The Grand Museum of Egypt & the Challenge of Sustainability
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The Grand Museum of Egypt & The Challenge of Sustainability Dr. Walid A. Moneim Dr. Zeinab Shafik Dr. Yasser Mansour Introduction The approach to museum design has undergone a substantial change in the past few decades. Museums were previously established to store artifacts safely and allow interested visitors who are usually members of a high culture in the society to encounter them. Museums were buildings constructed with a philanthropist mentality whose basic objective was preservation and safe keeping of irreplaceable items. The idea that the artifacts displayed represent a country’s heritage or a nation’s pride justified even more this philanthropist approach. With the increase in the extensive variations in the typology of museums based on the artifacts displayed and with the variations in the size of museums, the goal of building a museum faced a substantial change. Museums are now established to serve different groups of visitors with variations in the level of their sophistication and intellectual background. Museums have become more democratic while addressing different user groups with different intentions and orientation. Museums also respond to the needs of special user-groups such as the handicapped, the visually impaired and the children. The discrepancy and variations in the user groups that museums serve together with the type of exhibits displayed control and direct its design and provide guidelines for its operation after construction. Thus, museums developed like any other building type directed to serve members of the community. With this orientation the concept of the museum as a philanthropist act has also developed. With the advancement in economic sciences, marketing strategies and business oriented feasibility studies, museums are thought of as institutions which can be revenue generating, self sustainable and even profit making structures. Accordingly the initial program of the museum building is based on activities and spaces which can bring in an income to that institution. The added activities are usually selected to suit the main purpose for building the museum, which at the same time provide an alternative way of enjoying the premises. The Grand Museum of Egypt was based on a program that intended it to be an International Cultural node, which not only focuses on ancient Egyptian artifacts, but also perpetuates and enriches the cultural life of Egypt today. It represents a gateway leading to an experience of understanding the form of life that existed in Egypt thousands of years ago and a window open to everyday life sustained in Egypt today. It is a two fold objective that pulls the ancient legends to the essence of “Egyptianess” as it is lived in contemporary Egypt. In its own philosophical approach the GME sustains the culture that exists in the Egyptian context by linking it to its historical roots and perpetuating its greatness via different activities and facilities that are offered in a building of a world class standard. Display Galleries The Grand Museum of Egypt proposes an unprecedented amalgamation of different display galleries. When visiting the GME one would have stepped into the trail of ancient Egyptian civilization. The entire Egyptian heritage is accessible via the GME ready to be understood and its meanings deciphered at any level of communication. The GME provides the rites of passage 1 into the ancient Egyptian Culture; physically in its halls, galleries, gardens, and extending landscape; and virtually via the telecommunication links which connects the GME to other artifacts distributed in museums around the world and by the reconstruction of archaeological sites that are inaccessible to the visitors at the time. (Figures 1, 2) Educational Facilities The GME is an educational institute whose objective is to keep the ancient Egyptian Legends alive by opening them up to interpretation by understanding their meanings and implications. Educational programs are directed to a wide spectrum of audiences. The Egyptologists, archaeologists, historians, and theoreticians distributed all over the world will find common grounds in the information offered to them via the channels of the GME, this provides an opportunity to excel and further navigate into the meanings withheld in the ancient Egyptian culture (figure 3). More importantly, the educational programs target the general public by raising the awareness of the layperson to the greatness of the heritage they withhold. The younger generation represents the target customer for the different educational programs, which is based on providing a hands-on experience in the children's museum, which is endorsed by the excitement delivered in the virtual galleries and the IT links, this allows the eager younger client to mix the pleasures of the scientific imaginary world of the virtual reality with the facts of history that anchor the Egyptians' roots to the land of the Nile. Leisure and Pleasure The leisure and pleasure is an integral part of the experience provided in the GME, it provides its own agenda of activities and events and has reserved an extensive area of the program to support such functions. The gardens of the GME stretch out into the landscape offering an uninterrupted view of the pyramids which are pulled into the landscape of the museum parks. The parks are part of the navigation journey into the past. They represent the outdoor, open air life of ancient Egypt with its climatic conditions, the presence of the desert sand, and the reconstruction of the ancient pattern of agricultural land that sustained thousands of years of change. Life developed along the banks of the Nile and moved from one level of intricacy and complexity to the other, the Egyptians' experience, added knowledge and developed traditions produced layers of wisdom that created the most sophisticated civilization ever known. The life springing out along the valley survived gracefully through political changes, climatic disasters, administrative and oppressive rulers; it sustained itself miraculously under adverse circumstances. This story of a life experience of a culture is told in the gardens of the museum and its everydayness is reincarnated in its landscape design. The leisure parks revive the old wisdom but do not deny the lived reality by offering theme parks and equipped parks accommodating the most innovative facilities and equipment used in contemporary landscape. Thus, historicity and the values of tradition mixes with luxuries offered by the most developed technologies of the time. (Figures 4, 5) Commercial Facilities The GME is a life structure situated on the edge of the urban developed fabric of the Giza governorate; accordingly it belongs to this fabric and is designated to serve it. Its location on the border of the urban structure holds it back from moving onto the lands of antiquity, accordingly, the museum is a buffer zone and a control mechanism to limit urban development. By being part of an urban fabric, the GME provides its residences with commercial services, a market place which offers different types of merchandize and shopping opportunities, an I-Max cinema, a promenade area, etc. The ‘I-Max’ cinema moves the viewer into a virtual world of ancient Egypt. The fitness center, the cafeterias and restaurants responds to the users' body being and physical needs. By being a buffer zone it offers all its services in a manner that tunes them to the cultural message of the 2 museum. Shopping and other commercial facilities are not addressed as a typical mall with fast food restaurants. Commercial services are used as icons transmitting values and symbols of ancient Egyptian culture. The music, the aroma, the atmosphere, the genius loci all represent tacit messages which are used as educational instruments acting on the consciousness of the general public towards the sustainability of the cultural message of the GME. (Figures 6, 7) Architectural Solutions for Sustainable Development Despite the services and facilities housed in the GME, the fact remains that its mere presence will definitely influence the surrounding environment. With such irreplaceable neighbor as the Giza Plateau which is declared as world heritage by the UNESCO, the input that the GME brings to its site must be carefully planned and controlled. Managing the museum facility when it operates will have to include the management of the surrounding urban environment. The Jury’s report concluding the first phase of the GEM competition specifically pointed out the importance of dealing with the site characteristics in a sensitive manner, and linking the site of the museum to the Pyramids in an intelligent urban design solution. The importance of employing ecological responsive design solutions was recommended for the preservation of the urban-scape of the region. The projects presented by the twenty competitors who participated in the second competition phase responded to this plea by applying alternative approaches in addressing the design of the GME. (Figures 8, 9) In the second phase of the competition more restrictions were placed on the designs by the competitors themselves. Opposite to the daring solutions of the first phase which in some situations emphasized the GME building despite its reflection on the setting and surrounding site. The second phase entries were more conscious of the limitations and constraints evolving from the location of the museum. The height and vertical extension of the museum building were cautiously addressed. The need for a multi-storey structure was resolved by placing part of or the entire museum underground. The desert environment surrounding the building was addressed and reflected on the design. The connection to the pyramids was a requirement that was consciously responded to in the twenty final projects. The importance of the ecological environmental solutions was implemented to reduce dependency on energy generating approaches and the employment of passive systems for environmental control. Height Control All competitors decreased the building heights in a noticeable manner, nothing more than two or three floors above the ground level were suggested.