Yacoubian building (or Édifice Yacoubian, as officially named in French upon its completion) is an edifice in Cairo, Egypt, built in 1937. It was the home of the crème de la crème of Egyptian society who lived in the building during the city's heyday of the 1930s and 1940s. Located on No. 34 on Talaat Harb, Cairo, the Art Deco style edifice was named after its owner and businessman Hagop Yacoubian.
The once-chic, now rundown, building serves as a metaphor for Cairo's own deterioration particularly in the 2003 Arabic language novel The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany.
Based on the book, an award-winning film was made in 2006 also entitled The Yacoubian Building directed by Marwan Hamed. The film was reportedly the highest-budgeted film in the history of Egyptian cinema at the time.
This is not to be confused with an equally important dominant edifice in Beirut, Lebanon, called Yacoubian Building belonging to the same family.
Famous quotes containing the word building:
“Our civilization is characterized by the word “progress.” Progress is its form rather than making progress being one of its features. Typically it constructs. It is occupied with building an ever more complicated structure. And even clarity is sought only as a means to this end, not as an end in itself. For me on the contrary clarity, perspicuity are valuable in themselves.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)