Looking to their left, motorists driving on October Bridge towards Tahrir Square from Ramses may have ceased to notice the lifeless building covered in smoke stains. The huge building on the Nile Corniche used to be a throbbing hub for policymaking in its capacity as the premises of the former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Ever since it was torched two years ago on January 28 in the riots when the police withdrew from the streets, the building has remained unused. As much as the building, located very close to the Egyptian Museum, stands as a symbol for the end of a corrupt era, its ugly façade, at the same time, is indicative of the continued state of unrest. The fate of the burnt-out building is yet to be determined, with people offering various suggestions as to what it should be used for. Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim recently submitted a memo to Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, asking that the land where the stricken building stands be handed over to his Ministry. He believes that the Egyptian Museum is entitled to expand, whether in an annexed building or with a new outdoor display area, as the museum's current exhibition area is too small to accommodate the wealth of artefacts in its storerooms. When the Egyptian Museum was constructed in 1901, the plot of land on which the NDP headquarters was later built belonged to the museum. Overlooking the Nile, it functioned as a dock for vessels transporting artefacts to the capital from Upper Egypt. It was after the 1952 Revolution that the land was appropriated for the construction of the Socialist Union Building, which was later used to house the headquarters of the NDP. Zahi Hawass, the archaeologist, says Essam Sharaf's Government made the same suggestion, on the grounds that the land originally belonged to the museum, which has lost a spectacular view of the Nile. Hawass is very much in favour of having this ugly building, structurally undermined by the blaze that tore through it two years ago, demolished. “The aesthetic element is what the tourists love," he told Al-Gomhuria newspaper. Meanwhile, according to Seif el-Islam Abdel-Bari, aide to the Cairo Governor, if the building were torn down, the land would revert to the State. He did, however, say that the museum could be enlarged, as part of a comprehensive plan worked out by the Governorate in collaboration with the Antiquities Ministry, adding that there is also the possibility of establishing a hotel on this impressive site. Farag Fadda, the former head of the Islamic Antiquities Sector, believes that either keeping the building to remember the revolution, just like part of the Berlin Wall, or making use of the land for display purposes would be a good idea. Intellectuals have also been calling to turn the place into a cultural display facility for artistically expressing the revolution with paintings, graffiti, cartoons, plays and other activities.
