GOING FOR A WALK: AL-KORBA

by M. Butcher

When looking for things to do with or without kids it’s always nice to take a walk. We like to take the kids out in Korba because they have wide sidewalks and there are lots of stores and coffee shops to pass by. The streets are wide and easy enough to cross with kids and it is stroller friendly.

A mansion in Al-Korba.

 Al-Korba, originally from Italian La Curva meaning the curve, was built by a Belgian Company called Heliopolis Oases Company about 1906. The company was formed in Cairo in 1906 as a partnership between a consortium of Belgian developers led by Édouard Empain and Boghos Nubar Pasha, son of one-time Egyptian Prime Minister, Nubar Nubarian . They bought a large stretch of desert to the northeast of Cairo at a low price from the colonial government. Empain began building the new town of Heliopolis, situated in the desert about ten kilometers from the center of Cairo. It was designed to be a “city of luxury and leisure”, with broad avenues and to be equipped with all necessary conveniences; water, drains, electricity, hotel facilities, such as the Heliopolis Palace Hotel and Heliopolis House, and recreational amenities including a golf course, racetrack and park. As well, there was housing for rent, offered in a range of innovative design types targeting specific social classes with detached and terraced villas, apartment buildings.

The architectural style used in Korba and Heliopolis is a mixture of the Moorish, Arabic and European styles.  They combined qualities from each type taking the Moorish façades with Arabic cross sections and European floor plans gave it functionality and a uniquely aesthetic form which were suitable for daily Egyptian domestic life.  As well the sections were made to be suitable for the atmospheric conditions of North Africa.

Heliopolis Style Architecture in Al-Korba.

What I love about Korba is the ease of it all. It also has some very nice shopping, there are several posh jewellery stores, boutiques, souvenir shops, and high end watch sellers. We can park and walk with our kids, get them ice cream, take them to a book shop, and even stop for coffee and then it is an easy walk to the masjid when it is time to pray.