The Baron's Palace

Located at Salah Salem St. Heliopolies - Cairo

The Palace’s builder was the Belgian-born industrialist, Baron-General Edouard Louis Joseph Empain (1852-1929) the prodigal son of a village school teacher who became one of Europe's greatest colonialist entrepreneurs of the 20th century. Empain had extensive business interests in Indonesia and in time became a well known amateur Egyptologist. He arrived in Egypt during January, 1904,

His efforts culminated in 1907 with the building of the new town of Heliopolis, out in the desert ten kilometers from the center of Cairo

For his own home he chose a prestigious location in Heliopolis and ordered Alexander Marcel, a French architect and a member of the prestigious French Institute, to build him a Hindu palace. Some say it was supposed to be more or less a copy of the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia

Empain brought the best Indonesian artists and sculptors for its construction. They built it on an artificial elevation to enable the Baron to watch the rising of Heliopolis. The palace’s striking exterior was the responsibility of Marcel, who reproduced a motley of busts, statues, elephants, snakes, Buddha's, shivers and Krishna's. The sophisticated interior was the responsibility of his French associate, Georges-Louis Claude.