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Koubbeh Palace or Qubbah Palace (
When King Fouad I ascended Egypt's throne in 1917, Koubbeh became the official royal residence. During his reign, King Fouad ordered enhancements and extensions to Koubbeh, including a six-meter wall around the , a new gate and an external garden. In addition, a royal train station was added to the palace complex where visiting dignitaries arrived by special carriage directly from Alexandria or from Cairo's main railway station.
It was at this palace that King Fouad died, and his then 16-year-old son King Farouk greeted his subjects during an inaugural radio broadcast on 8 May 1936. King Farouk kept his personal collections at Koubbeh. These included a stamp collection, an 8,500-piece coin and medals collection, studded clocks and watches, in addition to many other antiquities including a pure gold coffee set and a 1906 Faberge egg that belonged to Tsar Nicholas II. Much of these were auctioned off in 1954.
After the
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
) is one of the various Egyptian palaces which serve as the country's official guest house for visiting dignitaries.
The palace was most likely originally built in the mid-19th century and sold to Khedive Ismail in 1866 by his brother Mustafa Fazl Pasha.
Under the Monarchy
UnderKhedive Tewfik
Mohamed Tewfik Pasha ( ''Muḥammad Tawfīq Bāshā''; April 30 or 15 November 1852 – 7 January 1892), also known as Tawfiq of Egypt, was khedive of Khedivate of Egypt, Egypt and the Turco-Egyptian Sudan, Sudan between 1879 and 1892 and the s ...
, Koubbeh Palace was a venue for One Thousand And One Night celebrations, royal weddings, and a place where visiting dignitaries admired magnificent gardens. During his son's rule (Khedive
Khedive ( ; ; ) was an honorific title of Classical Persian origin used for the sultans and grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire, but most famously for the Khedive of Egypt, viceroy of Egypt from 1805 to 1914.Adam Mestyan"Khedive" ''Encyclopaedi ...
Abbas II; r. 1892-1914) the garden palace gradually came to be regarded as complementary to Cairo's Abdin Palace in terms of officialdom.
When King Fouad I ascended Egypt's throne in 1917, Koubbeh became the official royal residence. During his reign, King Fouad ordered enhancements and extensions to Koubbeh, including a six-meter wall around the , a new gate and an external garden. In addition, a royal train station was added to the palace complex where visiting dignitaries arrived by special carriage directly from Alexandria or from Cairo's main railway station.
It was at this palace that King Fouad died, and his then 16-year-old son King Farouk greeted his subjects during an inaugural radio broadcast on 8 May 1936. King Farouk kept his personal collections at Koubbeh. These included a stamp collection, an 8,500-piece coin and medals collection, studded clocks and watches, in addition to many other antiquities including a pure gold coffee set and a 1906 Faberge egg that belonged to Tsar Nicholas II. Much of these were auctioned off in 1954.
The Republic
After the 1952 revolution
The Egyptian revolution of 1952, also known as the 1952 coup d'état () and the 23 July Revolution (), was a period of profound political, economic, and societal change in Egypt. On 23 July 1952, the revolution began with the toppling of King ...
that led to the declaration of the republic, Koubbeh Palace was declared as one of three official presidential palaces, the other two being Abdeen Palace in downtown Cairo and Ras El Tin Palace in Alexandria. It was at Koubbeh that President Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...
preferred to host guests. It was also there that his body lay awaiting his funeral
A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...
in September 1970. The Shah of Iran
The monarchs of Iran ruled for over two and a half millennia, beginning as early as the 7th century BC and enduring until the 20th century AD. The earliest Iranian king is generally considered to have been either Deioces of the Median dynasty () ...
also lived in this palace when in exile in Egypt. Koubbeh remains Egypt's principal guesthouse. U.S. President Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
was received in it during his visit to Cairo in June 2009.
References
Presidential palaces in Egypt Palaces in Cairo Royal residences in Egypt Tourist attractions in Cairo State guesthouses {{Egypt-struct-stub