The Egyptian city Centres in the Islamic era: image analysis, evaluation and contemporary reflection

الملخص EN

The central district of any Islamic city is the location of the most distinctive architectural and urban features.

this district includes the important architectural monuments such as Friday mosques, bazaars, khans and madrasas.

to analyse the image of the Egyptian city during the Islamic period, it is important to understand how Egyptian Muslims conceptualized and represented their cities and to clarify the forces and underlying causes that underpin the distinguished visual appearance of such cities.

it is investigated here how the aspects of the Islamic version of the image of city centres in Egypt can be translated to certain concepts and codes which can be considered in the development of the image of contemporary city in order to regain its identity and achieve the visual sustainability.

to achieve this aim, lynch analysis is applied here to investigate the five components of the image of Islamic Egyptian city centre, and then it is evaluated against certain criteria.

this paper aims also to identify the positive and negative aspects of the visual image of Egyptian city during the Islamic era by focusing on the overhead image as a method of city perception at the present.

it is concluded here that the visual quality of the Islamic image of Egyptian city centre is affected by some negative aspects such as; shortage of accessibility, absence of legible streets network, closed fields of vision, and similarity and monotony of landmarks.

but on the other hand, these aspects which can be interpreted to be negative are justified in terms of the religious, cultural, and social contexts of the Islamic era.

the main principles of designing the Islamic city have been derived and clarified as certain concepts such as community-based city design, the balance between visual exposure and privacy, and design for climate.

it is confirmed here that, to create a link between the design of the city image during the Islamic era and the contemporary version of the city image, these principles should be applied to the design of contemporary cities using the available new techniques in order to meet the different needs of users and to investigate these principles deeply to go beyond merely using the Islamic styles in buildings facades in order to achieve the resilience of such image to the different changes and challenges.