Dwarfed

The mosque of Ibn Tulun is one of the largest mosques in Cairo and also one of the oldest. Built in about 880 AD it was attached to the royal palace of the Abbasid ruler of Egypt at the time, but it is the only building of the era that still exists. It is one of my favourite mosques, its clean lines and open spaces give a sense of isolation from the chaos outside. Click for a larger version of the picture and you will have a better sense of the size when you see the two people in the upper left corner of the courtyard. The Gayer-Anderson museum is attached to that corner of the compound.

Medieval Air Conditioning

Next door to the mosque of Ibn Tulun is a remarkable little museum, the Gayer Anderson House. Anyone who's seen James Bond's The Spy Who Loved Me has see part of the Gayer Anderson House during a fight scene that took place in a roof garden. This was shot in the roof garden that is surrounded by wooden screens known as mashrabeya. These screens were used to provide privacy for the person looking out from the house, but also they cooled the air that entered the house or garden. As the wind pushed through the small holes of the screens, it compressed and cooled providing a means of reducing the heat.

Dr. Gayer Anderson was a British doctor who moved into a 16th century house adjoining the mosque and a 17th century house that was connected to the first. He filled the houses with beautiful examples of Mameluke marble fountains, furniture, mashrabeya, and brass work, as well as art work that he collected in his travels around the world. In his old age, he left the houses to the government of Egypt as a museum.