Maspero ( ar, ماسبيرو ) is the name of the huge building on the bank of the

Nile river The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest rive ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

. It is the headquarters of the

Egyptian Radio and Television Union The Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU; ar, إتحاد الإذاعة والتلفزيون المصري ''Itteh'ad Al-Edhaa'a wa at-Televezyon al-Mis'ri'') is the public broadcaster of Egypt, operated by the Egyptian government. It is a me ...

(formerly the Arab Radio and Television Union, the oldest state-run broadcasting organisation in the

Arab World The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. Maspero is also the name of the street, which this building overlooks.

History

Gamal Abdel Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-re ...

, the President of the

United Arab Republic The United Arab Republic (UAR; ar, الجمهورية العربية المتحدة, al-Jumhūrīyah al-'Arabīyah al-Muttaḥidah) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 until 1971. It was initially a political union between Eg ...

(of which

was then a part) ordered the construction of the building in August 1959. The first broadcast from Maspero commenced on 21 July 1960 with the country's introduction of television on the eighth anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. It was built on an area of 12,000 square metres, with a budget of . The building was named after the French archaeologist

Gaston Maspero Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (23 June 1846 – 30 June 1916) was a French Egyptologist known for popularizing the term "Sea Peoples" in an 1881 paper. Maspero's son, Henri Maspero, became a notable sinologist and scholar of East Asia. ...

, who was the chairman of the

Egyptian Antiquities Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious p ...

Authority. As a key institution of the state, it was one of the first state buildings to be protected by the Egyptian Army during the outbreak of the

Egyptian Revolution of 2011 The 2011 Egyptian revolution, also known as the 25 January revolution ( ar, ثورة ٢٥ يناير; ), began on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police ho ...

. Maspiro building.jpg, Maspiro building at Night Maspero television building.JPG, Maspiro building

References

Office buildings completed in 1960 Towers completed in 1960 20th century in Egypt Buildings and structures in Cairo Mass media company headquarters {{Egypt-struct-stub

History

See also

References