Framing Inclusive Heritage Urbanism Reconfiguring Publicness in Mosque-Centered Precincts in Historic Cairo

Abstract

Mosque-centered precincts in historical cities face a continuous tension between touristic-led redevelopments, security management policies and urban life of commons. Recently in Historic Cairo state-led interventions occur in major mosque-centered settings with upgrading intent by enhancing visual order, crowd control and visitors’ experience, yet socio-spatial inclusivity stayed insufficiently incorporated in those implications. This study discourses this gap by initiating the Heritage Socio-spatial Inclusivity Framework (HSIF) to assess inclusivity across major mosque-centered realms – AL-Hussein Mosque & Al-Sayida Zeinab Mosque precincts . HSIF synthesized urban design & heritage conservation concepts through indicators covering aspects like communal livability, users experience, governance & heritage sustainability. The study aimed to propose context-sensitive guidelines that balance tourism pressures, governance and locals’ rights to urban heritage, through operationalizing HSIF as a diagnostic tool afore prescriptive model. Empirically; the study adopted a triangulated methodology of analysis by integrating users’ surveys, mapped on-site observations & historical precedence of urban morphological evolutions. The outcomes demonstrated an operational imbalance; as the state-led interventions helped enhancing the precincts’ vitality, temporal inclusivity, visual and spatial experience yet a vivid weakness in participatory governance, access equity and heritage incorporation in everyday life was witnessed. These results exhibited that inclusivity in rich-heritage precincts exists yet reshaped in a form of consumption-oriented publicness marginalizing commons needs and authenticity. Therefore, the study proposed three clusters of context-sensitive guidelines and their implementations each address a weakness while strategically leveraging high performing indicators for inclusive outcomes; paving the road for a sustaining users’ sense of inclusivity in rich-heritage precincts.