Al-Gawhara Palace

Al-Gawhara Palace (Arabic: قصر الجوهرة Qaṣr al-Gawhara), also known as Bijou Palace, is a palace and museum in Cairo, Egypt. The palace is situated south of the Mosque of Muhammad Ali in the Cairo Citadel. It was commissioned by Muhammad Ali Pasha in 1814.

The palace was designed and constructed by artisans contracted from a variety of countries, including Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians and Albanians. The artisans constructed a variety of elements as part of the palace complex: "barracks, schools, an arsenal, a gun-powder factory and a mint." The palace was constructed as a two-storey pavilion in the style of a Turkish kushk. It has Western style windows which were often topped with an oval oeil-de-boeuf. The French architect and engineer Pascal Coste was employed to add the residential quarters for the palace servants and functionaries. On one side of the palace was a haush (courtyard) and on the other, were views of the pyramids and the Nile.

In 1822, a fire destroyed the palace's wooden construction in a blaze that lasted for 2 days. Later, Muhammad Ali had the structure expanded and elaborated upon with the construction of "a large marble fountain, columned stone terraces and porticoes, parterres of flower beds and orange groves, and even a menagerie containing a lion, two tigers and an elephant, a gift of the British Lord Hastings."

Text adapted from “Al-Gawhara Palace” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Al-Gawhara Palace zajmuje 2049. miejsce na 3813 w rankingu rozpoznawalności zamków tego atlasu i 12. wśród 16 obiektów w Egipcie. Powstał w 1814 i jest starszy niż 13% datowanych obiektów atlasu — jeden z 270 obiektów atlasu powstałych w XIX wiek. Zobacz w statystykach zamków, jak wypada Egipt.

Zobacz na interaktywnej mapie zamków →

Przeczytaj całą historię w Wikipedii ↗