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.

                                                                       GEM atrium: Rhamses II and mirror pool

The Egyptian civilization has captivated me since my youth, and the above conflicting opinions attracted my curiosity.  Over the Christmas/New year period, I decided to spend -alone- four days in Cairo and see for myself.  My goal was to reconnect with the ancient Egypt pharaohs who had inspired me during my youth: Ramses II, Queen Hatshepsut, Tutankhamun, Akhenaten and Cleopatra and not to assess the museum, as I am unqualified to do so.  I visited Egypt long ago: It was my first trip abroad, and I returned to Cairo for work in the 1980s.  My memory of the city was hazy and vague.  

The GEM’s opening has drawn hundreds of thousands of tourists like me to Cairo, consequently exposing us to a striking contrast between the museum’s modern luxury and beauty and the city’s impoverished, and deteriorating landscape.  Cairo, a city of 23 million people, is crumbling under the burden of its people.  I left Egypt with mixed emotions.  While I was astounded by the stunning artifacts artistically displayed at GEM, I was thoroughly disheartened by the destruction of a culturally and architecturally rich city due to its inhabitants’ neglect and predation.  

The GEM stands near the Giza pyramids, away from the chaos of the city.  My museum exploration lasted six hours with a lunch break but not at Ladurée, the famous French macarons maker (I found Ladurée rather incongruous in the food court).  As a foreign tourist, I paid US$ 30 for the entry ticket.  Egyptians pay much less, about $ 4.  I read that this price difference and the visitor quota system to manage crowds led to a huge controversy, that of access vs revenue as the government endeavors to boost foreign tourism.  The quota system brought up a broader identity debate.   A $4 ticket is still expensive for Egyptians who feel like second class visitors (the monthly minimum salary is roughly equivalent to US$ 138).   

The sand-colored buildings blend well into the desert and, despite their masses, they remain unobstructive.  The museum’s impressive size becomes immediately apparent upon stepping into the atrium. The 12-metre-tall statue of Ramses II towers over an architectural mumbo jumbo, which I found too busy for my taste.  The atrium leads to a monumental staircase lined with huge statues; it serves as the central feature of the museum which was conceived as a combined exhibition complex, hospitality and shopping mall.  The shopping mall and food court are on the other side.  

On each side of the stairs are the exhibition areas where some 50 000 artifacts tell 7000 years of Egyptian history.  The main attraction is the Tutankhamun wing, and it was mobbed the day of my visit.  The display space for King Tut’s golden mask seems cramped to be properly appreciated.  The museum also needs better signage: I got lost trying to find Queen Cleopatra!

GEM is hype but worth the visit. The Tutankhamun’s wing is an immersive experience.  The burial artifacts help to comprehend the king’s funeral ritual.  Death was seen as a brief pause and a passage to immortality.  Sickly King Tut died at 20, I hope he had a much longer and happier afterlife.   An annex building, the boat gallery houses Pharaoh Khufu’s 4,600-year-old afterlife barge.  It was recently reassembled piece by piece and the result is stunning.

My hotel, situated on the Nile bank like many others, overlooks the charming historic Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square.  Even though the museum is just across the bridge, I decided against a visit because I was afraid to cross the street.  Cairo is notorious for lack of functional pedestrian crossings forcing city walkers to risk their life navigating the chaotic traffic.  Tutorials on how to cross a Cairo street are available online!  It is possibly the world’s fastest growing city.  Any municipality would be challenged to cope with such expansion, and the misguided authorities are overwhelmed.  When stepping out of state-of-the-art GEM, one is hit by a harsh reality of poverty, urban decay, chaos and inequality, even the iconic Giza pyramids are now surrounded by slums.  The over budget, still unnamed utopian new capital, an example of misplaced spending, is still being built and inhabited.

I took taxis to visit the city’s major landmarks: the Citadel, Al-Muizz street and the Khan el Khalili bazaar, the Coptic quarter, and the Museum of Egyptian Civilization with its 20 royal mummies and discover how they died.  I also stopped by the City of the Dead, a historic necropolis where people live among the dead, an illustration of Cairo’s poverty and crumbling infrastructure.  The striking contrast between the grandeur of GEM and the surrounding urban decay in Cairo will stay with me.