Considered the most anticipated museum in the world, thanks to its exclusive design and the treasures it will house, the charm was first announced in the world in 2001.
A design festival in 2002 won more than 1,500 applications, among which Heneghan Peng Architects decided to move forward in 2003.
After a delayed start, the land was damaged despite everything in 2005 and the structure of the museum took only about 15 years, and the COVID-19 pandemic added additional disruption to the process.
Opened in November 2022, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) will house, exhibit and maintain some of the world’s greatest ancient treasures, the entire King Tut Treasure Collection, which will be available to the public for the first time.
GEM will be the world’s largest archaeological museum complex and is expected to space more than 100,000 artifacts.
In addition to king Tut’s collection, the many galleries will exhibit from prehistory, the thousands of years of Egyptian pharaonic civilization to the Greek and Roman periods of Egyptian history.
The museum was designed as a cultural complex of activities committed to Egyptology and will include 24,000 m² of permanent exhibition space, a children’s museum, facilities for conventions and schools, a giant conservation center and extensive gardens on site 50h.
Describing the design of the museum, Heneghan Peng Architects said: “The site of the Great Egyptian Museum is on the edge of the first desert plateau between the pyramids and Cairo. It is explained through a point difference of 50 m, created when the Nile made its way through the desert to the Mediterranean, a geological condition that has shaped Egypt for more than 3,000 years.
“The pyramids, funerary monuments, are in the desert on the plateau 2 km from the museum site, while the museum site is in the valley or on the plateau.
“The museum’s design uses the tip to build a new ‘edge’ on the plateau, a surface explained through a translucent stone veil that transforms from day to night. The museum exists between the tip of the Nile Valley and the plateau, never surpassing the plateau.
“A three-dimensional design inscribed through a set of visual axes from the 3 pyramids defines the framework in which the museum emerges, from the overall scale to the smallest details.
“The museum’s technique is a series of layers, where the visitor moves through a monumental esplanade, a shaded front domain and a grand staircase that climbs up to the point of the plateau, the point at which the galleries meet for the first time the guest sees the pyramids from inside the museum. “