure from government officials and private developers to abandon their lands and give way to new developments. However, the call for modernity has been replaced by the interest of giant private investment companies in a new-liberal capitalist economy.

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Figure 8.

An Egyptian citizen looking towards the Mugamma Complex located in Tahrir Square built in the early years of the 1952 revolution. Translation: in Black: “I may die before witnessing a better Egypt, but I will not die until I feel that my son will have a better life.” In red: “the revolution is continuing.”

But throughout the current instability in Egyptian politics, under the game of politics, Nasser remains as one of the few to understand that appearance counts for the image of the country and its power. He realized the significance of satisfying the demands of ordinary working-class Egyptians, with strategic focus on instantly materializing what he thought to be fulfilling their needs through grand actions and strict legislations to affirm the nation’s modern image of the capital and its built environment. It is also vital to view the legitimacy of Nasser’s revolutionary rule and practices as based on the nation’s trust in Nasser’s primary institution, the army, as the protector of the state, where modernity in this sense was strictly managed.

This paper aimed to investigate Nasser’s socialist ideologies and channels of development for assembling a new face for Egypt. The Governorate, to a certain extent, relied on fixed legislations and imported ideas of modern urbanism that appeared impractical in re-planning the older districts of Cairo. Indeed, Nasserite Egypt was clearly anchored in his ideologies to represent Egypt as a regional power with various levels of modernity and order. While inherited practices of modernization helped to develop new, remote, and desert areas of the city, it failed to deal with the problems and social complexity of old districts, with profound effects on their developments for decades to follow. Similar to many other nations in the post-colonial era, these attempts reflect the uncompromising power of a solid regime while confirming the struggle to implement a rational administrative structure. The interest was rather superficial. Genuine interest and professional attitude to planning, projects and initiatives in old districts would have helped to achieve defined objectives and goals. Instead, modernity under Nasser was more about rejoicing in visions of resurgence largely seen as superficial and utopian.