Museum · Cairo
Manial Palace and Museum
Prince Mohamed Ali's riverside palace on Rhoda Island: a complex of palaces, a mosque and museums in blended Islamic styles, set within rare gardens on the Nile.
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The story
Construction of the Manial Palace began in 1901 (the wider estate was developed into the 1920s) for Prince Mohamed Ali, the second son of Khedive Tewfik and brother of Khedive Abbas II, who held the post of crown prince three times. The prince chose the site himself, drew up the architectural and decorative designs and oversaw the building. The complex includes three palaces, the Residence, the Reception and the Throne palaces, plus a mosque, a private museum, a hunting museum and a clock tower, and its architecture blends Fatimid, Mamluk, Ottoman, Andalusian, Persian and Levantine styles. The prince willed the palace to become a museum after his death, and it passed to the state in 1955 and is a museum today.
Good to know
- The palaces sit in gardens with a rare collection of trees and plants, beside a small branch of the Nile.
- It has three palaces, a mosque, a private museum, a hunting museum and a clock tower, enclosed by a wall styled on medieval fortresses.
- Prince Mohamed Ali willed that the palace become a museum after his death.