Abdeen Palace
The Abdeen Palace (also called Qasr Abdeen or Arabic قصر عابدين, DMG Qaṣr al-ʿĀbidīn denotes; German also Abdin Palace ) is one of the official residences of the President of Egypt . It is located in the Abdeen district in downtown Cairo .
The palace was commissioned by Ismail Pasha in 1863 and moved into in 1873. Under King Fu'ad I , the palace became the official seat of government and the venue for state events and ceremonies. It remained the seat of government until 1952. A museum has been set up on the ground floor since the beginning of the 19th century , in which valuable pieces from the possessions of the last Egyptian kings and presidents are exhibited.
history
After Ismail Pasha came to power in 1863, he began to transform Cairo into a modern city and enrich it with a new government palace. Construction of the palace began in the same year and lasted a total of 10 years. The palace was built on a site that originally belonged to a military man named Abdeen Bey, and from which the magnificent building and today's district in Cairo owes its name. Ismail had the buildings on the site demolished in order to build the current palace on it.
The palace was designed by the French architect Leon Rousseau on an area of 24 Feddan (around 10 hectares ). The architect received support from a large number of Egyptian , Italian , French and Turkish outfitters. The cost of building the palace was Egyptian Pounds 700,000 with an additional £ 2,000,000 invested in its furnishings. The following rulers also had to make investments that should not be underestimated for changes, maintenance and care of the palace. The official inauguration took place in 1874.
During the reign of King Fu'ad I , the magnificent building replaced the Citadel of Cairo as the center of the royal court, which had been the center of the Egyptian government since the Middle Ages . In 1891 a great fire broke out in the palace while the royal family was spending the summer in the Ras El Tin Palace in Alexandria. The fire destroyed the Haramlek wing and the royal guards quarters. However, the restoration of the palace was a long time coming. Only when Antonio Lasciac was appointed chief architect of the royal palaces in 1907 did plans begin to restore the palace to its original state. These were started in 1909 and continued until 1911. During this time, the lower rooms were also converted into a museum. In 1921 Fu'ad I added a garden to the property, which he had laid out on an area of 20 feddan (about 8.4 hectares).
In 1938 the palace was the scene of the wedding of King Faruq I to Nariman Sadiq . In the same year, the royal wedding of Princess Fausia of Egypt , the sister of King Faruq, with the then Iranian Crown Prince and later King of Persia Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was held in these walls . In 1942 the palace fell under the siege of British forces . On July 23, 1952, in the course of the Egyptian Revolution , the palace was besieged by the Egyptian army , as a result of which King Faruq, who was residing in Alexandria at the time, had to abdicate and go into exile. With the end of the monarchy , the palace finally lost its function as the seat of government.
In the period that followed, the palace deteriorated until President Sadat commissioned the restoration and renovation. President Mubarak finally ordered the modernization of the palace, which was delayed due to the damage caused by a powerful earthquake in 1992. The palace was reopened on October 17, 1998.
Furnishing
The Abdeen Palace ranks among the most splendid palaces in the world because of its decorations, paintings and furnishings (which impress with a large number of clocks scattered around the rooms and wings of the palace, most of which are adorned with pure gold) World to be counted.
The palace was designed in a neoclassical French-inspired style. It consists of two floors. The upper floor contains both the salamlek (the reception and representation rooms) and the haramlek (family quarters ), which contradicts the traditional separation of these two accommodations into different buildings. On the ground floor were the various rooms for the service personnel, the guards quarters, the storage rooms and the like. The palace comprises a total of 500 rooms.
Salamlek wings
In the Salamlek wing is the throne room, the largest and most richly decorated part of the palace. The adjacent conference hall was reserved for regular consultations with various councils and official meetings. The hall has a large oval table in the middle with seating for around twenty people.
The various salons, decorated in different colors, are equipped with marble fireplaces, like those of the throne room. The Green Salon was designed in the Louis-seize style. Like the Bluish Salon , it was once hung with green, red and blue fabrics on the walls.
The Mohamed Ali Salon, on the other hand, is a great ceremonial reception hall. The decoration is reminiscent of that of the famous Istanbul Seraglio . The White Salon , on the other hand, was designed as an official royal reception room for guests of honor and dignitaries. A striking 18th-century tapestry adorns the central wall, while the side walls are adorned with copies of some 19th-century dressers originally designed for the Palace of Versailles.
Finally, there is the Suez Canal Room , which was originally an official salon and was later used by Khedive Abbas Helmi as a second throne room before it was converted into the office of the President. Today the room is adorned with three large oil paintings commemorating the opening of the Suez Canal, which gave the room its well-known name.
Haramlek wings
The rooms of the royal family are arranged in the Haramlek wing. On the one hand the royal apartment and the royal suite, which were designed by the architect Verrucci and furnished in 1929. The apartment consists of an entrance area, an office, a bedroom, a bathroom and a boudoir . Adjacent to the suite, separated by a small anteroom, is the monarch's office, the center of which is a desk from the early 20th century.
The Queens Suite comprises a small lobby that leads to a square drawing room with a neo-baroque dome in the center and an axially aligned marble fireplace. A small office adjoins the salon, which in turn leads to the bedroom with a four-poster bed in the center. The room is in the Louis XVI style and was occupied by Queen Farida and later by Queen Nariman, King Farouk's second wife.
The Byzantine Chamber is the reception area of the Haramlek wing. It is spatially divided into two adjacent units, which are separated by a triple portico decorated with marble. The chamber is predominantly designed in the Byzantine style, which contains elements of Neo-Islamic, Neo-Gothic and Art Deco styles. In the chamber there are mosaics that thematize various festivities, as well as a cascading fountain, which is flanked by oriental dancers.
museum
Different museums with different exhibition rooms are housed on the lower floors of the palace. However, the upper floors, on which the former living quarters of the royal family are located, are closed to visitors and reserved exclusively for foreign dignitaries.
The lower floors contain, on the one hand, the Silver Museum, in which collections of silver pieces, porcelain and crystal vessels as well as a number of valuable vases that were in the possession of the royal family can be seen.
A large number of rare weapons of various types and shapes are exhibited in the weapon museum. Some of them date from the 17th and 18th centuries, such as hand weapons of the Mamluks , as well as some Ottoman and Iranian striking and firearms and rifles. Another section exhibits battle axes, hammers, swords, daggers, Yatagans (Turkish sabers), knives and hunting tools, some of which are gold-plated or decorated with corundums , emeralds, corals, turquoises or other precious stones. This section also includes shields, armor, armor, back plates, helmets, gloves, cuisses (medieval thigh guards), shin guards and other combat equipment from the 16th century, as well as some cannons of American and European origin.
The royal family's museum rooms display some special royal possessions and antiques, including an impressive collection of precious hunting rifles. In another section, orders, awards and medals from Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States are presented to the visitor.
The President Mubarak Museum, on the other hand, offers visitors letters that were sent to President Mubarak by citizens, various organizations and authorities. In this museum you can also see the possessions of the former president and his wife and his weapons collection.
A new section of the museum exhibiting historical documents opened in January 2005. Among other things, it contains the Ottoman Ferman , i.e. the decree that established the rule of Muhammad Ali Pasha and his family, as well as a certificate from the Order of the Iron Crown as well as written evidence of the short-lived South American kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia .
Web links
- Egypt's Royal Archives, 1922-52
- Pictures from Abdeen Palace ( Memento from January 16, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
- Picture gallery from the palace
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Abdeen Palace - Is This the World's Most Lavish Palace? . Retrieved March 22, 2020.
- ↑ a b Abdeen Palace Museum Complex. Egypt Travel Search .com, 2008, archived from the original on November 24, 2010 ; accessed on September 27, 2013 (English).
- ↑ a b c d e f Islamic Architecture on the Move: Motion and Modernity . Retrieved March 22, 2020.
- ↑ a b c 5 Cairene museums to visit other than the Egyptian Museum . Retrieved March 22, 2020.
- ↑ a b c d Abdeen Palace Museums. History. IDSC, 2007, archived from the original on October 2, 2013 ; accessed on September 27, 2013 (English).
- ^ Abdeen Palace . Retrieved March 22, 2020.
Coordinates: 30 ° 2 ′ 29.9 ″ N , 31 ° 14 ′ 54.2 ″ E