The city eternal

By Fayza Hassan
The rich and powerful of times gone by constructed majestic buildings to advertise their might and wealth. They chose the best architects and decorated their edifices lavishly, creating monuments of great beauty. That we should attempt to preserve and restore even the humblest of them is beyond question. That we should learn to do so according to established practices is imperative; and that, so far, we have fallen short of what should be considered our sacred duty is very clear. What is happening, however, belies these simple truths.
Restoration is to this decade what development was to last: the biggest business opportunity around. Many of those who are after a slice of the pie are totally unqualified for the job, but do it anyway. The present situation is confusing, to say the least. The monuments are falling apart and we holler that something should be done at once to save them. Doing nothing is not an option, but who is capable of doing what is necessary? In the absence of a master plan, the work is divided haphazardly and farmed out to contractors who often don't have a clue about monuments' specific needs.
An engineer I was interviewing a few weeks ago sneered when I asked about the sacks of cement piled high in front of a mosque on Al-Mu'izz Street. "A building is a building, and there is one way of repairing it," he said. "Do you think people in the old days fussed like you do? They got their materials any way they could, and set to work. They did not restore -- they rebuilt. When they did not find stones or wood for the work, they took whatever they needed from other monuments. Why are we so picky all of a sudden?"
The man was certainly a fool, but he got me thinking. Should we restore at all, or should we let the mosques, churches and palaces stand for their natural life and then kiss them goodbye? Neglect is sinful, but repairs carried out by one authority are invariably decreed an aberration by another.
A decorator friend was recently making fun of an attempt to refurbish a small area in Old Cairo. "How awful," he said. "Those colours on the old houses: why not let them keep their original patina?"
"It was dirt," I pointed out
"But historical dirt," he retorted. "The place has lost its character, and tourists will not come to look at houses that look like their own."
"The inhabitants are happy," I argued. "Their houses have been fixed, their shops revamped; they like it better this way, they are saying so."
"If this is what they want, they should move to Qattamiya," quipped my friend. "These houses were beautiful the way they were. There should be a law forcing people to keep the character of an historical area intact."
I decided that he had a point. "What about Bulaq?" I asked. "That is different," he answered at once. "Bulaq should be razed and transformed into a garden." Where would the people go? He was not sure, but he thought they should be compensated and encouraged to disappear. He also had a point. Should old neighbourhoods be deserted, or should we attempt to rehabilitate them? Are ruins an authentic expression of the true evolution of a city?
A couple of years ago a group of young European architects came to Cairo to study the city. They had rented an apartment in Daher, where I went to visit them. As I entered a bare living room, I spotted a young man standing on the balcony with his camera. I was curious to know what he was capturing on film. He pointed to a tiny empty plot of land wedged between the buildings, which featured an enormous mountain of garbage, reaching almost to the first floor. The inhabitants of the whole quarter must have been dumping their refuse here for years. "Isn't it beautiful?" he asked. Was he being facetious? I looked at his earnest face and could only conclude that he was dead serious. "What is?" I asked, feeling silly. "All these colourful plastic bags: blue, red, yellow and pink... They come out so sharply against the general brown. If you look closely you may see the red of a rotting tomato, the deep green of cucumber peel..." He fully expected me to share his enthusiasm. Turning around, I noticed a young woman in shorts busy taking shots of the washing strung at the window of a neighbouring building. "As the sun moves in the sky, the colours change subtly," she explained, "so I am taking several shots every hour." Both youngsters agreed that they had found infinite similar sources of beauty in the streets of Cairo. They had no interest in monuments. Beauty for them was in people's ordinary lives.
Today, I wonder once more about the old city. It has risen and fallen and risen again. Its numerous monuments have been built, pulled down, rebuilt and tampered with over and over. Yet it has endured and given inhabitants and visitors alike infinite and varied pleasures. The prophets of doom may be having a field day, misguided restoration and decoration may be booming, but the different faces of Cairo will continue to bewitch the city's beholders for a long time to come.
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