About Those Red Brick Buildings

One of the most distinctive features of the Cairo landscape is the red brick apartment building of about ten floors or more.  We have become so used to them that we don't really notice their presence while moving about the city.  When we are with newcomers to the area, we do get questions:

"Why don't they finish the buildings?

"What happened to all of the buildings?"

"Was there a war here?"

Apparently, the appearance even bothers President el-Sisi.   About two weeks ago, he ordered that the buildings should be painted.

In an attempt to turn Egypt more visually appealing, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi released a order for all redbrick buildings in the country to be furbished and painted according to a color scheme.

On 17 January, state-owned Al-Ahram Arabic said that Mostafa Madbouly, Egypt’s Prime Minister, gathered with Egypt’s governors and highlighted that “Egypt’s ubiquitous red brick buildings convey an ‘uncivilised’ image [of the country].”

Madbouly warned that if each governor does not follow through with the project, there will be legal consequences.

 I now have a bet with a friend that my president will get his wall built before his president gets his bricks painted!

The redbrick construction is characteristic of what is known here to the academic and government community as the "informal settlements."  These are areas that have sprung up without architects, formal planning and even such formalities as building codes and inspections.   By some estimates, "nearly two thirds of Greater Cairo Region's population are living in informal urban settlements, and the number is expected to continuously increase."

The architectural and urban planning communities have gone so far as to hold a three-day seminar here a few years back titled "Learning from Cairo."   According to an article on the Arch Daily website, "... informal modes of development can no longer be ignored nor labeled as something to be tolerated until they can be removed."

Meanwhile, if you would like to study the subject yourself, just click on the construction tag beneath this post and take a tour of my previous blog posts on the subject.  Keep in mind that this is all it takes to build your own high-rise in Cairo.