Expo 2000 Hannover Germany

Q&A with Albert Speer, German architect and urban planner

The renowned German architect and urban planner Albert Speer Jr., son of the main architect of the Third Reich’s Albert Speer, held a conference yesterday at the Goethe Institute about sustainable urbanization in Cairo.

Albert Speer Jr. founded the urban planning firm Büro Albert Speer & Partner (AS&P), which developed many projects all over the world, including the designs of Expo 2000 in Hanover and Shanghai International Automobile City. Speer is part of the architectural firm involved in the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup, the world’s first zero emission world cup.

In 2007, he developed a general strategic plan for 6th of October City in Cairo, and his firm currently belongs to an Egyptian-International consortium developing urban projects in Alexandria. They are in the process of conducting a comprehensive master plan studying all aspects of the city’s development in collaboration with Egyptian urban planners, architects and engineers.

During the conference, Speer pointed out the importance and urgency of rethinking future urbanization of the entire country and of Cairo in particular. He defined sustainability as resource efficiency, lower costs, and greater use of alternative energy and mass transportation systems. Taken together, these different elements can promote decentralization, which is important for achieving the major goal of sustainable urbanization, according to the architect.

Presenting Cairo as the “head” and the rest of Egypt as the “body,” Speer stressed the importance of developing a strategy that involves the whole country, with the support of the civil society, in order to ensure better living conditions for urban dwellers.

The public clearly showed disappointment at the general angle chosen by Speer, who energetically denied any relation to the Cairo 2050 plan, which was announced in 2009 and planned to relocate millions of inhabitants to the desert. He confirmed his firm was commissioned to work on 6th of October City, which is part of the overall Cairo 2050 plan. The plan would have replaced many historic neighborhoods with modern areas.

After the conference, Speer sat with Al-Masry Al-Youm to talk further on sustainable development and urbanization in Egypt.

Al-Masry Al-Youm: What are the concrete steps to develop sustainable urbanization and architecture in Egypt?

Albert Speer: The first thing that needs to be studied is the way the city is organized by taking into account the specifics of mobility, transportation, density and mixture of uses the city provides. It is only thereafter that you can start thinking of what type of eco-buildings with low energy consumption would be best. My aim is to develop the city ecologically and in a sustainable way by reducing emissions and energy consumption. In Germany, a study found that if you dramatically reduce consumption of energy now, the energy needed in the future will be reduced by 40%. But of course to achieve this goal, people’s mentality and their daily habits have to change. Although there is a common belief that this change will reduce urban dwellers’ quality of life, that’s not true.

EXPO 2000, HANOVER, GERMANY • Blog Archive • ΓΖ

EXPO 2000, HANOVER, GERMANY

ASSISTENCE FOR RAJEEV SETHI ( LINK ) @ EXPO HANOVER, GERMANY 2000

THE INSTALLATION BASIC NEEDS WAS CREATED  BY RAJEEV SETHI FOR THE WORLD EXHIBITION IN HANOVER GERMANY 2000. IN  COORPORATION WITH THE SCENOGRAPHER R. BRUECKNER THE SO CALLED CYCLE OF LIFE WAS REALIZED ON A STEEL STRUCTURE WHICH ALLOWED THE VISITOR TO WALK IN FORM OF AN 8 SHAPED CYCLIC WAY TRHOUGH THE DIFFERENT PHASES OF LIFE_ FROM BIRTH TO DEATH_

A FEW YOUNG STUDENTS WERE ECLECTED TO ASSIST SETHI  FINISHING THE INSTALLATION BY PUTTING THE THOUSAND OF SELECTED OBJETCS TOGETHER.

THE SELECTED OBJECTS WERE FROM ALL ARROUND THE WORLD AND EACH OBJECT HAD ITS OWN STORY ITS OWN SPACE ITS OWN LIGHTMOOD IN THE SCENARIO SPACE.

The EXPO-Book, the official catalogue of EXPO 2000; EXPO 2000 Hannover, the World Exposition, 1. Juni - 31. Oktober 2000 in Germany

Lightbook, the practice of lighting design

Architects of the new millennium

EXPO2000 Hannover, the World Exposition in Germany, 1st June - 31th October 2000 ; the EXPO-Book ; the official catalogue of EXPO2000 with CD-ROM

Celebrate the Millennium, Activity Book