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Dream of green the al azhar park looks gorgeous, but can it live up to its lofty aspirations?Sunset at the Al Azhar Park Source: Ursula Lindsey
A patch of clean and peaceful grass is a rarity in Cairo. What little green space is available is all too often fenced off by over-zealous authorities or reserved for the privileged few who can pay club membership fees. City residents tend to find their nature where they can: ahwa owners split the sidewalk in front of their establishments to plant ad-hoc gardens, and families bivouac on median strips and stroll under the dusty foliage along the Nile. But this may change thanks to the creation of Al Azhar Park. While questions remain about access and affordability, many Cairenes of all social classes agree that the development of the luxurious green oasis at the heart of a decaying historic neighborhood is a step in the right direction.
The park, a 30-hectare project whose official inauguration takes place on 25 March, is the largest public park to be built in the city in over 100 years. It is also part of a first-of-its-kind urban renewal project for an exploding city in which landscape architecture and urban planning remain vague concepts at best.
Seif Al Rashidi, an urban planner who has worked on the project since 1997, says that 'the idea of the park was in the first instance to provide a facility that the city lacked. And choosing to provide the facility here in a historic area which had been decaying was a conscious decision that this would help the area improve.'
The park's creators envisage a green lung for Cairo. They also hope the project will revitalize the surrounding neighborhood and be a unique space in which Cairenes of different social backgrounds can mix. But whether the park will live up to its lofty ambitions remains to be seen.
A grand undertaking
The Al Azhar Park is the result of 20 years of work by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture's Historic Cities Support Program, an initiative that addresses conservation issues in the cities of the Islamic world. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture, perhaps best-known for its Aga Khan Award for Architecture, is the brainchild of the current Aga Khan