Reading Urban Forms in Historic Cairo: A Diachronic Typological Approach

Abstract

Historic Cairo presents a multilayered urban fabric shaped by successive processes of addition, adaptation and reuse. This paper offers a diachronic, multi-scalar reading of its residential forms through five key typologies: the Raba (row house), represented by the case study of Raba al-Tabbna; the wikla (caravanserai); the Ottoman courtyard house; the Ottoman block house; and the early twentieth-century apartment block. Drawing on typologicalprocessual analysis and archival studies of the Raba tradition, the paper examines how these types articulate the relationships among territorial conditions, commercial axes, and fine-grained urban tissues, emphasising the long-term persistence of specific architectural features and metropolitan patterns that define Cairos longue durée urban identity.