num_pages: 160
description: This photographic book sheds new light upon the architectural and decorative elements of domestic doorways from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Cairo. Previous studies on the subject have been few and far between and have paid more attention to the Cairo of Khedive Ismailthe new quarter of the city. Enter in Peace focuses instead on those doorways of houses built in Cairos older neighborhoods and inhabited by Egypts middle classes. Included here are over 150 photographs illustrating eighty-one of these doorways as well as the faades of the buildings in which they appear. The book records their dimensions and their various architectural and stylistic elements from the structure of doors lintels and paneling to common designs and motifs. Built during a period of great change and modernization in Egypt these doorways reflect the Ottoman European neo-Pharaonic and Islamic Revival architectural styles prevalent at the time.Ahmed Abdel-Gawad has made a careful study of these historic doorways with descriptive comments on the houses original owners and dates of construction drawing on tax records and histori-cal documentation to present them in context. Handsomely illustrated and thoroughly researched Enter in Peace provides an important visual record of Cairos rapidly disappearing architectural heritage.
language: English
title: Enter in Peace: The Doorways of Cairo Homes, 1872–1950
publisher: The American University in Cairo Press