As Heliopolis began to rise from the desert, Baron Édouard Empain chose a home unlike Cairo’s familiar residences. Built between 1907 and 1911 to Alexandre Marcel’s design, the palace drew on Asian temple architecture within the district Empain helped establish with Boghos Nubar.
Sculpture crowds the facades and balconies, while the interior reveals a house divided between reception, living and service spaces. Following restoration, the palace became a setting for exploring Heliopolis’s history. Its unusual appearance makes most sense as part of that new-city project, rather than through the unsupported legends surrounding it.
