Articles and testimonials published about Mostafa Shawky and his work.
1956
The Minister of War approved the result of the Cairo International Airport competition: first prize went to the scheme by Mostafa Shawky, director of buildings at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, and Salah Zeitoun, director of projects at the Ministry of Health.
October 1957
On moving residents of Cairo's collapsing houses to new homes in Zeinhom and Shubra, and building 1,000 flats at El-Amireya in two months. The paper published the model popular-housing block designed by Mostafa Shawky, director of planning and buildings at Cairo Municipality: four storeys of four flats each, with the ground floor raised on columns so children could play beneath.
1958
July 1960
Galal El-Din El-Hamamsy wrote that the great stadium opened for the Revolution celebrations was a source of pride for Egyptian engineers, not a copy of anything abroad but a work with its own character, and named those who designed and built it: Salah Ghaleb, Dr Ahmed Moharram, Mostafa Shawky, Michel Bakhoum and Saeed Youssef, assisted by the German architect Werner March, designer of Berlin's Olympic stadium, who said he was proud of the Arab engineers who completed it in eighteen months.
1963
President Gamal Abdel Nasser opened the new Cairo International Airport and received Algeria's President Ahmed Ben Bella there. Among those who welcomed him were the architects Mostafa Shawky and Salah Zeitoun, who designed the airport. Also shown: War Minister Abdel Wahab El-Bishry listening to Shawky on a visit to the airport on 19 October 1962.
December 1963 – July 1964
The State Incentive Prize for architecture went to Mostafa Fahmy Shawky and Mohamed Salah El-Din Zeitoun. Al-Ahram (20 July 1964): “the architect Mostafa Shawky, winner of the state prize this year, is the designer of Cairo Stadium”, and reported his resignation as director-general of planning and buildings at Cairo Municipality to devote himself to his office. The page also reports the conversion of the Sameh Moussa palace in Zamalek into a 20-storey, 400-room hotel, the first in Cairo directly on the Nile, designed by Shawky so that every room looks onto the river.
15 October 1965
A world-renowned American engineer, former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers and editor of the largest engineering magazine in the United States, spent three hours studying Cairo Airport on his way home from the High Dam. Asked what impressed him, he said it was “the second or third among the world's airports, an honour for the United Arab Republic in design and construction.” (Gaafar Mahmoud)
19 May 1968
Schemes and studies to save the threatened site of Philae were submitted by international bodies and firms and examined by international committees. In the end the Egyptian scheme by Dr William Selim Hanna, Dr El-Ramly and the architect Mostafa Shawky was chosen. It called for dismantling the temples and moving them to Agilkia Island, about 600 metres away, at a level of 116 metres, above the highest water level.
6 August 1969
On the third anniversary of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan's accession, Al-Ahram reported that Osman Ahmed Osman's company was starting work on Zayed City, the largest planned city in the Gulf, with Dr Ahmed Moharram, Dr Michel Bakhoum and the architects Mostafa Shawky and Salah Zeitoun as technical consultants. The page also shows Shawky and Osman Ahmed Osman explaining the new Middle East News Agency headquarters to Minister Mohamed Fayek at its foundation stone.
5 November 1970
Presidents Anwar Sadat, Muammar Gaddafi and Jaafar Nimeiry lay the foundation stone of the Nasser Institute and listen to Mostafa Shawky's explanation. With the invitation to the ceremony on Thursday 5 November 1970, “in tribute to the immortal leader Gamal Abdel Nasser”.
December 1970
17 December 1970
The detailed drawings for replanning Tahrir Square were complete, part of the Cairo Governor's plan for downtown traffic. Mostafa Shawky, designer of the traffic scheme and the Tahrir garage (five million pounds, three years to build), explained that the great garage beneath the square would hold a thousand cars, and that the square would separate through traffic from traffic ending there.
1974 – 1977
Housing Minister Osman Ahmed Osman signed with Sweden's SWECO the master-planning contract for a new 10,000-feddan industrial city on the Cairo–Ismailia desert road (10th of Ramadan City), with Egyptian offices including Mostafa Shawky and Salah Zeitoun's. Al-Ahram (February 1977): Prince Albert of Belgium studies the city's plans.
November – December 1974
The Minister of Housing appoints Mostafa Fahmy Shawky to the board of the Arab Bureau for Designs and Engineering Consultancy. In December: “50 nominees for the state prizes, and only 3 to be chosen”, with Shawky among the thirteen nominated for the State Merit Prize in the Arts.
10 March 1980
At the inauguration of the Philae salvage, before the colonnade facing the theatre of Isis, the foreign guests had much to say about this remarkable achievement. Austria's science minister admired the beauty of the temples and their new, higher site, which restored the scene as it was before the twentieth century. France's minister for universities said the rebuilt lintels and walls made the temples more beautiful than before. The Netherlands' culture minister said the precision of the work gave Philae international importance.
22 April 1982
An invitation from the Minister of State for Culture, Mohamed Abdel Hamid Radwan, to a ceremony at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo marking the completion of the first phase of the museum's development.
June 1982
30 October 1982
The Engineers' Syndicate celebrated the third Engineers' Day and honoured forty-nine pioneers, among them Mostafa Shawky, who received the Order of Sciences and Arts, first class.
March 1983
His leaflet as candidate for the architecture seat in the 1983 Engineers' Syndicate elections, summarising his career: government service from 1938 to 1960, founding Shawky, Zeitoun & Partners, his committee work, more than twenty competition juries, and training “a generation of capable architects” in his office.
1984
President Hosni Mubarak opened the covered sports and conference hall at Cairo Stadium, built by El Nasr General Contracting (Hassan Mohamed Allam). The hall was designed by Mostafa Shawky.
January 1984
The international jury for the design competition for the Museum of Civilisation on the Gezira exhibition grounds, part-funded by UNESCO, chaired by Dr Ahmed Kadry, head of the Antiquities Organization, with Mostafa Shawky and architects from Mexico, Italy, the United States and Japan. Also: the supreme committee for the Civilisation and Nubia museums, including “Mostafa Shawky, professor of architecture and town planning”.
1989
May 1990
“In 1963 I asked my brother, the architect Mostafa Shawky, to design a villa for my home on a hill in Nasr City, before the city had reached it. He took account of all my needs and wishes, so that living there with my family was easy and comfortable, and he used his architect's understanding to make the villa seem part of the hill it stands on. The result was a wonderful work of architecture that shows its designer's artistic gifts and taste.”
May 1990
“In the early 1940s I heard of my brother, whose friendship and companionship I am proud of, the pioneering architect Mostafa Shawky: first of the 1938 architecture class at Cairo, his academic achievements at the University of Illinois, and an office that won first prize in every competition it entered… In the early sixties I asked him to design the villa where my family and I live, and he was inspired in meeting all our wishes and more… I invite every friend to see for himself the fine art, the creative composition and the perfect finish of the villa, inside and out.”
August 1990
September 1990
Article in issue 417 on the occasion of his State Merit Prize in the Arts.
1991
June 1991
July 2000
The programme “Lawhat Sharaf” (Board of Honour) on Egyptian television's Channel One, presented by Shokry Fouad and directed by Fayez Shalaby. Mostafa Shawky talks about the method and thinking behind his projects, his wide reading, the happiest moments of his life, and the national projects: Cairo Stadium, Cairo International Airport, the Nasser Institute and the salvage of Philae. He wrote of it: “The programme was engaging and easy to watch, and it brought back many happy memories.”
According to a note he wrote on 20 April 2004, the programme was broadcast on 17 April 2004 and ran for twenty-five minutes.
