Archive for January, 2010

Luxor the old capital Egypt.

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010


Here you can smell the scent of the great history of the greatest civilization & the mother of all civilizations, luxor the old capital of the first nation,
the world’s greatest open-air museum,filled with the awe-inspiring monuments of ancient civilization.
As weset it was the capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom91567-1085 BC) ; as thebes it was described by Homer as “the hundred-gate city” its later name, Al-Oksor, means in Arabic the city of palaces.
testaments to a desire for immortality, built for eternity in sand stone & granite, the temples, tombs & palaces still stand, surrounded by markets and luxury hotels.
On the East Bank of the Nile, in the city of the living(where the people led their life work, celebrate, …) Luxor & Karnak Temples greet the sunrise. The sunset on the west Bank throws shadows through the City of the Dead: the Tombs of the Nobles, the Valley of the Kings, Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple.
Today, You can walk through history ; past statues with the heads of gods and animals, beneath pillars carved with lotus buds and papyrus. ride in horse-drawn cale’che, sail in a flucca(small boat), take a sunset cruise or see the city from a hot-air balloon.
East Bank
Karnak Temples
Known to the ancient Egyptians as “Lput-Isut”, the most esteemed of places, Karnak Temples are built on a massive scale. the temple complex covers a hundred acres; its history spans thirteen centuries.
the temples start with Avenue of Rams, representing, Amon; symbol of fertility & growth.
Beneath the Rams, heads, small statues of Ramses II were carved.

there is, in truth, no building in the wide world to compare with it
The Sound & Light Spectacle
This spellbinding show, through the exquisite use of words, light & music, tells the story of these magnificent Karnak Temples.
The program is presented in Arabic, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian & Japanese.
Luxor Temple
The southern temple, dedicated to Amon. The Museum is situated between the temples of luxor & Karnak. It houses pharaonic relics from Luxor & the nearby areas.
West Bank
Mortuary Temples
the Colossi of Memnon
the only remains of Amenhotep Mortuary Temple.
Medinet Habu Temple(City of Habu)
one of the most Important of all buildings in Medinet Habu, is Ramses III Temple characterized by its well-preserved religious and military scenes.
The Ramesseum
Ramses II’s stupendous mortuary temple at western Thebes inspired Shelley’s sonnet “Ozymandias”. Its murals record the renowned Battle of Kadesh.

Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple
Hatshepsut, the only woman to rule over Egypt as Pharaoh, named her temple ”Djeser, Djeseru ” the Splendour of Splendours.

Valley Of The Kings
King Tut-Ankh-Amun’s Tomb
The most famous tomb in the Valley of the Kings. c.1352 BC. In 1922, Howard Carter’s discovered King Tut’s fabulous golden treasures caused a world wide sensation.

Mask and gold treasures of Tut-Ankh-Amun
Valley Of The Queens
Nefertari’s Tomb
The most renowned at the Valley of the Queens. It boasts vivid murals & inscriptions. The Tomb has been recently opened to the public after restoration.
you can see the undying colours, colours that are still fresh though laid on by hands that have been dust these three thousand years and more.

Day Trips
Luxor is an ideal base for day trips to Esna Dendera & Abydos.
Esna boasts the Temple of Khnum, the ram-headed creator god. Nearby is an early Christian monastery,
Deir Manayus Wal-Shuhada, built in the 4th century AD. “The Monastery of Three Thousand Six Hundred Martyrs” comprises two churches, the walls of one are covered with vibrant 10th-century murals.
At Dendara you can visit the Temple of Hathor, dedicated to th cow-headed goddess of healing. This Graeco-Roman temple is famous for its astronomical ceiling, painted with symbols of the heavenly bodies.
Abydos was the chief seat of worship of Osiris, god of the  under world. The Temple of Seti I with its painted reliefs is the best preserved among the ruins of Abydos, while the Temple of Ramses II is partially preserved.

King Tut’s International Festival
It is an annual event celebrating the discovery of King Tut’s tomb on the 4th of November 1922.
The festival has been inspired by the ancient Egyptian festival of Opet which held during the reunion of the Theban Triad: the god Amun, his wife Mut &  their son Khonsu.
During the reign of King Tut Ankh Amun the whole ceremony was carved in relief on the processionary colonnade in Luxor Temple, where it can still be seen today.

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Ideas for color choosing.

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

It’s a well known issue in the interior design world, that color is one of the first steps to create a the vision, determining the volume, length, width, height, & depth.it’s also regulated factor if the space was wide enough or narrow, to present shapes & forms in a different volume & shape, to enhance the visual vision of the space.
color & surrounding environment: every color has his own physical, psychological, & cultural characteristics. so let us talk about these great colors & its impact on our life.
warm colors are reds, oranges, yellows, the touches of those colors add life & warmth to the room, it also assures the meanings of familiarity & activity we can consider those colors as an anti depression colors, but be careful using those colors too much resulted in over stimulating people, and make them easier to become angry, it makes spaces looks smaller. also choosing oranges is a favorable item in dinning rooms, cause it helps to open the appetite,warm color is favorable in kitchens to.yellow is the color of mental activity so you may use it in the places where you work or study. hot countries don’t like to use warm colors a lot, cause it assures the feeling of hotness, but it is the right choice for the cold countries specially when it used in the material of wood.
cool colors are blues, greens, & cyan adding white blues(blue ciel) to a scene give the feeling of coolness & cold. white blue the color of the sky is the relaxation color, & i can tell you that the thick blue calm you down even they use it in the seclusion room in the psychiatric hospitals. it calms down the agitated patients.
you may use white blues or greens in the bedroom, cyan to is a great & stylish color in the bedroom, blues & whites are nice in bathrooms to, don’t ever use olive in bath room you’ll not like its effect.
clear white give maximum lightness for walls but don’t use clear white to much unless you mix it with another color whether it was a white color or a bold color, if you used only white it will be recognized as grey, specially if there wasn’t enough light, so mix it  with pink or Simon or any other white color, or mix it with a bundle of clear hot color like red, green, blue. simple decoration with white walls make a quite background for the new wild fashion furniture.
color & light: before choosing a color for a space, you should try the impact of light on color in variable times of day, the color degree will change according to light volume & light color.
laminated paints reflect more light, so it give more light to room but be careful it can give glare to if the light was over. the diffused paint absorb more light & assure the color.
color & visual effect: color create vision & change volumes so when you are choosing the room color you have to think in ceiling color, ground color, curtains, furniture…. cause its a formula you have to calculate it . to make the ceiling look down paint it with a darker degree of wall color, to make look go up paint it with a lighter degree of wall color.
for more light paint windows with laminated white.
individual differences: what’s the red means for you ? is it the color of anger or the color of love, you may think that the red is the color of blood or it may be the color of sex or it may be another thing in your mind, anger, love, danger, romance that what we call the individual differences between persons to recognize colors.

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Islamic Architecture.

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

It’s very difficult to claim that there’s an accepted definition of Islamic planning or Islamic architecture. Islam is a theology, in addition to its being a style of life which covers all social, political, economic, educational, cultural, hygienic, & behavioral aspects.
On the other hand, architecture has always been a reflection of the cultural & natural environment of the society.
this same phenomenon applies to architecture at any place in the Islamic world.
For a great number of people, the concept of the Islamic architecture denotes tangible characteristics of some architectural features like (Almashrabia, the arch, the dome, or any other architectural pattern that distinguishes this typical style of architecture.
the most beautiful patterns which represnt these features can be seen in the official buildings like those of the Mamluk’s period in Egypt, the Ommayad’s in Syria, the Abbaside’s in Iraq & the Spanish or Persian architecture.
But where is Islam in all this? It’s a difficult question to answer. Extravagance in the architecture of mosques was a natural expression of the luxurious style of life in fashion at those periods. But it didn’t express the original essence of Islam. the Prophet’s tradition prohibits using colors in mosques, in order to attribute purity & holiness to the architecture of the mosque. the tradition forbids also using (Al-Mehrab) cause of its similarity to the alter used by other sects.
But the residential buildings at those times spontaniously reflected the cultural & climatic  environment of the Islamic community, & the abstract values of the Muslim family.
Islamic architecture was always an expression of the latest & advanced technological achivements at the science of construction prevolent at its time.
from another angle, the urban structure of the Islamic cities was almost always a reflection of culture, of social behaviour, & of human relations which emerged from the teachings of Islam. the structure of the city was planned to cover the desires of the ruler, not the desires of the society as its stated in Islam. therefore it is very difficult to find a general rule upon which we can define Islamic architecture, because there are certain variable and stable factors which affect Islamic architecture. the stable factor in all places & in all times are the teaching of Islam.
attributing general rules to any region ass fixed features of Islamic architecture will not be reasonable. yet it is possible to find out some of the Islamic cultural features which can be reflexed or Islamic architecture at the different regions of the Islamic world. these characteristics are: purity, simplicity, privacy, coherence, & spontanious denotation of the needs & vacations.
from the evacational point of view, Islamic architecture in its broad sense, must respond to the needs. these must in turn conform with the teachings of Islam. every Muslim designer or planner must conceive these teachings.
argument may extend, & opinions may vary on the revival of the cultural values of Islamic architecture in contemporary architecture. yet revival of these values don’t necessarily mean an imitation or simplification of the design of these buildings as some people might imagine but we must begin a new active era of construction, & design. then the newly constructed buildings will be the tangible substance of our argument. there would be a chance for specialists & non-specialists to criticize & refine these features.
we ask any one who represents religion to join our discussion because Islamic values in old or contemporary architecture must have had their reflections on the daily applied teachings of Islam at home, or at office. in other words we want to know the ideal pattern of buildings or streets of the contemporary Islamic city from the religions point of view.

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