Heritage and Community in Historic Cairo
The Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH) has invited Seif El Rashidi to discuss the ‘Heritage and Community in Historic Cairo’. The lecture will be held on Sunday, 17 November 2019, at 7:00 PM at ARC-WH headquarters in Manama Bahrain. It will reflect on the past two decades of urban conservation in Historic Cairo, presenting the different approaches of intervening in the historic city, and the impacts of each. It draws upon the speaker’s experience working with the Aga Khan Trust for culture in Cairo and lessons learned from the experience.
It compares and contrasts recent initiatives in Cairo with Bahrain’s Muharraq project thinking of similarities and differences and how the stakeholders in the two historic environments can learn from each other.
Please note that the lecture will be held in Arabic.
Seif El Rashidi
Seif El Rashidi is an Egyptian architectural historian and urban regeneration specialist. He is currently the director of The Barakat Trust and the project manager of the University of London’s “Layers of London” project. Prior to this he managed the year-long celebration of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta at Salisbury Cathedral and was responsible for coordinating the public consultation on the Cathedral’s masterplan. From 2008 to 2014 he worked for Durham University and Durham Cathedral, managing Durham’s UNESCO World Heritage Site. From 1997 to 2008, he worked in Cairo, in urban conservation for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s Historic Cities Programme, and for Ahmad Hamid Architects between (1995-1997), on a range of contemporary architecture and interior design projects drawing their inspiration from the principles of the cultural history of the Islamic World.
Seif has a BA in Economics and an MA in the History of Art and Architecture from the American University in Cairo, and an MSc in Urban Design from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research interests include the continuity of building traditions, the representation of identity in architecture, and the role of museums as educative establishments. He is the co-author of The Tentmakers of Cairo: Egypt’s Medieval and Modern Appliqué Craft (2018).
