A NEW BUILDING FOR AN EGYPTIAN TREASURES
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo from 1904 hasn't been sufficient long ago. Archeologists discovered ten thousands artefacts in last hundred years, which don't get into the museum already. Rare souvenirs from ancient Egypt demand much space to safe survive and protection through modern preservative methods as well. So it's going to built a new building and a great deal of the most precious artefacts going to place in it.
The building of the new Egyptian museum designed architekts and engineers from London company Arup together with Irish company Heneghan Peng and British company Buro Happold from Bath. Their project won in a public tenders which was invited still in 1998.
They situated the big Egyptian museum about 15 kms from Cairo centre and the building placed partly on the edge of the extensive slant which separate Giza's table-land from the Nile's delta. The building has trapezium-shaped ground-plane and with its bigger base is turned to pyramids. In the one side is the height of the roof abreast like adjacent ground. Engineers designed ferro-concrete wall like a support for a side wall because of height and greatness the building. This support wall is in the distance 10 ms of the building. The wall will be 630 ms long and 34 ms high in its top - one says, it will be the longest support wall in the world. Around the building is it thicker and gradually is thiner with the loss of height up to achievement the groundlevel. They'll name it the Menkaures's Wall because tend to direct middle the pyramid of the pharaoh Menkaures.
The most impressive part of the building will be its facade evidently, compound with triangle-shaped boards of "transparent" stone. Boards will be settle into a steel structure. Facade will be 50 ms high and have to impress that it's a continuation, respectively a part of adjacent slant. Suitable stone for a facade isn't determine yet, but engineers together with workers in geology believe, they will find suitable local deposit. In the night at illumination from the back-side it will work blindly.
Extraordinery part of the building will be a roof, too. It'll be cover with triangle-shaped concrete boards with thickness 300 mms. It's height is shaped to tripod pyramids. The roof is vaulted from the shorter side the trapezium and some of its girders have expansion up to 35 ms. Illumination of he interior secure roof-windows. They'll light exposition, mostly the statues, through the nature ligt. The roof's inside walls are distribute always in the couples. The distance between them is 12 ms. In this inter-space will be machineries of airconditioning, toilets and clubrooms. Four big exhibition-spaces are projected on the 3rd floor and have respectable size: height 10 ms and width from 14 till 35 ms. In the lower floors will be lecture-rooms, offices and research working-places. Spaces for conserve-works will be in independent building.
Wide staircase connect entrance-hall in the ground-floor with main exhibition-halls on the 3rd floor. It's disigned like anunusual educational way: gradually the visitors will watch the history illustrated by artefacts at the both sides of staircase. Detailed informations about all continuities will render digital screens at pedestals the artefacts. When the visitor will mount on the peak of staircase, will see unique panorama of pyramids in the distance 3 kms, through a big glass wall.
Draughtsmen designed to plant bushes on the top of the slant, on which will stand the museum. They suppose, that the bushes prevent motion of sand from overload the museum's roof. The sand might be danger accumulated on the roof or around the walls during a frequently strongly desert-storm.
Surroundings the Cairo is seismic senstitive area. It demonstrate more landslide defects of adjecent country. The engineers aimed not only at safety by the earthquake in their design of the museum but solved preventive protection of rare artefakts, too. Together with museum's experts projected supplemently stone pedestals and blocks, which will prohibit fall down or damage the exhibits during earthquake.
The museum will stand near the place, where the highway Cairo-Alexandria meet Cairo's city by-pass road. Both thoroughfare are overload already now and during a construction of museum they will modernize them.
The construction of The Big Egyptian Museum will be finish in the year 2010.