Zaha Hadid Architects have unveiled plans for an office and retail development called The Stone Towers in Cairo, Egypt.
Inspired by the patterns and textures of ancient Egyptian stonework, the north and south facades of each tower will be covered with recesses and protrusions emphasising the effects of light and shadow on the surfaces.
Here’s some more information from Zaha Hadid Architects:
–
STONE TOWERS, CAIRO BY ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS
The Stone Towers by Zaha Hadid Architects for Rooya Group of Egypt is located in the Stone Park district of Cairo. Providing office and retail facilities to a rapidly expanding Cairo, the unique 525,000sqm Stone Towers development also includes a five-star business hotel with serviced apartments, retail with food and beverage facilities and sunken landscaped gardens and plaza called the ‘Delta’.
Hisham Shoukri, CEO of Rooya Group said “There is a overwhelming need in Egypt for developments of the highest international standards required by the serious and growing investment climate of the country – ultimately contributing to making it a hub for multinationals in the region. The Stone Towers needed an architect with daring ideas, innovation, international expertise and experience…it needed Zaha Hadid.”
Ancient Egyptian stonework incorporates a vast array of patterns and textures that, when illuminated by the intense sunlight of the region, creates animated displays of light and shadow. The effect is powerful, direct and inspiring. The facades on the North and South elevations of each building within Stone Towers adopts a rich vocabulary of alternating protrusions, recesses and voids to enhance the deep reveal shadow lines that accentuate the curvatures of each building within the development and animate the project throughout the day.
“I am delighted to be working in Cairo, states Hadid. “I have visited Egypt many times and I have always been fascinated by the mathematics and arts of the Arab world. In our office we have always researched the formal concepts of geometry – which relates a great deal to the region’s art traditions and sciences in terms of algebra, geometry and mathematics. This research has informed the design for Stone Towers.
“With a large-scale project such as the Stone Towers, care must be taken to balance a necessary requirement for repetitive elements whilst avoiding an uncompromising repetition of static building masses.” states Hadid. “The architecture of Stone Towers pursues a geometric rhythm of similar, interlocking, yet individually differentiated building forms that creates a cohesive composition.”
Client: Rooya Group
Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects
Structural Engineer: Adams Kara Taylor
Gross Building Area: 525,000 m2
Site Area: 170,000 m2
More Dezeen stories about Zaha Hadid:
.
Regium Waterfront by Zaha Hadid Architects
Port House Antwerp by Zaha Hadid Architects
Library and Learning Centre in Vienna by Zaha Hadid Architects
Melissa shoes by Zaha Hadid Architects
Capital Hill Residence by Zaha Hadid Architects
Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion by Zaha Hadid 2
Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion by Zaha Hadid
Dubai Opera House by Zaha Hadid
Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Vilnius by Zaha Hadid Architects
Chanel Contemporary Art Container by Zaha Hadid
Lilium Tower in Warsaw by Zaha Hadid
Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum by Zaha Hadid
Innovation Tower at Hong Kong Polytechnic University by Zaha Hadid
Nordpark Cable Railway by Zaha Hadid Architects
Civil Courts of Justice in Madrid by Zaha Hadid
Zorrozaurre masterplan for Bilbao by Zaha Hadid Architects
Urban Nebula by Zaha Hadid movie
Dune Formations by Zaha Hadid 2
Lilas by Zaha Hadid Architects
Fade chandelier by Zaha Hadid for Swarovski
Basel rejects Zaha Hadid casino
Zaha Hadid at the Serpentine Gallery
Dezeen launches Zaha Hadid blog
Moscow Expocentre by Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid and John Pawson for Fusital
Sheikh Zayed Bridge by Zaha Hadid
Beasties, Zaha and Barber Osgerby for 20ltd
Seamless collection by Zaha Hadid
Private house near Moscow by Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid in Abu Dhabi update
More images of Hadid’s Emirates centre
Hadid’s Rome museum takes shape
More images of Hadid’s Ideal House in Cologne
May 28th, 2009 at 11:21 am
“nspired by the patterns and textures of ancient Egyptian stonework…”
which ones are they referring to? looks more like Arizona cactus to me – very sustainable as all of Zahahahahaaahaa’s work
May 28th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Just too much Hadid! She wants to take over the world!! Aaah – run!!!
May 28th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
“inspired by the patterns and textures of ancient Egyptian stonework…”???
All of her work has this same pattern. Her website has this same pattern. She is obssessed with it.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
more like:
“inspired by the patterns and textures of http://www.zaha-hadid.com/…”
finally she can use the dated homepage design as a building… thats efficient recycling! and efficiency matters for big offices
congratulation
May 28th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
very prolific
May 28th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I think they are talking about Cairo in Greene County, New York, United States…
I can’t be Egypt…
May 28th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I feel great relief that it is cacti that informed these shapes rather than what normally might a Hadid works.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
how brutalist of her firm. i’m gonna go out on a limb and say once this is built there are going to be a lot of sci-fi movies using this as a backdrop.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Is Dezeen contractually required to post every single item that Zaha Hadid’s office submits to them? She submits two renderings of a “proposed” building and it makes the cut? Come on, Dezeen!
I think that for the remainder of 2009, Zaha should be allowed to submit only photos of COMPLETED projects.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
The true essence of the Egyptian stone is sadly lost in this recent project of Zahas.
If we close our eyes, cross our legs and take deep breaths and invisage the Egyptian stone, one can imagine a heavily scupltured masculine form rising up from the undulating horizontal planes of the Egyptian landscape.
A baron, dry land should be reflected in the form, yet this scheme has more in common with freshly cut grass than stonework. Grass is feminine, and femininity and Egypt are two things that do not go hand in hand.
More masculinity is definately required here. I love masculinity.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
The landscape around the structure is the best bit!
Palm trees look great in renders. Fact.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
beloved zaha, keep it on shoes, no more buildings…
May 29th, 2009 at 10:18 am
These are beautiful and have some great potential…can’t wait for them to be realized
May 29th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
INawe – “brutalist”? Really?
May 29th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Vla :
no , it is cairo in EGYPT .
Urban design is the best of ZaHa …
May 29th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
this work very suitable and logical
i love your style zahaaaaaaa
wonderful
May 30th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
wtf…….this is just a wavy le corbusier replica!!!!!
i just hope the financial crisis hits her office soon, before she continues making this kind of crimes.
May 31st, 2009 at 12:23 am
Please. Make it stop.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:52 pm
“Inspired by the patterns and textures of ancient Egyptian stonework”
hahahaha seems everyone is laughing about this…. who said that?? that came from ZHA? or from the ppl at dezeen.com?? in any case…. bullshit!!! hahahaha, c’mon guys, get some serious criticism here. P L E A S E!
June 1st, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Oh come on Guy’s !!! lets be reasonable.
At least some one is not effected by the Dammed recession!!!!!!!!
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:12 am
this will be great to egypt that zaha will build 2 project in cairo , the stone towers and expo cairo ( my fav one ) so if any one can just get me any pic of expo cairo or the presentation movie of stone towers i wil be very happy ……….. sry for my bad English
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
this reminds me of my summers on Vulcan…..
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:58 pm
i admire many of her works, but unfortunatley this looks like the towers designed for dubai multiplied in large number and scaled down to fit the new program.
June 5th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
the lord of the rings
June 7th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Inspired by Egyptian patterns? hmmm alot of her work is inspired by “Egyptian patterns”
November 22nd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
The beauty of the design is in the idea of letting of all traditional facades.
Egyptian stone… where do they get stone… mountains, craters etc…
have you ever seen a square mountain, or a straight edged crater?
well what i mean is, following basic ideas of “perfect”, nothing is as perfect as a circle, no edge, everything goes in unison, imitating the feal of a circle in something as trivial as a building does change a lot.
as the curves in the buildings (any one of her designs) shade the ground, nothing but beauty can be seen.
i know this seems very wrong for many, but the world’s designers are famous for their style. Ralph Lauren and the polo, same cut different horse and number every few years. with Zaha, Same defenition in her art, the curves, the glass formation, but different scale, surroundings and feel.
egyptian patterns, yes, go to any temple, everything is so perfect, everything is so… yes… round… (except the monuments and statues) enter a room in a temple, yes you guessed it, no square room, something is always tilted, time wear and tear or anything. it just seems beautiful.
i have one word… dont hate… dont envy… follow or start your own trend!
to Zaha.
Thanks for the inspiration, im working on a tower, called the Zaha (my first work).
to all the haters… “You follow and agree, or you start and deconstruct” – (sven de louf, from his journal, the indigo)
cheers,
one