MARRIOTT BUZZ NO. 13 - 2018

9 Canal, for their consummate and unprecedented marriage of architecturally distinct styles, for their frequent and indispensable involvement of foreign patrons and craftsmen, for their conversion from royal abodes into popular luxury hotels, for their intense fascination and obsession they stirred amongst European and foreign elite, and for their expression of the ambitious yet excessive policies that characterized the Khedive Ismail’s reign. However, it is the symbolic significance that the Mena House and Al Gezira Palace hold with respect to Egypt’s crucial role on the global stage as it related to geopolitics, trade, exploration, war and so much else that is paramount. These palaces will always stand as physical tributes to Egypt’s existence historically as a vital convergence point for disparate cultures, philosophies, nations and people since antiquity and up until now. Finally, both of these magnificent properties came to be appropriated and operated by Marriot International in the early 1970s with the Cairo Marriott followed by Marriott MENA House in February 2018. They have ever since become amongst the finest hotels to visit anywhere in the world for their exceptional history, unrivalled location and enchanting architectural composition, all carefully preserved and maintained under the world largest hotel company and renowned hotelier genuinely befitting of their noble heritage. “Architecture is the mother of all art. Without an architecture of our own, we have no soul of our own civilization.” Frank Lloyd Wright