A Striking Clash: The GEM and Cairo’s Derelict Urban Reality
In November 2025, the world largest museum opened with a big media splash, in Cairo, Egypt’s capital. Solely dedicated to a single civilization that of ancient Egypt, the Grand Egyptian Museum, GEM is larger than the sprawling Louvre in Paris. The museum’s inauguration has created a worldwide buzz beyond the world of culture. A museum of superlatives: funded partly with Japanese loans, the US $ 1 billion project is architecturally grand, opulent, spectacular, user friendly, but also incongruous, marketing gimmick, out of place, and a waste of precious money. Built over a twenty-year period, the museum building was purposely erected to highlight King Tut’s tomb treasures and Pharaoh Khufu’s afterlife barges. Notably, the GEM’s goal is to boost Egypt tourism, a key source of revenue. ...