Today is the 43^rd. anniversary ذِكــْـــرَى of Gamal Abdel-Nasser and I am going to tell you about one of his great engineering  projects and how he managed to raise money for its construction. The Cairo Tower بـــُـــرج الــقـــاهـــرة  /Borj Al-Qahirah/ is considered an icon of modern Cairo. It is one of Cairo’s well-known modern landmarks مــَــعــالــِــم and monuments آثــَـــار . The tower stands in the Zamalik District حــَــىْ الــزَّمــَـــالــِــك of Cairo which is on the Jazeerah Island جــَــزيــرة الــجـَــزيــرة that is found in the River Nile. That is why the tower has also the name of Al-Jazeerah Tower بــُــرج الــجــَــزيــرة /Borj Al-Jazeerah/.

       The Cairo Tower is 187 meters (614 feet) high and is built in concrete only. The construction work of the tower took about six years (1956 – 1961). It has been the tallest structure in Egypt and North Africa for about fifty years and was surpassed only by the Hillbrow Tower in South Africa. It was designed by the Egyptian architect مـُــهــَــنـدِس مـِــعــْــمــَــارى Naoum Shebib who was inspired by the Lotus flower زهــرة الـلــُّــوتــس that symbolizes the ancient Egyptian civilization. At the very top قــِــمــَّــة of the tower, there is a panorama with telescopes; an open-air experience of Cairo where one can enjoy a refreshing view of the Pyramids of Giza, Sakkarah, the Citadel and the entire city. There is also a rotating restaurant مــَــطــْــعــَــم with a beautiful view of greater Cairo. The complete cycle دورة of the restaurant takes approximately 70 minutes.

       In the 1960s, the late Egyptian President; Gamal Abdel-Nasser announced that the funds تــَــمــويـــل for the construction of the Cairo Tower came from the government حــُــكــُــومــَـــة of the United States. Six million dollars were provided to Nasser as a personal gift هــِــبــَــة / هــَـــديــّــة . Nasser passed the whole sum of money to the Egyptian government to build the Tower.

******

Check us back soon

Peace  ســــَـــلام /Salam/