Heliopolis as a Heritage area, The Revitalization case study

Abstract

Heliopolis or Masr – Elgedida, is the same name of the small city which was established by Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Empain (20 September 1852–22 July 1929). In 1906, Empain established a company Commenced in the same year to proceed with the building of the new town of Heliopolis, in the desert ten kilometers from the center of Cairo. It was designed as a "city of luxury and leisure", with broad avenues and equipped with all necessary conveniences and infrastructure; water, drains, electricity, hotel facilities, such as the Heliopolis Palace Hotel (formerly the presidential palace now) and Heliopolis House. The recreational amenities included a golf course, racetrack and park. In addition, there was housing for rent, offered in a range of innovative design types targeting specific social classes with detached and terraced villas, apartment buildings, tenement blocks with balcony access and workers' bungalows. Recently, the Cairo Governorate officially launched many projects within the same period; mainly focusing on refurbishing squares and streets, restoration of facades. However, having accepted and acknowledged the governmental intentions of the regeneration projects a question poses itself as to ‘How the community perceives and cherishes those initiatives?’ More important questions are raised regarding the regeneration of Al-Korba, the case study that addresses the governmental attempt in Heliopolis recently. It brings to light the dynamics enacted between different stakeholders. During work, we tried to set the urban regeneration principles in a discussion aiming at assessing the stakeholders’ involvement versus their goals and measuring their satisfaction with the outcome of the project, while still posing the question of the meaning of urban regeneration to the local community and to alternative scenarios that could yield more successful outcomes. The research methodology relied on several axes, the first axis is the axis of community communication with the population and convince them of the importance of the development process for residential buildings in particular and EL-Korba area in general, the second axis is the cooperation of government stakeholders concerned with preserving the area of EL-Korba such as Heliopolis district and the National Organization for Urban Harmony, the third axis is the focus on the intervention process to preserve and choose the best ways to preserve heritage buildings according to the laws of National Organization of Urban Harmony (NOUH), which was founded in 2004 in response to two recent laws: law no. 144 of 2006, which monitors demolitions and promotes heritage building conservation, and law no. 119 of 2008, which prohibits the violation of heritage buildings and areas. The most important results of the research are that community communication has an important role in strengthening relations between residents and stakeholders and facilitating interventions in the various stages of restoration, as well as the use of modern technology such as graphic programs to design an imaginary shape of buildings after their restoration, which had a major role in convincing residents of the importance of the restoration process. .