Artistic Reminders in $150-Million System : Cairo’s Subway to Feature Egypt’s Past

When Cairo’s subway opens in the fall, users not only will ride the newest form of transportation in Africa and the Middle East, they will glimpse artistic reminders of Egypt’s ancient and recent past.

Officials also hope that the 2.8-mile subway line will help unsnarl the city’s constantly jammed streets and get more people to work on time.

At the Sadat Station on one of Cairo’s busiest squares, a granite staircase descends into a temple-like hush of gleaming marble walls, pastel Pharaonic frescoes and tulip-shaped columns.

History Used as Backdrops

Inspired by the 3,000-year-old Sakkara Temple in the desert 15 miles to the south, the station is the keystone of the $150-million system.

It and three of the system’s other five stations will use Egypt’s ancient and recent history as backdrops for the estimated 1 million commuters expected to use the subway each day.

Beneath the central Tahrir Square, in the station named for President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated in 1981, machines will punch subway tickets as commuters file past copies of 5,000-year-old relics housed in the nearby Egyptian Museum.

Then in a leap to recent history, reliefs on the walls depict the October, 1973, Middle East War, in which Egyptian soldiers crossed the Suez Canal and broke through Israel’s fortified Bar-Lev Line on the opposite bank. Egyptians consider that feat modern Egypt’s greatest victory.

Station Showcase

“This is very pretty,” said Yves Buirette, an engineer with Sofretu, a French consulting firm working on the project. “We didn’t think it would be so beautiful. It’s even better than the Paris Metro (subway).”

While the Sadat Station’s Pharaonic decor is the system’s showcase, other stations emphasize other eras in Egypt’s history. There are commemorations of its Islamic empire days, of revolutions, of military victories and national heroes.

At the Sayeda Zeinab Station, Islamic motifs are a monument to the nearby mosque and shrine to Sayeda Zeinab, a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammed.

Salah Abdel-Karim, dean of Cairo’s Fine Arts School and a design consultant for the system, said tile panels with Islamic designs and giant Arabesque lanterns for the station were made in France. It also displays “ceramics done by computer, with no art involved,” he said.

Minor Controversy

Sadat’s predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser, is commemorated in another station. Frescoes in Nasser Station depict the army lieutenant colonel who led the revolt that ended Egypt’s monarchy in 1952 and two years later became president until his death in 1970.

The historical theme has led to a minor controversy.

The Committee on Transport of the People’s Assembly, Egypt’s Parliament, suggested that since stations were named after Sadat and Nasser, it would be proper to name one for the current president, Hosni Mubarak. The suggestion has not been acted on, and so far there is no Mubarak Station.

Conceived in the early 1970s, the subway project met with innumerable obstacles after work began in late 1981. It cost about 50% more than planned and is to be opened on Oct. 6, 2 1/2 years later than scheduled.

Testing Period

The contractors are to turn over the system to the Egyptian Railway Authority on July 26, the 25th anniversary of Nasser’s revolution. A testing period of about 10 weeks will follow before Mubarak officially declares it open to the public.

The system is the first of its kind in Africa or the Middle East and was financed mainly by France and built by InterInfra Arab, a French-Egyptian consortium.

Cairo officials predict that it will relieve Cairo’s congested traffic by at least 30%.