Museums: Unique Underwater Museum for Egypt's Famed Ancient City

Thursday, March 05, 2009 Museums: Unique Underwater Museum for Egypt's Famed Ancient City In the news this last week, The UNESCO backed giant underwater museum, designed by French architect Jacques Rougerie, a specialist in water based construction, is to be located on the site of Cleopatra’s Palace in Alexandria and is set to break ground/water in 2010 and be completed in 3 years.

( images above & below copyright Jaques Rougerie Architects) Fiberglass tunnels will connect aboveground galleries, near the New Library of Alexandria, to the underwater viewing facility, where antiquities would be visible in their natural resting places at the site of Cleopatra's legendary and now sunken palace. This incredible museum will be the first genuine underwater museum, in the sense that visitors will not need diving gear to view the exhibits as, for example they do at Israel’s “underwater museum” at the ancient port of Caesarea, which is in effect more of a (fascinating and unique) dive site. With funding yet to be secured and the not inconsiderable engineering obstacles – including low visibility and powerful currents around the tunnels- to be overcome this ambitious project has a long way to go, but the developers sound confident that such challenges will be met.
Posted By Charles Read -- At 7:40 PM \| Comments (4) \| Trackbacks (0)
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Categories Attractions Business, Museums, Themed Design Tags architects, construction, Design, egypt, jaques rougerie, underwater
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Comments :

This sounds fantastic! Well done UNESCO!

Comment By Jill Stanfield At 3/6/2009 5:15 PM

Egyptophile that I am, this is clearly a major idea. But from the visuals, I can't help but wonder what's the guest and visitor experience. This is clearly a presentation that's all about the 'new' architecture and not why the visitor would be there. Nonetheless...if they ever get it built I'll be standing in line on opening day.

Comment By Pat MacKay At 3/7/2009 12:25 AM

Cleopatra's Palace is such a fabled place, it would be superb ro be able to actually see the site. ( And I am such a Philistine, I didn't even know Alexandria still existed as a workin City!)But I do agree wth the comment above, the designs give little iea as to what the visitor experience itself woud actually be. For now, it is all about the architecture. In fact, for now, it is all about the renderings...

Comment By Peter Goettelmann At 3/7/2009 7:53 AM

The visitor experience is mentioned in the article 'underwater viewing facility, where antiquities would be visible in their natural resting places at the site of Cleopatra's legendary and now sunken palace' PS any idea who the developers of the museum are?

Comment By Emily At 6/17/2009 11:08 AM