Heliopolis: Egypt’s Wonder City

INTRODUCTION
Photographs by Norbert Schiller
At the dawn of the 20th century, Belgian industrialist Baron Édouard Empain envisioned a new kind of city rising from the desert northeast of Cairo — a “City of the Sun” he called Heliopolis. Conceived as a self-contained garden suburb, Heliopolis was designed with wide boulevards, lush public gardens, elegant arcades, and a distinctive architectural style blending European Art Nouveau with Moorish Revival influences.

At the heart of this ambitious development stood the Heliopolis Palace Hotel, completed in 1910. When it opened, it was among the largest and most luxurious hotels in the world, offering a level of grandeur that rivaled Europe’s finest establishments. Designed by Belgian architects Ernest Jaspar and Alexandre Marcel, the hotel featured lavish interiors, vast courtyards, and ornate domes inspired by Islamic and Pharaonic motifs — a symbol of Egypt’s cosmopolitan spirit during its belle époque.

Over the decades, the Heliopolis Palace Hotel bore witness to the shifting tides of Egyptian history — from royal gatherings and political events to its eventual transformation into a presidential palace. Today, both the district and the building remain enduring testaments to an era of optimism, innovation, and cross-cultural vision.

The text below comes from a 1928 advertisement in The Spur — a glossy lifestyle and culture magazine for the American upper class, combining the elegance of Town & Country and Vogue with the sporting heritage of the Gilded Age.

Heliopolis: Egypt’s Wonder City
(As featured in a 1928 advertisement in The Spur)
Photographs: Norbert Schiller Collection
Over the “City of the Sun” the winds of centuries laid a pall of sand. Where Heliopolis, the On of the Bible, stood in the glory, the desert had swallowed up every vestige of human achievement save one of the pair of obelisks—the earliest known—which Senwosri I (Sesostris I), the second king of the twelfth dynasty, had reared in his pride. The chief seat of sun-worship in ancient times had become merely a memory of temples, of learning and of the falcon-headed sun god, Ra. Rome had taken obelisks away to other parts of Egypt and across the mediterranean. Cairo found building material galore in the ruins, and the ever-shifting sands buried, in the course of centuries, what remained of the predecessor of Alexandria as a seat of culture.

So lay, no longer ago than 1905, the burial place of one of Egypt’s oldest cities. Then, created as if by a single rub of Aladdin’s lamp, a new Heliopolis arose in all the splendor of modern temples and palaces. Like the young phoenix of fable, born of the ashes of the spicy pyre of the proceeding sacred bird immolated on the altar of the temple of Heliopolis, and flying away mature two days later, the new “City of the Sun” may be said to have had virtually no infancy. What with the many edifices reflecting time-honored architectural forms of the Orient, its broad and finely-laid-out streets, its squares, its colorful gardens and its extraordinary facilities for sport in the pure dry air of the regio, the well-named “City of the Sun”—although there is no altar to Ra or Etom (Atum) now—is amazing to a degree. Small wonder that it quickly became a Mecca of the tourist as well as the preferred abode of some twenty-five thousand people.

In referring to the crowning architectural feature of the city, the Heliopolis Palace Hotel, as magnificent there is no exaggeration. On the contrary, there is adjectival inadequacy. The world’s most luxurious resort hotel, it is a really noble exemplification of pure Arabic style and singularly fine in its lines. Gardens of sub-tropical vegetation covering many acres give its immense proportions the requisite setting. It is a dustless and noiseless retreat which makes one think at first glance of some palace evoked from the pages of “The Arabian Nights.” By the interior no less than by the exterior is the observer awe-struck. The huge hall, which serves also as the lounge, is marvelously imposing. It suggests the East of one’s most glowing dreams—with the touch of modernity which makes for comfort. Dominant architectural features are massive marble columns rising until they meet the circular gallery, above which is the cupola, with its top-most point one hundred and sixty feet above the ground. The hall is the first big note of luxury within the hostelry. This quality is repeated I the other public rooms and in the private apartments, which range up to large suites for family life. There are fifty of these sumptuously furnished suites, besides the four hundred rooms with baths. The hotel is especially favored by visitors to Egypt who have their children with them, as Heliopolis is a garden city and, being only a matter of ten minutes from Cairo by motor over an excellent road, one can stay there and yet be conveniently near the Oriental life of Cairo. From the middle of December until the end of April one is ideally located. The Palace is open only during that period, but at any time of year there is the Heliopolis House, a family hotel with two beautiful terraces.

Just as the social life centers in the Palace Hotel, so the sport life of the city radiates from it. Across the road, looking towards Cairo, is the polo field, at the right of which is the cricket ground, with the race course around the corner of the city. At the left of the polo field the golf course of the Sporting Club spreads around another corner of the city and as far as the Suez Road. The chain of sports facilities, which further include eighteen superior tennis courts and provisions for football and hockey, encircle more than half of Heliopolis, making each part of it easily accessible from any section of town.

Heliopolis is in short, a city of sports all through the season at this resort in a most salubrious climate. Naturally it is the Heliopolis Racing Club which offers the spectacular events—every Saturday and Sunday on a admirable course. The racing events are made spectacular by the animated throngs which fashion and sport bring together against a background well calculated to add to the impressiveness of the picture. There is always an attractive list of fixtures, with the stakes sufficiently important to insure brisk competition. The almost daily polo matches by the British cavalry officers also bring out large gatherings and a good gallery on the golf course may be counted on when one of the big tournaments is in progress. From the eighteen-hole golf course, considered the best in Egypt, one sees the citadel of Cairo and further away the bold lines of the Mokattam Hills and the majestic Pyramids of Giza.

When evening follows its day of certain sunshine, Heliopolis takes on another phase of “Arabian Nights” splendor. At the Palace Hotel, in a most appropriate frame, fete succeeds fete in bewildering array and with color piled on color until the is ravished.

In the high season, which begins on the first of February, the Palace Hotel is always so crowded that those who have not made reservations long in advance experience a disappointment which a cablegram in time to Palace-Heliopolis-Egypt would have avoided. But Heliopolis is just as delightful from the middle of December through January as it is when the city is at the peak of the winter throng. Moreover, there are special rates for the early season.