HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Sayed Karim (Also Sayyid Karim. Arabic: سيد كريم) (born; 16 February 1911, Mit Barrah, Munufia – 28 July 2005,
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...
) was a leading
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...
ian
Modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
architect, who was part of the liberal era's ' pioneer architects'. He was also an urban planner, best known for designing the
Nasr City Nasr City ( ar, مدينة نصر  ) is a district of Cairo, Egypt. It is located to the east of the Cairo Governorate and consists mostly of condominia. It was established in the 1960s as an extension to neighboring settlement of Heliop ...
neighbourhood in Cairo, as well as a writer and editor producing the influential architecture magazine Majallat al-'Imarah, and authoring a number of books.


Education and academia

Karim received his Diploma in Architecture from
Cairo University Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...
in 1933, before leaving for Switzerland where he pursued another diploma at the
University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 ...
, ocompleting it in 1935, and then a Masters in urban planning in 1936. Sayed Karim received his PhD in architecture at the
ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , a ...
in 1938, while teaching there, before moving back to Egypt in 1938 and becoming a professor at Cairo University.


Architecture and planning

Karim set up his private practice in Cairo in 1939, launching a career that spanned over half a century. He designed iconic public and residential buildings in Cairo, including a proposal for The Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate (1946), Akhbar Al Youm (1948), Rose al-Yusuf (1952), Al-Shams Company building (1949) and the Zamalek Tower (1956). One of his main drivers was a question about 'what can a national style be in Egypt, and how to promote it. Karim has dealt with this question in an exhaustive and authentic way, calling on other disciplines such as sociology, psychology, but also the history of art and architecture, and holding conferences around it, including one at the Geographical Society in April 1940. As an urban planner, Karim lamented the missed opportunity to rebuild Cairo according to modernist planning scheme that could have come if Cairo was damaged in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, as were so many other cities, and rebuilt according to more modernist principles. Not to be defeated, he proposed plans for Cairo's urban expansion, namely
Nasr City Nasr City ( ar, مدينة نصر  ) is a district of Cairo, Egypt. It is located to the east of the Cairo Governorate and consists mostly of condominia. It was established in the 1960s as an extension to neighboring settlement of Heliop ...
, which was envisioned in 1953 and implemented under the direction of the head of Cairo Municipality, Mahmoud Riad from 1959 as a new administrative center. Karim was active not just in Egypt, but the
Arab world The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
. After joining the United Nations as a city planning consultant in 1949, he worked on plans and architectural designs for
Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesipho ...
(1946), Damascus (1947), Jeddah (1949),
Riyadh Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, Literal translation, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi Arabic, Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyad ...
(1950), and Amman (1954), and many other cities, earning him the nickname "the flying architect." In 1965, however, the Nasser regime put him under sequestration and house arrest – a move from which the architect never recovered, prematurely curbing his career.


Public buildings

* Dar Akhbar Al-Youm HQ, Republic of Egypt, 1948 * Rose Al-Youssef HQ 1952 * Al-Masry Press 1941 * Middle East House Building 1960 * The role of the press abroad * Printing and publishing house, Jeddah, 1948 * Printing and Publishing House Kuwait City 1954 * Printing and publishing house, Riyadh, 1949


Positions

* Assistant Professor at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, 1937. * Professor of Architecture, Cairo University, 1938. * Registered the first consulting office in Egypt for architecture and planning 1939. * Issued the first architecture and arts magazine in Egypt in 1939. * The first Egyptian engineer to be appointed as a consultant and expert in the Technical Assistance Authority and a member of the Experts Committee 1954.


Majallat al-'Imarah

Majallat al-'Imarah (also titled Emara, Alemara Alefoun) was published between 1939 and 1950, with the exception of 1943–1944. The publication was later continued as "Majallat al-Imarah wa-al-Funun" between 1952 and 1959. Largely the project of editor Sayyid Karim, Majallat al-Imarah presented contemporary architecture in pre-war and post-war Cairo. A near comprehensive collection is digitally held by
ArchNet Archnet is a collaborative digital humanities project focused on Islamic architecture and the built environment of Muslim societies. Conceptualized in 1998 and originally developed at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning in co-operatio ...
, which were sourced at the Fine Arts Library of the
Harvard College Library Harvard Library is the umbrella organization for Harvard University's libraries and services. It is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic library and largest private library in the world. Its collection ...
.


Writings and archive


Pour un style national de l’architecture en Égypte. ''al-’imara,'' n° 5/6 de 1940, pp. 271–275.

Majallat al-'Imarah digital archive on ArchNet

Sayed Karim Archive at the American University in Cairo's RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY (RBSCL).

Newspaper articles
Further reading
Mercedes Volait. L’ARCHITECTURE MODERNE EN ÉGYPTE ET LA REVUE AL-’IMARA: 1939–1959. CEDEJ – Égypte/Soudan. 1998.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karim, Sayed 2005 deaths 1911 births Jordanian architects Jordanian contemporary artists Modernist architects Cairo University alumni Egyptian architects 20th-century Egyptian architects Egyptian expatriates in Switzerland