Talaat Harb Square

Look at the buildings around the roundabout: domes on the corners, iron balconies, cream facades. This is Wust el-Balad, the downtown that Khedive Ismail laid out on European lines and that, in the first half of the 20th century, was Cairo's smart district.

1Two statues for one square

For decades the square bore the name of Suleiman Pasha, and his statue stood in the centre. Suleiman was in fact Joseph Sève, a French officer who had fought under Napoleon, settled in Egypt, converted to Islam and reorganised Muhammad Ali's army. After the 1952 revolution his statue was taken to the Military Museum in the Citadel, and the one you see took its place.

The new figure is Talaat Harb (1867-1941), an economist who in 1920 founded Banque Misr, the first major bank with Egyptian capital. From it grew an airline, textile mills and Studio Misr, the film studios that made Cairo the Hollywood of the Arab world.

2Cafés with a past

On the corner is Groppi, the tea room the Swiss family of that name opened here in the 1920s. A few steps away, on Talaat Harb Street, Café Riche prides itself on having been a meeting place for writers and revolutionaries throughout the 20th century, Naguib Mahfouz among them.

If you look closely, Talaat Harb wears a tarboosh, the cylindrical hat that was a symbol of Egyptian modernity until the 1952 revolution pushed it aside.

3What to look for

• The statue of Talaat Harb and his tarboosh.
• The domes on the corners.
• The Groppi sign, on the corner.