900 Km Nile City - 5th IABR International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2012

The Nile City has an astonishingly simple layout that is clearly defined by its geographical limits. In the middle, there is the Nile, an approximately half-kilometre-wide body of water that is strongly controlled by the Aswan Dams, several Nile barriers and man-made riverbanks. On both sides of the Nile there is a small strip of land irrigated with Nile water via an ingenious network of water chan- nels, which create an artificial and very fertile oasis. On av- erage, the valley is no wider than 12 kilometres, and it ends abruptly when it reaches the two mountain chains that soar as high as 300 metres and form the edges of the Sahara. The infrastructure of the Nile City is closely linked to these morphological conditions. A single railway line, which was already built by the British in the 19th century, runs over 900 kilometres along the middle of the valley up to Aswan, forming a kind of “subway” for the Nile City with stops every 50 kilometres or so. Along both desert edges run two very functional highways connecting the Nile City to Cairo and the Red Sea. Every 200 kilometres there is a little district capital with its own bridge over the river and a small airport, each of them serving as an urban satellite in the desert. In light of these conditions, the Nile City can be read on a larger scale as a very logical and beautiful diagram of in- frastructure and landscape, and it can be understood as a natural linear city, one that is placed not in a lush Arca- dian landscape but in the harsh and beautiful emptiness of the Sahara. The Nile City is a linear city in the middle of nowhere – the only place where man can survive in an otherwise endless ocean of sand and stones.