Sounds from a Threatened Suburb: Developing a People's History of Heliopolis as a Route to a Sustainable Urban Future

赫利奥波利斯可以说是非洲第一个真正现代化的郊区，但并不是受威胁的遗产。它的旧的大都市社区正在逐渐瓦解，它的建筑腐烂和倒塌，甚至它的历史悠久的电动有轨电车也即将消失。除了一些大学专家和老居民外，人们对它对现代埃及的贡献知之甚少。随着传统人口迁离郊区，赫利奥波利斯的口述历史和故事将永远消失。因此，这个项目试图通过许多家庭和社区的记忆来捕捉赫利奥波利斯丰富的、传奇的历史，这些家庭和社区将它视为自己的家。这个项目似乎提高了人们对什么是威胁，什么是我们已经失去的认识。它寻求在学者、居民和社区活动家之间开展合作，以可持续的形式保护该地区的物质和非物质遗产。它还试图提高人们对埃及现代遗产面临的更广泛威胁的认识，在一个有着如此悠久和丰富历史的国家，这一遗产往往被隐藏和忽视。希望这将成为埃及其他社区遗产项目的典范，帮助普通民众欣赏周围的建筑和传奇景观。该项目将讲述赫利奥波利斯伟大建筑的生活--Emper宫殿、大教堂和赫利奥波利斯宫殿酒店--但它也将研究赋予赫利奥波利斯日常人类故事的建筑和地方。这部历史将是一部电车站、咖啡馆、破败的酒店、鱼市、潜水酒吧和电影院的历史。它将讲述门卫、擦鞋男孩、花贩、驴子出租车司机、垃圾收集员、修车工、果汁贩子、店主、服务员、收租人的故事，所有这些人都给郊区的建筑物带来了生命。它将展示一个积极和国际化的埃及愿景，在这个愿景中，郊区不同民族和宗教的人在和平和相互尊重中生活在一起。它将揭示一段未来公民可以引以为豪的历史，一段他们可能会珍视的历史。

Heliopolis was arguably the first truly modern suburb in Africa, yet is not a threatened heritage asset. Its old cosmopolitan communities are gradually breaking up, its buildings decay and fall and even its historic electric tramway is about to disappear. Its contribution to the making of modern Egypt is little understood outside a few university specialists and old residents. As traditional populations move away from the suburb, the oral histories and stories of Heliopolis are lost forever. This project, therefore, seeks to capture the rich, storied history of Heliopolis through the memories of the many families and communities who have called it their home. The project seems to raise awareness of what is threatened and what we have already lost. It seeks to develop a collaboration between academics, residents and community activists to preserve the tangible and intangible heritage of the area in a sustainable form. It also seeks to raise awareness of the wider threats to Egypt's modern heritage, a heritage that is often hidden and neglected in a country with such a long and rich history. This, it is hoped, will be a model for other community heritage project across Egypt and one which will help ordinary people appreciate the buildings and storied landscape that surrounds them.The project will address the life of the great buildings of Heliopolis - the Empain palace, the Basilica and the Heliopolis Palace Hotel - but it will also examine the buildings and places that gave Heliopolis its everyday human stories. This history will be a history of tram stations, cafes, crumbling hotels, fish markets, dive bars and cinemas. It will the story of the doorman, shoe-shine boys, the flower sellers, the donkey cabbies, the rubbish collectors, the car-repair men, the juice sellers, the shop keepers, the waiters, the rent collectors all those who gave life to the buildings of the suburb. It will reveal a positive and cosmopolitan vision of Egypt, one in which those of different nationalities and religions of a suburb live together in peace and mutual respect. It will reveal a history that future citizens can be proud of and one which they might cherish.