This residential building, situated at Tolombat Street in Garden City, was designed by Raoul Zeheri circa 1934. The front facade is pierced with rectangular openings and features two overhanging “avant-corps” framed with geometrical friezes in an egg pattern characteristic of Art Deco. At the top, each “avant-corps” forms an ogee arch supported by small decorative consoles. The last floor opens onto a peristyle with rows of neoclassical double small columns.
Raoul Zeheri also incorporates Neo-Pharaonic elements by decorating the ironwork entrance with a pyramid and a sphinx on the archivolt. The Neo-Pharaonic style contrasts with the building form and the geometrical adornments of the main facade remained Occidentalised and modernised. While in Europe Orientalism symbolises exotic expressions, in contemporary Cairene architecture the process of re-interpretation of Pharaonic elements appears to be a local expression.
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