{"id":674483,"date":"2025-10-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2025\/10\/29\/out-of-the-storeroom\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:00:00","slug":"out-of-the-storeroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2025\/10\/29\/out-of-the-storeroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Out of the storeroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some 33 years ago, a triggering remark rekindled the dream of the Grand Egyptian Museum.<\/strong> In 1992, former Culture Minister Farouk Hosni was visiting France when an Italian artist asked him, \u201cWhat will you do with that storeroom you have?\u201d Hosni replied quickly, \u201cWe will build the largest museum in the world.\u201d His answer wasn\u2019t a spur-of-the-moment remark \u2014 he had been thinking about it for some time, but the Italian man\u2019s words pushed him to say it aloud.<\/p>\n

Hosni knew that the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square had become little more than a <\/strong>storage space<\/strong> \u2014 unsuitable for displaying colossal statues, too small to house the massive number of artifacts, and lacking the kind of museum experience worthy of ancient Egyptian civilization. \u201cGo ahead,\u201d said then-President Hosni Mubarak to his culture minister, marking the start of the journey to create the Grand Egyptian Museum.<\/p>\n

Hosni chose the location, just two kilometers from the Giza <\/strong>Pyramids<\/strong>, to provide visitors with a unique experience. In 1993, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture invited Italy to collaborate on the project, and a joint Egyptian-Italian commission was formed. A few years later, the Italian side completed an extensive eight-volume feasibility study.<\/p>\n

In 2002, the foundation stone of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza was laid, and<\/strong> construction began in 2005.<\/strong> Under the sponsorship of UNESCO and the International Union of Architects, an international architectural competition was held to select the museum\u2019s design. Out of 1,557 proposals submitted by designers from 83 countries, the jury selected the winning concept by Heneghan Peng Architects, whose concept envisioned the museum\u2019s structure as a conical form aligned with the rays of the sun extending from the peaks of the three pyramids.<\/p>\n

In 2006, Egypt established the largest artifact restoration center in the Middle East <\/strong>\u2014 dedicated to restoring, preserving, and preparing the artifacts destined for the museum\u2019s exhibition halls. The center officially opened in 2010.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Egypt launched the third phase <\/strong>\u2014 the construction of the main building \u2014 housing the museum\u2019s galleries, theaters, conservation labs, educational and cultural centers, and a state-of-the-art IT and communications infrastructure.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the government decided to establish a public authority for the museum and assigned the Armed Forces Engineering Authority to oversee its construction<\/strong> \u2014 a move that helped accelerate progress in the following years.<\/p>\n

Today, the museum\u2019s grounds cover a total of 500k sqm. <\/strong>That is roughly the size of 70 soccer fields or twice the size of the Louvre, making it one of the most ambitious cultural projects ever undertaken. Among its highlights:<\/p>\n