Cairo Tower

A 187-metre lotus of concrete lattice — the modern city’s exclamation mark.

Rising 187 metres over Gezira, the Cairo Tower was for a decade the tallest structure in Africa. Its concrete lattice is modelled on the lotus, the ancient Egyptian flower — a deliberate knot of pharaonic symbol and 1960s modernism. From the top, the whole city unrolls: the river, the domes, the sprawl, and on a clear evening the far edge of the desert.