Controversy over potential threat to heritage by new business complex

Egypt Daily Star (Jonathan Spollen)

The new Cairo Financial and Tourist Centre (CFTC) in close proximity to the Citadel and Islamic Cairo — whose construction has been halted by Cairo’s Governor, Abdel-Azim Wazir — has become something of a lightning rod in the Egyptian debate over modernization vs. tradition. . . .

Nosseir expects it to be a magnet for international investment, and create thousands of jobs in an area that was once a rock quarry and a garbage dump. “That is my dream,” Nosseir said in an interview with CNN. “It will be the working platform or station for…businesses to attract and let people come in.”

Critics, however, argue that it comes at a cultural price greater than any expected economic gain. Antiquities in Islamic Cairo — a Unesco world heritage site — they say will be damaged by the vibrations from construction work. And within a stone’s
throw from the Citadel, many, not least Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), feel the development is an unwelcome eyesore.

It was Hawass who convinced the governor of Cairo to shut down construction work on the project in July 2006 to allow a Unesco team to inspect the site. The resulting report stated that the center would have a “significant adverse impact on the visual integrity of the Citadel.”

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