On Tuesday, July 15, 2014, the Royal Ontario Museum hosts a lecture by Aga Khan Professor Nasser Rabbat, who will show how this historic city still shines today as a cultural centre of its three spheres of influence: the Arab world, Africa and the Islamic world. This lecture will review the history of Cairo from the 10th century to the present, surveying the city’s outstanding architecture, encompassing the gamut of Islamic styles as well as every 19th– and 20th-century Western style and interpret it in light of its urban, cultural and political setting. Cairo forces us to reconsider the relationship between the city’s character and its architecture and to cast it in a new interpretive framework, which may shed light on many historic cities today.
Doors open at 6:30pm with a viewing of the exhibition Cairo Under Wraps: Early Islamic Textiles until 7:15pm. The lecture follows from 7:30pm-8:30pm with a Q&A until 8:45pm. Light refreshments will be served from 8:45pm-9:30pm.
Tickets are $35 for the general public, $32 for members, students and ICT members.
This event is presented in partnership by the Royal Ontario Museum and His Highness Prince Aga Khan Shia Imami Ismaili Council for Canada.
For more information, please visit www.rom.on.ca/en/activities-programs/events-calendar/cairo-a-brief-history-of-an-islamic-metropolis