How many times have you passed this palace and wondered why it seems forgotten and desolate? Unfortunately, the Baron's palace is not open to the public, but you can stop and have a good look from outside fence. In the spring of 2005, the Ministry of Housing replanted the garden. To celebrate, summer musical evenings gave some Cairenes the opportunity to enjoy the gardens.
Baron-General Edouard Louis Joseph Empain, a Belgian- born industrialist, had the vision to construct a new city outside of Cairo, which he called Heliopolis. To promote the area, Baron Empain built his own palace in the undeveloped desert east of Matariya in 1907.
Alexandre Marcel, a French architect known for his exotic designs, was responsible for designing the Hindu-style exterior of the palace. The temples of Angkor in Cambodia particularly inspired Marcel. The grand exterior pagoda depicts Hindu gods, mythical creatures, elephants, gargoyles, goddesses playing musical instruments, and Buddha posed serenely in his lotus position. French designer Georges- Louis Claude, who had decorated the Oriental Pavilion at the Royal Palace of Laeken in Belgium with Alexandre Marcel, decorated the once sumptuous interior, now completely bar of furnishings.
One can only imagine the extravagance of the palace- massive gilded doors, elaborate ceilings, fresco murals. The garden surrounding the palace was wondrous: terraced and filled with exotic vegetation and marble statues, it greeted European royalty and Egypt's most influential rulers.
After the death of the Baron in 1929, who is buried in his Byzantine-style basilica, three generations of Empains lived in the palace. Then it was sold in 1957 by foreign investors and is now the property of the Egyptian government, and home to an ever-growing family of bats. After half a century of deterioration, defacement, and no water for the gardens, this Hindu palace is but a rattling skeleton in its own desert, a treasured historic landmark crumbling amid gossip and ghosts.
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