This picture shows the main editorial office of the Dar al-Hilal publishing house in 1925 in al-Amir Qadadar street. We have not yet discussed the sources of the Karkègi-albums, which form the basis of our project. These mostly contain images, which are cuts from Arabic and French journals. This particular image is from al-Musawwar, one of the most popular illustrated magazines in the interwar period.
Before the appearance of specialized architecture and urbanism journals in Arabic at the end of the 1930s, and next to private touristic, expat, and vernacular private photography, general Arabic magazines are an important source to study urban change. In Egypt, illustrated (and satirical) magazines with caricatures and drawings catered to the general public from the late 1870s. Arabic journals with photographs started to pop up from the late 1890s.
Dar al-Hilal is an example of the thriving Syrian bourgeois enterprises, which profited from the British occupation in Egypt. Owned by the Zaydan family, the publishing house became a real press empire in the interwar period. They created al-Musawwar in late 1924 with the conscious goal of a high-end illustrated magazine for and about the political, artistic, and economic Egyptian and Syrian Arab elite. This Arabic “society” magazine contained a relatively large number of articles and literary content, too. (They had even more popular journals such as al-Fukaha, until a new journal al-Ithnayn reduced the text to a minimal in order to cater for even wider audiences just like their French journal, Images. Some issues of Images scanned and downloadable at CEALEX and in Gallica).
Image: Detail showing al-Amir Qadadar street, Cairo map (1920), Library of Congress
The comparative montage-technique, presumably by Karkègi, used these “society” products to trace urban change in visual form, mostly with a highly aestheticizing aim. In a rare article in October 1925, al-Musawwar described its editing and publishing process, with special attention to the new technology of rotographic printing of images. The image is from this article, showing the headquarters of the office where the printing machines were. In the page of the Karkègi-album, the next image below shows the building from an 1933 issue of Images. Today, the Dar al-Hilal library in Muhammad ‘Izz al-‘Arab street is a useful research collection in Cairo, which researchers can use for a modest fee and can buy images. Some issues of al-Musawwar in the late 1920s are available to be viewed in AUC Digital library.
Bibliography:
Ibrahim ‘Abduh, Tatawwur al-Sihafa al-Misriyya. 4th Ed. Cairo: Mu’assasat Sijill al-‘Arab, 1982.
Ziad Fahmy, Ordinary Egyptians. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011.
Mercedes Volait, L’architecture moderne en Égypte et la revue Al-’Imara: 1939-1959. Le Caire: CEDEJ, 1988.
Lucie Ryzova,”The Image sans Orientalism,” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 8, 2-3 (2015): 159-171.
(A.M.)
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