UNESCO may not be happy with the planned Cairo Financial and Tourist Centre, overlooking the Salaheddin Citadel, but it has approved continued construction as long as its recommendations are met, reports Nevine El-Aref After four months of wrangling, plans for the 26,000 square metre Cairo Financial and Tourist Centre (CFTC), located next to the citadel, will now be redrawn. Since plans for the CFTC were first unveiled in February 2006 the development has been the focus of controversy, with the Ministry of Culture, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and archaeologists ranged against the developers, ALKAN Holding Company (AHC), and its Chairman Mohamed Nosseir. Work on CFTC began in 2006 without the permission of the SCA's Permanent Committee for Islamic and Coptic Antiquities, which had twice refused to license development of the site, first in 2001 and again in 2005. The proposed scheme, said the SCA, constituted an encroachment on the citadel complex and violated Antiquities Law 117/1983. Cairo Governor Abdel-Azim Wazir froze construction at the site in July 2006 following SCA complaints. Two weeks later the SCA's Secretary-General Zahi Hawass called for a UNESCO inspection mission to arbitrate. After touring the site UNESCO officials said construction was so advanced that the point of no return had been passed. Work could therefore continue, it said, but only if AHC abided by a strict building code that aimed to contain the damage already done. UNESCO recommended a reduction in the height of the development so it did not exceed the height of the citadel's watch towers, the breaking up of architectural blocks, and a ban on the use of glass and steel in favour of materials more in keeping with the surroundings of the complex. The UNESCO recommendations went unheeded, forcing Hawass to ask for another inspection mission. A second UNESCO mission, this time led by Vèronique Dauge, chief of the Arab unit at UNESCO's World Heritage Centre, arrived in May this year. Its work was hampered when AHC failed to provide all the documents asked for. They were finally forwarded to UNESCO a month later. Director of the World Heritage Centre (WHC) Francesco Bandarin presented UNESCO's final report on the impact of the project on the integrity of the site of the citadel this week. After receiving the report, Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced that after taking into consideration a range of expert opinions the CFTC scheme would be modified in such a way as to minimise its visual encroachment on the citadel. Hosni said that UNESCO had asked that height of the CFTC scheme should not exceed 31.55m, which is the height of the upper level of the enclosing wall of the Salaheddin Citadel. To meet this height restriction, Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly, requires that the developers remove five storeys from the hotel they intend to build on the site, and six storeys from planned office buildings. The original plans had set the height of the hotel at 47.55m, and office buildings at 59.5m, constituting a major infringement on the visual integrity of the citadel. Hawass also revealed that UNESCO had said it would prefer the area to be put to an entirely different use, one that might act as an effective buffer zone to the citadel, which is a World Heritage Site. "We believe that with these measures the most serious threats to the visual integrity of the citadel would be reduced," Bandarin pointed out in the report, adding that UNESCO remained available for further consultation on the development. Hosni announced that a third UNESCO mission will be invited to Egypt to examine the CFTC plans once the recommendations have been incorporated into the design of the site.
