Gayer Anderson - Cairo​

John Gayer-Anderson, the British major and army doctor who restored the two adjoining 16th-century houses between 1935 and 1942, filling them with lovely antiquities, artworks and knick-knacks acquired on his travels in the region. The house was used as a location in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.
 
On his death in 1945, Gayer-Anderson bequeathed the lot to Egypt. The puzzle of rooms is decorated in a variety of styles: the Persian Room has exquisite tiling, the Damascus Room has lacquer and gold, and the Queen Anne Room displays ornate furniture and a silver tea set. The enchanting mashrabiyya gallery looks down onto a magnificent qa’a (reception hall), which has a marble fountain, decorated ceiling beams and carpet-covered alcoves. The rooftop terrace has been lovingly restored, with more complex mashrabiyya.
 
Among the most distinctive features of the Gayer Anderson, Museum Complex is ‎that it used to host a Sabil, which offered fresh water to the public, a feature that is ‎difficult to be found among historical houses in Egypt. ‎The Sabil was considered to be a religious structure that was added to a mosque or a ‎mausoleum to present people with their needs of water for doing ritual washing or wudu prior to Islamic prayers, but finding a Sabil within a ‎residential house was a rare feature in the Islamic architecture of the time.

The Sabil of the Gayer Anderson Museum is located in the right-hand side section of ‎the ground floor with a window opening on the street from which the servant ‎working in the Sabil used to give the water to the people. The room of the Sabil was ‎made out of stones and the ceiling contains some remarkable geometrical decorations ‎with bright colors.

The Sahn or the open courtyard of the house has a semi-irregular shape with a white ‎marble fountain in the middle. The Sahn of the house, the same as in many other historic houses in Egypt, is the heart of the house with all the floors and the ‎sections of the house opening at the Sahn and not opening towards the exterior of the ‎house. ‎ This architectural design of houses was common for a number of reasons; the first is ‎to provide a sense of privacy especially to the ladies of the house and the second is ‎to protect the house against dust and dirt making the air inside the house cleaner and ‎fresher.

The Gallery of photographs and drawings hosts a rare collection of fishing, love, ‎celebration, chanting, wildlife, flowers, and birds’ scenes. The portraits in this hall ‎are quite notable for their special attention to details and sizes. ‎From the Gallery of photographs and portraits, we move to the Haramlek section, the ‎section specified for the ladies of the house. This section is featured with its ‎beautiful Mashrabeya screens that overlook almost every section of the house and ‎the lanes and streets outside the house as well. The Mashrabeya screens were used ‎by women to look over the streets without being seen from outside. ‎ The Haramlek Hall is also featured with its many shelves and cupboards with their ‎wonderful colors that were created in the Persian style. ‎The celebration hall of the Gayer Anderson Museum is one of the most luxurious ‎halls in historical houses in Egypt.
 

The hall is around 15 square meters in surface ‎area that is divided into two galleries; the first is featured with its wonderful throne ‎chair decorated with ivory and mother of pearl. ‎The middle section of this hall has a wonderfully decorated white marble fountain ‎and the floor of the hall is beautifully ornamented with different light colors of ‎marble. ‎ Visiting the Gayer Anderson Museum in Cairo is highly recommended for history ‎and Islamic architecture fans as most of the features of the house remaining in a ‎good condition making the visit to the house an enjoyable experience and makes you feel as if you are traveling back ‎in time to the period of the Ottomans.‎

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