ABSTRACT
Bulaq is one of west Cairo's administrative districts, outside the walled city of medieval Cairo and to the east of the Nile River, in close proximity to central Cairo. The micro space of streets in old Bulaq forms the basic unit of the circulation network, known universally as the hara. The hara as a lived space is characterised by spatial configuration and modes of everyday sociability, which give rise to particular understandings and experiences of privacy and the boundaries between the public and the private. The beginnings of the 20th century held historical significance for the duality relationship between the acquired and inherited. There is nothing to be seen at Bulaq which cannot be better seen in the bazaars, except that some cafes still have their mastabas and that there are a few old mosques. Thus, modernity would have been better situated as a political, ideological and cultural system that sets the modern against new interpretations of authenticity and tradition.
