Arkadia Mall

Arkadia Mall is on the Corniche el Nil, a mall right next door to these very fancy shiny towers that deceivingly masked the messy workshops of the Bulaq neighbourhood..  Chris had read about Arkadia Mall, from Mona Abaza’s articles written a few years back as an example of a trendy, new mall and an example of the growing mall culture in Cairo.

We had just jumped in a taxi from the Turgoman, the drive is short but there is a marked difference in life outside the malls and inside them.  Next to the dead mall at Turgoman, life is bustling outside on the streets.  Buildings are overflowing with activity, the streets are bustling with honking cars, delivery trucks, kiosks and vendors.  Despite its proximity to the Nile the neighbourhood we drive through, Bulaq, is quite rundown, chaotic and relatively ungentrified.  The streets are full of people and are lined with kiosks and workshops.  Large former factory type spaces are split into smaller sections, occupied by mechanics, butchers, small cafes and open doors leading to piles of industrial junk.

Entering Arkadia mall, it reminds me of some of the older malls in the Gulf, the types I used to go to when I was growing up in Bahrain in the 80s.  The design is similar, but I think that this mall was built more recently than that.  As you enter, there ramps spiralling upwards taking you to various floors of the mall.  The shops in the mall are a mix between a few international brands and more local shops and boutiques.  The mall itself is quite empty save for the workers in the stores and the cafe in the main atrium and several random men leaning on the railings at various floors of the mall.  Chris and I speculate; people watching perhaps?  Cairo’s human surveillance net?  Bored young men with nothing to do? Shop workers taking breaks?

We wander up the maze of ramps taking us through the mall.  Walking around there are a few screens; a couple of ATM machines, a strange life-size ‘Shrek’ statue stands near the entrance with a dead screen in its belly and a few in the atrium.

Most notably, suspended a few floors high is a huge screen, made up of 25 large flat screens hangs dormant.

Riding the glass elevator down to the cafe in the atrium, we are surrounded by business suit wearing crowd of men and women.  Perhaps the upper floors of the building are occupied by offices of some sort.

In the cafe, an upmarket cafe selling salads, sandwiches and cappuccinos, with bow-tied waiters, we order some lunch and notice a couple of screens next to each other on one side of the cafe.  Even the faux-Vienna coffee house surroundings still warrant a screen.  Echoing the theme of the mall, abandoned, passed sell by date, even this more lively part of the mall has a dead screen in it.  It is more markedly malfunctioning as the large broken screen sits just behind a functioning new LCD screen playing Melody TV an Arabic Music channel.

Talaat Harb Mall in Downtown is a much more successful shopping mall, if I were to judge by the number of visitors.

My main thought while in Arkadia was about maintenance.  Why so many broken screens?  Why not fix them or remove them?

(* Arkadia, we later discovered, was the scene of a sensational murder several years ago, a fight between two rich young men.  There was a lot of press coverage, which was obviously not great press for the mall and may have triggered the mall’s decline…)

Amal Khalaf

This morning we set off around 11 or so to do the audit of the Turgoman. First, we tried to take some pictures in the subway on the way. We got quite enough to illustrate that there are no moving image screens in the Cairo subway system, which is what I will need to write up an essay on Shanghai, with brief reference to Cairo and London. But we were also stopped pretty quickly and told we could not take photos down there.

Over at the Turgoman, the place seemed even more dead that yesterday. Even though it was already noon, the elevators that take you up to the mall levels were not turned on. When we asked a security man, we were told they would be turned on and the shops would open up in an hour or so. Given that people are traveling on the buses at all hours, this seems odd. But then, given that the elevators from the bus station basement only go to ground floor level, it seems they really see the bus station and the mall as very separate.

Anyway, in the face of this we decided not to audit yet, but to go over to the Arkadia Mall on the Nile for a bit. This mall is mentioned in one of Abaza’s articles as featuring big screens blasting out violent movie clips and very popular. But she wrote that about 8 years ago, and also noted that the average mall is only around for 18 months or 2 years. Plus Amal’s friend had told us yesterday that the Arkadia used to be hot but had really gone downhill. And, indeed, he was right. Architecturally, it felt like an odd mix of 1950s style circular ramps with po-mo metal decorations on the outside. There were not a lot of people inside, and most of them were
standing around on the various levels gazing into the atrium. In the atrium lobby, there were glass elevators going up to the 7th floor top level, and a cafe in the basement. The cafe had a large TV set (unused) and a smaller plasma flat screen playing Lebanese MTV clips (over the top “sexy” as far as I could see).

Above, there was a huge multi-panel LCD screen. Maybe this is the one Abaza referred to. There was nothing playing when we were in there. When we asked the waiter in the coffee shop, he told us it had been broken for years. What I want to know is why not either repair it or remove it? But maybe they don’t even have the funds to remove it. Very strange. A huge sign of failed technology dominating the whole mall! I can well believe this place was the cutting edge not long ago, and now it seems so passe.

We have been in a number of malls now, corresponding to a range of different incomes and so on. City Stars, as the current hot mall, is getting more and more interesting.

After lunch, we went back to Turgoman, and audited the back part of the mall. We chose a couple of lampposts at ground level (why do they have lampposts inside the place? A question for the mall designers) and went through the place.

Turgoman Audit, from approximately 2-3 p.m.

We chose a pair of lampposts between the final set of elevators and the middle set, and decided to audit everything from there to the very back of the mall/bus station, starting at level 3 (the top).

Level 3 had 3 CCTV domes in the ceiling. These were located where the last set of elevators comes up, between the doors in from the car park on each side. There is only one booth/shop operating up here so far, and everything else is yet to be rented out.

Level 2 had 5 CCTV domes in the same area and no shops.

Level 1 had cars in the car park (first time we saw any), and 5 CCTV domes. There is also the Cinema, run by the Good New Group. It shows Arabic films only. There are 2 flat screens in the lobby, high up, one to the left and one to the right. We were told to go to City Stars or Downtown if we wanted to find English-language films. As yesterday, the screen on the left was showing a menu of MP3 music tracks, and the one on the right was turned off. (I wonder why they don’t show movie trailers).

On the Ground Floor, there were 5 CCTV domes in the usual place. To the back, it extends into a Food Court. I counted 6 more CCTV domes in here. Several of the restaurants are operating already. Walking into the Food Court, on the right, Cooker’s Cafe had 1 plasma flat screen TV with what looked like it might be a soap or similar drama playing. Turning round to the left, there was one LED arrivals screen (perhaps 2 m by 2 m) in the centre, facing the back exit, so to speak. So, if are sitting down eating you can see the details and then run downstairs to meet people, I guess. On the right as you are looking at it is a jet-ski video game with a 1 m x 1 m screen. Turning back again, opposite that is another game with a 1 x 1 screen, and then next to it a small “Emergency Ambulance Call” game with a somewhat smaller screen. Walking further in there was a cafe over the left called Doria World which had 1 wide-screen flat screen (Katron TV brank, Onyx series) about 1.2 m wide, by 0.75 m tall, showing satellite TV (with a “weak signal” warning).

Moving further in, there was a back exit, with the usual security gate and X ray tube to put your bag through as you come in. In this case, there was a woman officer on duty.

Moving out to the back patio area, we found 2 cafes. The one on the right was called Fine Dine. It had a sort of covered seating area, with 2 Caira brand flat screen TVs high up at each end, maybe 1 x 2 m. They were playing verses from the Koran. There was also a movie screen near the bar for projection. It would be interesting to find out what they use it for, when, etc. The other cafe, Transit Cafe and Restaurant, does not appear to have any screens in it (yet). Both looked very new and barely operating.

Going back in and downstairs to the bus station level, there is 1 flat computer screen per doorway. We estimated that meant 20 or 22 going back from where the 2 lampposts are above. The brand is Proview. Some had “Windows XP” on them, but most seemed to be turned off. Given that there is no departures board down here, this leaves you totally dependent on the announcements to find your bus and know where you are going. And the announcements are only in Arabic.

**

So this means we have done the walks and audits for 2 sites (the 6 October and the Turgoman). Afterwards, we went to talk to the General Manager. She was helpful and gave us permission to photograph whatever we want inside. She asked us to email her more about the project so she could get permission to give us whatever data we want — it turns out this is Cairo’s only government-owned mall (as well as bus station). So, that’s an interesting thing in itself. We wondered if there were plans to make it more successful than it is right now (!), and also if it is part of some sort of district regeneration programme (if such a thing exists in Cairo). This seems like a very drab neighborhood indeed — much like King’s Cross/St. Pancras in that sense. So, if urban renewal is on the agenda… Anyway, in the meantime while we’re waiting to find out if we can interview and so on, Amal needs to find a photographer and get in there while the going is hot.