Al-Azhar Park is important for tourists
Cairo, May 1 (AZERTAC). The Al-Azhar Park is important for tourists to Egypt because this hilly site is surrounded by the most significant historic districts of Islamic Cairo. This is one of the primary destinations for many visitors to the city, and this new park located in its heart provides many advantages, including a wonderful view of the surrounding area.
The creation of the 30 hectare (74 acre) Al-Azhar Park on Al-Darassa, by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, came when his highness the Aga Khan decided to donate a park to the citizens of Cairo in 1984, out of the Islamic belief that we are all trustees of Gods creation and therefore must seek to leave the world a better place than it was before us. This decision was made during the 1984 conference The Expanding Metropolis: Coping with Cairos Urban Growth.
The $30 million (USD) project was designed as an agent for economic development, and has become a case study for creative solutions to a spectrum of challenges facing historic cities, including ecological rehabilitation.
The park functions as a green lung because of its enormous potential, being located at the center of a historic location. It was clear that Cairo needed more green space. One study found that the amount of green space per inhabitant was roughly equivalent to the size of a footprint, one of the lowest proportions in the world.The park is the largest green space created in Cairo in over a century, reversing a trend in which unchecked development has virtually eradicated the city`s once famous parks.
Located on the western side of the park are the old Fatimid city and its extension Darb Al Ahmar, with their wealth of mosques, madrasas and mausolea, signaled by a long line of minarets. To the south are the Sultan Hassan Mosque and its surroundings, as well as the Ayyubid Citadel. On the eastern side is the City of the Dead with its many social welfare complexes sponsored by the Mamluk Sultans and dignitaries, which became an area that developed into a dense neighborhood of its own. This area was indeed in great need of an open green space. The hilly topography of the site, formed by debris accumulated over centuries, now provides elevated view points dominating the city and offers a spectacular 360 panorama over the townscape of historic Cairo.
Before work started, Al Darassa was a municipal rubbish dump. The builders had to clear a 500-year-old accumulation of fill and debris, the equivalent of more than 80,000 truckloads of material which built up here over the centuries. While the sit was being prepared major discoveries were made.
These included the discovery of the 12th century Ayyubid city wall of Cairo that was built during the reign of Salah el-Din, as well as some valuable stones with hieroglyphic texts. These more ancient blocks, some measuring as much as one meter long, were used in the building of Salah el-Din`s wall. To extricate the 12th century Ayyubid wall, which had been buried up to its crenellated battlements, it proved necessary to excavate to a depth of 15 meters. A 1.5-kilometre section of the historic wall, with several towers and battlements almost intact, then appeared in all its splendor.
The importance of the wall with its gates, towers, interior chambers and galleries linking the park to the adjacent Darb al Ahmar district led Aga Khan to launch a combined physical and social rehabilitation of the Darb Al Ahmar district. It was clear that the park construction, as well as the historic wall conservation could, and should, act as stimuli for the rehabilitation of Darb al Ahmar.
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