Prince Said Halim's Palace

About Prince Said Halim's Palace

Palace in Cairo

The Champollion Palace, or Palace of Prince Said Halim Pasha, is one of the most beautiful palaces of Khedival downtown Cairo. Built in the Italian style to a design by the Italian architect Antonio Lasciac, it stands on Champollion Street (formerly Moyar Street) a few steps from Tahrir Square and the Egyptian Museum. Prince Said Halim Pasha, a grandson of Muhammad Ali Pasha, built it in 1896 on a plot of about 445 square metres; the street and the palace are named after the French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion, who deciphered the ancient Egyptian script from the Rosetta Stone. The facades are notable for their rich classical ornament, statues and stone balconies, a witness to the European architectural taste that dominated Cairo at the end of the 19th century. The palace later served for decades as a secondary school (the Nasiriya School) and then fell into neglect; it is today one of the Khedival Cairo buildings for which restoration and reuse efforts are under way, so the interior may not be open to visitors.

Where:

Cairo, Egypt