France had colonial empires in 17, 18 and 19th centuries. When Napoleon arrived in Cairo during the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. his French designers influenced the furniture design style in Egypt to be in traditional European taste. French land forces surrendered to the British on September 2, 1801.
Many of the architectural designs in Egypt are influenced by the French short occupation to Egypt dating from the late 19th century. Many building in Egypt have French colonial doors, wrought iron French style gates and French design balconies.
Most of Egypt French colonial doors consist of top transom, and 2 panels. Egyptians call the whole set of 2 doors and top transom as one door. The transom is usually is hand forged from wrought iron. The top of the panels are hand crafted from wrought iron. The rest of the French Colonial doors are made from Pine. Each half view door features a window ornamented with hand-forged and riveted ironwork a top heavy trimmed panels. The window is hinged on the interior side of the door, allowing it to be opened for ventilation. The doors have various dings, scratches, chips, and holes typical of an old door. The wrought iron of the transom matches the wrought iron at the top of the panels.
The wrought iron workmanship is by hot banding the wrought iron for acquiring the requested shapes and all connections are riveted. No welding was known at the time of production.
The French colonial and Moorish doors have many different designs and sizes. Many of the doors have a width around 45 inches and height of panels is around 65″. Most of the old doors were made more than 70 years ago. Owners of houses in the past competed over the beauty of the house architecture, whether the engravings in the interior or the outer facades and doors
The old doors decorative details signs reflect the culture and identity of the house owner. Arabic language Quran verses on the door show that the owner is a Muslim. The menorah seven candles and Star of David on the door shows that the owner is Jewish. Unfortunately, continuing to demolish old houses will lead to the loss of unique identity of Egypt heritage.
The handmade and unparalleled architectural antiques are displayed on the market as artistic pieces, and owners of palaces, properties, antiques dealers, fans, store owners and showrooms antiques traders inside and outside Egypt buy them.
A1 Egypt carries a wide range of both antiques and reproduction ornamental iron gates, doors, balconies, fences, shutters, windows, tiles, marble and other hard to find designs. Our wonderful selection of architectural treasures makes us the main hub in Egypt for architects, builders, decorators, collectors, interior designers, developers and fans. We offer thousands of unique, unusual, and hard-to-find home decor items to our international clientele.
We buy our inventory of architectural salvage from demolished or about-to-be-demolished buildings all over Egypt. Because our inventory is ever-changing, we are unable to catalog all items. However, we keep and have access to a constant inventory of all types of architectural antiques.
