900 Km Nile City

The 900 km Nile city project developed by Atelier Kempe Thill, baukuh, GRAU, Lola and Aymen Hashem recently had a homecoming show in Cairo's Townhouse Gallery and at the American University of Cairo, following its debut at the Rotterdam International Architecture Biennale and later as part of the "Adhocracy" show at the 1st Istanbul Design Biennial. The show tackles the difficult urban conditions facing the presumably rural Nile Valley and follows baukuh’s editorial on Domus 961 / September 2012, which featured the bold statement of "Design or Extinction". The editorial was illustrated by a cover drawing that evoked the happy ending one would hope for after a challenging game of Tetris, in a world of straight lines and perfectly corresponding shapes and voids. In the chaotic surroundings of the Townhouse Gallery in downtown Cairo, the dichotomy between design and extinction, away from the Tetris graphics, does not seem so far fetched. Extinction suddenly seems like a potent possibility and design on a planning and totalitarian level seems to have long disappeared, probably along with the last government that was able to envision a state structure at the level of ambition of the Egyptian territory.