Cairo University
Faculty of Engineering
Architecture Department
ARCH 708: Methods of Research in
Architectural History
Final Research
Mugamma El Tahrir
Presented by :
Ragia Ragi
{Mugamma El Tahrir, the monument of outdated
bureaucracy for public service}
The core of the fundamental
principles of urban design is to improve the life of the citizen by
facilitating his needs, which can be implemented by providing the suitable
whereabouts of organizations and utilities, to be reached by the largest number
possible of citizens. That’s how the story of the Mugamma, a centralized
bureaucratic complex began to be in the heart of Cairo’s downtown and to be one
of its monumental important landmarks, but also a significant landmark on the
republic’s level, as it is a building whose frontage facing directly the Tahrir
square, that was used to be occupied with protests and sit-ins since the
revolution of 25th January, and a witness of the public gatherings
and confrontations between the revolutionaries and Mubarak’s security troops in
several political events - also a witness to previous protests in earlier years
, when the country held its first presidential election in 2005 – being that
important , the Mugamma grabbed the attention of government officials, business
men , architects and journalists to put a vision for this huge , excellent
located building, to be invested in re-use plans, which rose public objection
against such ambitions . Although the attempts to re-use or evacuate the
Mugamma failed, but no one seemed to be able to stop the changes that’s been
happening in the interior side of the building, if not architecturally, then
technically and socially, which brings us to the hardships the Egyptian citizen
has to go through when having to go there to get some papers signed and stamped,
it is a great paradox between nowadays situation and the original concept of
the complex.
Starting from the fact of
the scattered institutions, offices and agencies in rented apartments, Mahmoud
Yassin, chairman of the board of the Tahrir complex and Cairo governorate
deputy for the western district, says: “the building originally had two
objectives: to cut down on the government's rental expenses; and to offer citizens
multiple services” [i]So the government gave an order to collect all
offices and agencies in one building , and made a competition for the design of
this complex, in which E.Mohamed Kamal Ismael’s design had won[ii]
So the construction began in 1948 and ended in 1951 .I think the concept of the
Mugamma , was among other upcoming projects – at the time- that paved the way
to the governmental centralization of available services and decision making in
Cairo, anyhow , it seemed to turn out well – in earlier years - achieving the
aim of multi-purpose administrative building which won’t drive the citizens to
go in a multi destination journeys to easily fulfill their quest .
The Mugamma’s design taking
the shape of an arc, took a role of creating the roundabout in the irregular
shape of Tahrir square, which historically had variable shapes of the whole
space depending on the buildings that existed through the urban evolution
surrounding the square. The Mogamma, occupying the place where El
Ismailia palace stood instead[iii], was the result of a
series of master plans for the Qasr El Nile area (now Tahrir Square),
which used to be occupied by the British Barracks In 1947 when King Farouk
ordered the demolition of the barracks upon the departure of British troops
from the area, a series of urban planning proposals ensued[iv] One of the most acceptable
proposals was that of Muhammed Zo El Fakar Beck. In 1947, El Mosawer magazine had Zo El Fakar’s publication about his
plan to redesign Qasr El Nila area , and focused on turning El Ismailia square
into the cultural and political center of the city. That vision could be
interpreted in collecting the administrative buildings of different ministries
and governmental organizations, number of museums, and a collection of memorials
of the royal family surrounded with vast green areas. The proposal included, furthermore, replacing
the British Barracks with a new parliament –like the United States capitol. The
plan was so great that it could’ve pushed Egypt into a remarkable civilization
progress, but the Noqrashi’s government was too busy dealing with certain
crises, such as the beginnings of 1948 war, that nothing from the plan was ever
implemented in Qasr El Nile except for some open areas and the administrative
complex ( ElMugamma ) which was the first of its kind in the East3
Contrary to popular
belief, there is no Soviet association or inspiration and the building was not
produced by the Nasser regime. Three years after the building's completion,
Nasser became president in 1954 and the building was thus associated with his
era and the new regime4
Perhaps this belief was also because of the way
El Mugamma is designed, resembling the designs that was common in cities that
were under the Soviet union influence – like East Berlin - that held a campaign
against formalism and western modernism, but in fact, E. Mohamed Kamal Ismael, an
Egyptian modernist architect, was the one behind the structure and form of El Mugamma, The building's style
reflects typical 1940s modernism, and government buildings in the same style
can be found in New York (Buffalo, New York City Hall) and Paris 4 Some reporters have written about El Mugamma as
a hulk building that miss the aesthetic touch, but maybe they don’t see the
whole vision of this complex’s structure; The external appearance was not of main
importance but rather, the structure focuses on central organization and
maximization of space. The appearance of the building is plain yet intimidating
in its colossal size4
An opening
statement for an article in a foreign newspaper ‘Reading Eagle’ says:
If buildings could talk, the Mugamma, downtown Cairo’s hulking government
office complex would say ,” come back tomorrow” with a sneer[v]
Seems like the writer of the article knew quite enough
about the common situation, nowadays, that the Egyptian citizen most likely
finds himself in when having to go to the Mugamma. Many stories and articles
had portrayed the building as a ‘bastion of bureaucracy’ that can drive the
citizen to mutter curses after being done with his papers, after waiting in its
corridors among the crowds and dusty disks , or in a long queue - maybe for
hours - and go like a pendulum from window to window, not forgetting to mention
– from a personal experience – the purposely stalling of some employees, won’t
give an earlier date of delivering the finished paperwork, unless they get a
personal fee for their ‘effort’. It has been like this since now it is
home to 14 government departments, and houses 1,365 rooms with some 18,000
employees, and receives an average of 25,000 visitors a day1 Mahmoud Yassin, chairman of the board
of the Tahrir complex, says “The complex was intended for
4,000 employees only." 1
Since there
isn’t enough material to specifically explain the changes happened to the
internal physical degradation of the halls that were once clean, corridors,
courts, and offices, or the reason behind the transformation of the Egyptian
generous employees to stalling, frustrating ones, perhaps the Egyptian cinema
can explain a bit about the social decaying mixed with the complexity of
bureaucracy which takes place in the Mugamma. Al-Irhab Wal Kebab movie
(Terrorism and Kebab), is the best known and best teller of the social crises
facing governmental bureaucracy; Ahmed, a conformist
father-of-two who works two jobs, wants to move his children to a school closer
to home. He goes to el-Mugamma (…) Ahmed is shuffled willy-nilly from office to
office, documents in hand. Frustrated, he attacks a bureaucrat who is devoting
more time to his prayers than to his job. Police arrive, a gun ends up in Ahmed's
hands, and things rapidly heat up[vi]
when asked about his demands, Ahmed
couldn’t help but think spontaneously of his needs , The terrorists-Ahmed and newly joined members- issue
a list of demands - better shish kebab, better health facilities, better
schools and, finally, the resignation of the government (…)
almost everyone in Egypt - army, government, bureaucracy, judiciary, rich, poor
- is involved in an elaborate game whose function is to stop change at all
costs. Or, as Ahmed puts it, "nothing is allowed to happen". At the
end, a reporter asks what the terrorist looks like. "Like any one of us,"
is the reply 6
Although El
Mugamma turns out to be one of the unpleasant symbols of the ‘immobile Egypt’ of today, its employees and citizens
still hold on to it, refusing the idea of ‘forsaking’ it to the multiple
attempts of the government, businessmen and architects -that were accused of
being opportunists- through earlier years and so far . Now, thanks to a new breed of technocrats, dreaming
of internet-era efficiency, the building’s days are numbered 5 That could be the first threat against the Mugamma and its
employees, now with the complaints of some people about the inefficiency of the
workers, and the delays of finishing the paperwork, technology might just solve
all this, even might save time and effort for citizens living in other cities,
rather than being forced to travel to Cairo for a central national service. The Mogamma is believed to have
created and contributed to the enormous amount of congestion in Tahrir Square
and will thus be included in the move to the desert area in the Fifth Settlement, following in the footsteps of the American University in Cairo 4 That claim corresponded to the attempts of the evacuation of
the complex for better economical investment and better urban environment, and
backed up with the ‘ Cairo Vision 2020’ which included the study of the
potential of reusing the Mugamma as a touristic facility, and that in the
context of the state’s plan to distribute the governmental institutions outside
the heart of Cairo. However,
the fate of the Mogamma building remains uncertain for many reasons. First, the
inconvenience this move will pose for hundreds of people is immense. Second,
the move would require added benefits for government employees to reimburse
them for the longer travel and to keep them working there. Third, architects
who oppose the move claim that the downtown area used to be beautiful and is
now in need of making it valuable again by creating parks and gardens, and
possibly renovating the building 4 concerning the last point about
architects opposing the move claim, and the related scheme of re-using the
building as a five-stars hotel after redesigning the elevation- rumors had it also that one of the former officials of
the National Democratic Party, before dissolution, wanted to buy it- I find a good opinion, which I would like to add, discussing
the Mugamma as a work of a late fellow architect (E. Mohamed Kamal
Ismael, the designer of Dar El Qadaa Al Ali court , and the expansion of both
El Masjed El Haram, and El Masjed El Nabawi ):
Who said it is possible for an
architect, after 60 years or more, to have the right to obliterate the work of
another architect who could have been more professional than the first? who
said that architecture means change of tastes? If this logic is taken, don’t
blame those narrow minded when they say that one of Khedival Cairo’s buildings
are ugly shaped (…) and that it doesn’t represent the Egyptian ‘identity’, so
changing the design of the frontage is a must. Where is the professional ethics
when an architect offers a proposal of transforming a public administrative building
that serves thousands of citizens to a private hotel that serves the elite and
high class members? 2
So
respecting a work which is done by a late architect is very important,
considering it a part of the city’s history. It even became globally recognized
after the world’s witnessed the latest Egyptian revolution in Tahrir square
through media, bonding the gathering of the people to the Mugamma as one of the
symbolic catalysts, that drove them to revolt against the Egyptian concept of
complicated bureaucracy and demand of restructuring the policies and ideologies
of the state. Mocking the contradiction between the El Mugamma’s original
concept to ease the citizen’s life and what it resembles now of unreasonable
procedures, could be easy, but what should be taken seriously is to reconsider
El Mugamma as a place for the public needs, whatever function it should do, as
long as it doesn’t work as an obstacle to the citizen, or contradict his needs,
then it is not going to be efficient within any future vision.
Weekly Ahram newspaper
,Amira El-Noshokaty’s ‘ A
resilient complex ‘ report on the impending scattering of Cairo's oldest
multi-purpose state building
Cairobserver article ‘This
is not architecture –عمارة القشورة و الهندسة الانتهازية‘translated
into English by the researcher.
Article ‘ قصة ميدان التحرير وثائقى بالصور لتطورة عبر العصور
وكيف تطور تخطيطه واسماؤه ‘ translated into English by the researcher .
Wikipedia article
[v]http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=D2QxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aqMFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1312,4653288&dq=terrorism-and-kebab&hl=en
Washignton post :
9 october 2005, newspaper citing : Reading Eagle newspaper
Article :What Egyptian cinema can teach us
