3. Entrada y Salida de Datos Básica 25
3.4. Control del Estado del Flujo
In (1805) Mohammad Ali Pasha recognized Alexandria's proximity to Constantinople and consequent economic potential. He made the city his summer capital and subsequently initiated a rebuilding and restoration program for the city, beginning with a canal (the Mahmudiyya canal, named for the Ottoman sultan, Mahmud II) to allow access to the Nile.
This canal marked a renewal of Alexandria's social and cultural development: during this period, the city's population grew from 60,000 (1821-40) to 270,000 (1874).
Mohammad Ali reconstructed the harbor, built a palace and a famously beautiful lighthouse on the Ras al-Tin peninsula, and, with the help of French engineers, erected a series of commercial and industrial buildings. He also supervised the construction of a new shipyard
facility, which would become one of Egypt's greatest military and naval establishments. He established a committee for traffic control, to promote cleanliness and public health initiatives, and to improve urban conditions overall. Mohammad 'Ali Pasha's planning strategies focused on infrastructure (railways, roads) to facilitate economic development.
However, this did not extend to preventing unplanned thoroughfares and other spontaneous development, which played a role in destroying some of the city's historic urban fabric.
As governor, Mohammed Ali's grandson (1848-1854) built a railway from Alexandria to Suez that continued as far as Kafr al-Zayat. Alexandria grew rapidly thereafter: 1850 saw high numbers of Europeans taking up residence in the city and becoming influential citizens.
The next governor, Mohammed Said Pasha (1854-1863) extended the railway line to Cairo and connected Alexandria and Cairo with modern telegraph lines. Construction on the city's tramway system was completed in 1860; today, this system is the oldest of all such networks in Africa. It was under the government of Ismail Pasha (1863-1879), also known as Ismail the Magnificent, that the Europeanization of Alexandria began. Ismail built new roads and laid out new districts, improved trade relationships, and granted many plots of land in the new Raml suburb, where numerous lavish palaces were built. Alexandria was one of the first Egyptian cities to have an underground sanitary sewerage system; during Ismail's reign, purified water from the Mahmudiyyah canal was piped throughout the city from a filtering station. As Alexandria expanded, its Arab walls were torn down.
fig(1-13) Daguerreotype and photo of Ras el Tin palace.
Source: (Awad, Mohamed F. "Italy in Alexandria" p.81)
By 1870, Alexandria was the fourth leading Mediterranean port after Istanbul, Marseilles, and Genoa. The city's expansion in trade and infrastructure followed the assimilation of Egypt into the European world economy, and the city witnessed the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. Although agricultural exports had always played a major role in its economy, during the nineteenth century Egyptian trade with Europe flourished. From 1860-70, over two-thirds of Egypt's export earnings came from cotton trading, while the trade of other agricultural products increased dramatically. Under Mohammad 'Ali Pasha, the Ministry of Commerce offices moved to Alexandria. By the late nineteenth century, Alexandria was successfully disengaging itself from the Ottoman commonwealth, and was moving into the orbit of Europe. It is of equal importance to note that it was not until the turn of the nineteenth century that contemporary Alexandria exceeded the size of Greek Alexandria.
The Italian Architecture in Alexandria, Egypt (the conservation of the Italian residential buildings)
Part (1): Historical study ________________________________________________ Chapter (1): History of Alexandria ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
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fig(1-14) Map of the Turkish town as documented by the French Expedition in 1798-1801.
Source: (Awad, Mohamed F. "Italy in Alexandria" p.72)
1-1-7-British Occupation, Egyptian Independence, and Contemporary Alexandria (1882-2009):
In the 1880s a nationalist trend rose in Egypt, and 'Urabi Pasha, a military officer, gathered enough energy within the army ranks to resist the Turkish establishment. Large numbers of Europeans died in the ensuing violent chaos, bringing British troops, and then British occupation, to Egypt. Under the British, Alexandria experienced a new wave of urban growth: Alexandria was developed into a major British Royal Naval base, with the strategic Suez Canal (1869) to the east of the city. Between 1922 and 1956, the national independence movement saw the British Declaration (1922), the Treaty of Alliance between Egypt and Britain (1936), and the 1952 July 23 revolution.
Throughout the struggles for independence, urban development in Alexandria continued at a rapid rate. In 1925, Lake al-Hadara was drained, and the suburb of Smouha founded. The city's Corniche, a twenty-kilometer-long seacoast promenade, was built in 1934, influencing Alexandria's summer tourism industry. The Corniche houses a series of informal beach huts, bathing clubs and cafes, facing high-end holiday resorts and apartments across the street.
Other major building projects of the period included the Al Muntazah Palace, the small Salamlek Palace, and the impressive Palestine Hotel. Two of the royal palaces, the Ras al-Tin Palace on Pharos Island and the Al-Muntazah Palace at the eastern end of Al-Jaysh Avenue, were restored and are today open to the public. The modern plan of Alexandria follows the ancient grid, and below these streets run subterranean canals, originally dug in the pre-modern city to service waste. These canals, together with a vast, active network of cellars, tunnels, and catacombs form a great part of the city's infrastructure. The commercial center of the city was located at Liberation Square (Midan at-Tahrir), between the Cotton Exchange and the Bourse (Stock Exchange). The center has since moved to Saad Zaghlul Square.
fig(1-15)Map of contemporary Alexandria. Source: (Awad, Mohamed F. "Italy in Alexandria" p.410)
fig(1-16)panorama view and photos of corniche of Alexandria.
Source: http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=9173
The Italian Architecture in Alexandria, Egypt (the conservation of the Italian residential buildings)
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Alexandria's post-independence urban expansion (following the 1936 British withdrawal) was unprecedented in the city's history. The city now occupies a 70-kilometer strip along the Mediterranean coast line in the northwest Nile Delta, covering approximately 2,679 square kilometers. Its urban form is that of a T-shaped peninsula, the urban center (including the old city and its newer suburbs) occupying about 100 square kilometers. The remaining area is 40 percent croplands, 35 percent desert, and 25 percent water from Lake Maryut. Some segments of the lake shore are used for saltworks and fisheries. The presence of the lake directed the expansion of the city along a relatively linear pattern. The two main streets of ancient Alexandria, the east-west Canopic Way (now Hurriya Street or Al-Hurriya Avenue), and the Street of the Soma (now Nabi Daniel Street or An-Nabi Danyal Street), continue to be the principal streets of the city. Alexandria's main public spaces in the early twenty-first century fall along the waterfront and the squares adjacent to the harbor; the western port of the city is primarily industrial.
fig(1-17)Photos of the Montaza Royal palace.
Source: http://archnet.org & (Awad, Mohamed F. "Italy in Alexandria" p.346)
fig(1-18)Photos of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Source: http://archnet.org
Residential building typologies in contemporary Alexandria fall into formal categories:
researchers count the linear (El Hokma and Ahalee housing type), the square (Rabaa housing type), the rectangular (Ashia housing type), the L-shaped, the walk-up flats (El Dekhila), and the Aimaras Rabba housing types. Existing ancient architectural monuments include the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, a late second-century burial site carved out of solid rock and located as deep as three levels below ground. These tombs are sited adjacent to the ancient Temple of Serapis (Serapeum). Modern building projects in the city include the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Snohetta, 2002), designed as a tilting disc rising from the ground. Housing a library and reading spaces, the Bibliotheca was the winner of a competition run by the library
sponsors, UNESCO, and the Egyptian government. It is sited on the site of the former Great Library.
Alexandria's major civic spaces include Ahmed Orabi Square and Saad Zaghlul Square (both located in the downtown area), Mansheya Square (in Mansheya), Tahrir Square (formerly Mohammed Ali Square at the Places des Consuls) and Ahmed Zewail Square (near Wabour El Mayah). The city also hosts the Graeco-Roman Museum, with one of the finest collections of Graeco-Roman artifacts in the world. The Montaza Royal Gardens are an important urban green space; the palace garden complex is surrounded by walls on the east, west and south sides of the complex, and its north side faces the waterfront. Major mosques include Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque (in Somouha), Bilal Mosque, El-Gamee el-Bahari (in Mandara), Hatem Mosque (also in Somouha), Hoda el-Islam Mosque (in Sidi Bishr), Abu el-Abbas el-Mursi Mosque (in Anfoushi), El-Mowasah Mosque (in Hadara). The ancient Roman amphitheatre and Pompey's Pillar still stand.
Its urban infrastructure also includes the main airport (Al Nozha airport), located 7 kilometers southeast of the city center, and five major highways. Its port has the longest history of all its urban infrastructure: dating to 1900 BCE, it has seen many restorations under multiple regimes. Today the port is divided into the eastern harbor and the western harbor, which are separated by a T-shaped peninsula .
The history of Alexandria showcases a broad cast of colonial powers, which each in turn added to the city's fabric. Today, GraeRoman ruins and modern high-rise buildings co-exist within Alexandria. Elements of the ancient city, such as its main streets and millenia-old port, combine with geomorphological changes to define and direct its urban growth today.
The city mirrors the issues faced by most developing cities, and stark contrasts in civic infrastructure and architecture can be seen today between all six of Alexandria's districts:
Montaza, eastern Alexandria, the downtown, Amreya, Western Alexandria and Gumro .
Notes:
www.archnet.org the main recourses are:
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2. Alexandria: Hellenistic Age." Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2004. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online".
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-26550/Hellenistic-Age. (Accessed May 19, 2008).
3. El-Abbadi, Mostafa. "Alexandria: Thousand-Year Capital of Egypt." Alexandria: The Site and the History. New York: NYU Press .1993.
4. El-Din, Morsi Saad,"Alexandria: The Site and the History. New York: NYU Press .1993.
5. Haag, Michael. Alexandria. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press .2004.
6. Jobbins, Jenny. 2006. "Alexandria and the Egyptian Mediterranean: a traveler's guide". Cairo:
American University in Cairo Press .
7. Mueller, Katja. Settlements of the Ptolemies: city foundations and new settlement in the Hellenistic world. Dudley, MA: Peeters .2006.
8. Ramadan, Abdel Azim. C. "Alexandria: French Expedition to the Modern Age." Alexandria: The Site and the History. New York: NYU Press,1993 .
9. Reimer, Michael J. Colonial Bridgehead: Government and Society in Alexandria, 1807-1882. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press .1997.
10. Reimer, Michael J. "Property disputes in 19th century Alexandria". Arizona: Middle East Studies Association of North America .1989.
11. Harris, W. V. and Giovanni Ruffin. "Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece". Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004.