Ismaïlia : l’invention d’un paysage urbain au cœur de l’Isthme de Suez (Égypte)

Abstract

Ismailia : Inventing An urban Landscape in the Heart of the Isthmus of Suez (Egypt). Once the concession of the Isthmus of Suez had been granted by Mohamed Said, Viceroy of Egypt, in 1854, the Suez Maritime Canal Universal Company had not only to dig the waterway but also to settle alongside the canal three towns which would concentrate industrial buildings, port facilities, employees’ dwellings and administrative buildings. Ismailia, established in 1862 at mid length of the canal, between Port Said and Suez, was to be the future capital of the Isthmus. In the heart of the desert, the town, planned ex nihilo, had to offer all the decisive qualities to the maintaining, in a hostile environment, of the numerous European employees. French engineers and architects, involved in the planning of the town, invented, in Egypt, an urban landscape “à la française”. The regular and geometrical plan, the wide streets, the buildings, parks and “plantations” create, still nowadays, an urban landscape unique in the entire country. The study of the birth and growth of Ismailia addresses problems of diffusion vectors and transfer modalities from North to South of the Mediterranean at the time of Imperialism.