EGYPT: Cairo rubbish dump converted into public park

When the Al–Azhar park project was first conceived - following His Highness the Aga Khan’s decision to donate a park to the citizens of Cairo in 1984 - the idea was to provide the metropolis with much–needed green space at the heart of its historic agglomeration. The motivation arose out of the Islamic belief that we are all trustees of God’s creation and therefore must seek to leave the world a better place than it was when we came into it.

A 30–hectare site on al–Darassa was selected because of its enormous potential as a ‘lung’ at the very centre of the historic agglomeration. Before work started, al-Darassa was a municipal rubbish dump.

However, when the excavation of the hilly site began, a historic wall was progressively revealed — eventually 1.3 kilometres of it — which then led to another major task: giving a new ‘face’ to the historic city as seen from the Park.

Eventually, the conservation project for the Ayubbid Wall itself - being inseparable from the abutting historic city fabric - led the Aga Khan Trust for Culture to consider a third programme, which was the launch of a combined physical and social rehabilitation process in the neighbouring area of the Park, the very poor Darb al–Ahmar district.

It was clear that the construction of the park and conservation of the historic wall could and should act as stimuli for the rehabilitation of Darb al–Ahmar, which is home to 240,000 people as well as some of Cairo’s most distinguished religious and secular monuments.

The Trust has initiated a range of community–based urban upgrading projects that contribute to the improvement of living conditions around the Park by providing the local people with cultural, social, economic and institutional support.