the world celebrated the official date of this new hotel. Conceived by Belgian architect Ernest Jaspar, his birth boasted 400 shows including 55 private shows. Its banquet halls were amongst the biggest anywhere. The utilities were the state of the art technology of the time. All had been constructed and put together by the contracting firms Leon Rolin & Co. and Padova, Dentamaro & Ferro, the biggest two civil contractors in Egypt. Siemens-Schuckert of Berlin fitted the hotel's web of electric cables and installations. Design As though intentional, its severe, almost forbidding exterior contrasted sharply with the extravagance of the interior. A 1912 visitor recounts: "Beyond the reception offices are two lavishly decorated rooms, in the Louis XIV and Louis XV styles respectively and then comes the central hall, which is a dream of beauty and symmetry. Here the architecture, which is responsible for so many wonderful effects in Heliopolis, reaches its artistic zenith. Damascus-made Oriental lamps hung from every corner and cranny hang." King Albert I (King of Belgium), who stayed in the hotel with his wife Queen Elisabeth for a month, said "C'est une merveille!" upon entering the main hall. The main hall, which was almost 589 meters2, had a 55-meter-wide dome, designed by Alexander Marcel of the French Institute and decorated by Georges Claude, was carpeted with the finest oriental rugs and fitted with large floor-to-ceiling mirrors, draperies and a large marble fireplace. Twenty-two Italian marble columns connected the parquet to the ceiling. To one side of the hall there was the dining room, which seated 150 guests, and to the other was the billiard hall with two full-sized Thurston tables, as well as a priceless French one. The hotel's mahogany furniture were supplied by Maple's Furniture (London). The hotel's area was so large, that a railway system was installed, running through the hotel; passing by offices, kitchens, refrigerators, storerooms and the staff housing. World Wars and after During World War I and II, the hotel was transformed into a military hospital for British soldiers. After World War II, air travel reduced the average tourist stay to a few days. As tourism became a mega-industry, massive hotels emerged in Egypt with interiors calculated on the basis of return per square meter. Unable to compete, the hotel became less popular. Becoming a Presidential palace In the 1980s, which marks the beginning of the Mubarak regime, the Heliopolis Palace