(Photo by Nourhan Dakroury)
By Nourhan Dakroury
A group of architects and tour guides protested on Saturday against the recent sale of a historic palace in Garden City.
The palace was built in 1908 for Karl Heinrich Beyerle, founder of the Land Bank. Since then the palace was owned by the German government, a Swedish resident of Egypt and, lastly, Foad Serag El-Din, a former prominent member of the Al-Wafd Party.
“We read in Al-Ahram newspaper two weeks ago that the palace was sold to a Qatari citizen, so we decided to protest [on Saturday] against the sale,” said Dina Alaa, an architect at the Waly Centre for Architecture and Heritage, said.
She said that this palace is registered in the Urban Harmony Authority as a historic building and accordingly it is illegal to demolish it.
“We’re a group of architects who decided to protest against the sale, lack of maintenance and demolishment of ancient buildings,” Alaa said.
According to Alaa, similar cases have happened where historic buildings were sold and then later demolished, especially in Alexandria.
“We don’t know what will be done with the building, which is why we are demanding the government to disclose information about the buyer and what he or she intends to do with it.”
Alaa added that they are demanding the government put stricter laws concerning the handling and maintaining of these historic buildings.
Another palace, previously owned by Youssef Kamal, a late member of the Egyptian royal family, was turned into the Desert Research Centre headquarters and is very poorly maintained, according to Alaa.
“Our next step is to start an initiative to track ancient and historic buildings that may be demolished and take action against this,” she said.
