ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the way the congested urban patterns of Old Cairo were formed as a consequence of socio-economic and political situations. Immigration, wars, colonisation, disasters, and economic and political dependence are found to have exerted significant impact on Old Cairo. Investigating the architecture of home in a Cairene Harah context would essentially require an understanding of the structure of Old Cairo, its architectural and urban development. The chapter aims to understand social actions and needs of people that determined architectural development and the modelling of home as a space. Therefore, while sociological and anthropological approaches are involved, the desired outcomes are terms comprehensible to wider audience, and particularly architects. The chapter refers to Pierre Bourdieu's notion of transitional periods that were influential as thresholds, 'a sort of sacred boundary between two spaces', in the Algerian Kabyle communities of the 1960s.
