Gayer-Anderson Museum

The museum is two sixteenth and seventeenth-century houses knocked together, saved from demolition and leased in the 1930s to John Gayer-Anderson, a British army doctor who filled them with furniture, carpets, ceramics and Pharaonic pieces and then left the whole arrangement to Egypt when he departed in 1942. That is what makes it unusual: it is not a collection displayed in a house but a house presented as one man arranged it, with a Persian room, a Damascus room lined with lacquered panels, a Byzantine room and a reception hall with a marble fountain under a high painted ceiling. The mashrabiya screens above the hall let the women of the household watch guests unseen, and the roof terrace looks straight across at the spiral minaret next door. Parts of a Bond film were shot here in 1977.

History

The museum is two houses built against the outer wall of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun: the larger, eastern one was built in 1632 by Hajj Mohammad ibn al-Hajj Salem al-Gazzar and later belonged to a wealthy woman from Crete, which gave it the name Bayt al-Kritliyya, "house of the Cretan woman", while the western one was built in 1540 by Abdel-Qader al-Haddad and named after its last owner, Amna bint Salim; at some point they were joined by a bridge at third-floor level. When the government began clearing houses from around the mosque in 1928, the Committee for the Conservation of Arab Monuments saved this one because it was so well preserved. In 1935 Major Gayer-Anderson, a retired collector, was allowed to live in the newly restored house, installed electricity and plumbing, restored its fountains and floors and filled it with his collection; forced by ill health to leave Egypt in 1942, he gave the contents to the Egyptian government. The James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me was partly shot in its reception hall and on its roof terrace (Wikipedia, Gayer-Anderson Museum).

What to look for

• The reception hall - marble fountain, painted ceiling and mashrabiya galleries.
• The Damascus room - lacquered and gilded panelling brought from Syria.
• The roof terrace - level with the spiral minaret of Ibn Tulun.
• A collector's arrangement kept intact - the house as it was left in 1942.

When to go

October to April. Mornings are quiet. Allow one to two hours and combine it with the mosque it leans against, which shares the same block. The house is cool inside even in warm weather thanks to its screens and courtyards.

Good to know

Rooms are small and a tour group fills them instantly. Stairs are steep and there is no lift. Some rooms are roped off. The Pharaonic pieces are a private collector's mixture rather than a curated display, and labelling is minimal.

Nearby

The Ibn Tulun mosque shares a wall; Sultan Hassan and the Citadel are east.

Key facts