House of Gamal al-Din al-Dhahabi

House of Gamal al-Din al-Dhahabi

Cairo

This house is attributed to Gamal al-Din al-Dhahabi (Shah Bandar al-Tujjar), meaning the chief merchant, who built it in 1047 AH / 1637 AD in the Khashqadam lane in al-Ghuriyya neighbourhood. House of Gamal al-Din al-Dhahabi reflects the development of residential house architecture in the Ottoman era in Egypt.

The house has three stone façades, while the house building itself consists of a ground floor and two floors. The ground floor includes a group of storerooms and shops overlooking the Khushqadam and the Hammam lane, which were used as warehouses and guard rooms.  The entrance to the house also leads to a large courtyard with a fountain in the middle, in addition to a small hall, another small courtyard, bathrooms, and stairs ascending to the upper floors.

While the first floor includes two main sections:  They are the salamlek and the haramlek, as the salamlek contains (the maq’ad (loggia), the bathroom, and the upper hall), while the haramlek contains the women’s halls.  As for the second floor, we find that it contains three large rooms above the small lower hall.

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