Downtown Cairo, Egypt; 10 years in the making; persevering through all of the upheaval and chaos of the Arab Spring, the military coup that followed, and the extraordinary difficulties of bringing an ambitious project like this to fruition anywhere in the world –let alone in North Africa. There is now a beautiful Alternative Film Arts Centre occupying a couple of floors of a 1930’s art deco apartment building, with a crown jewel of a theater at it’s heart.
I was fortunate to spend a few months living in Cairo and working alongside the carpenters and other tradesmen, as well as the Cimatheque staff, creating an acoustically successful space that keeps the sound of the city out, and the sound of the theater in. It was a monumental challenge, and profoundly rewarding.
This was a collaboration with CLUSTER, a Cairo architecture firm specializing in urban design and study.
The construction and equipping of Cimatheque were made possible with generous support from the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Norway), Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Cairo, The Ford Foundation, Young Arab Theatre Fund, and Culture Resource (Al Mawred Al Thaqafy).