On November 1st, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), said to be the largest museum dedicated to a single civilization, officially opened to the public in Egypt.
The museum complex covers a total estimated site area of 490,000 square meters and a total built-up area of 167,000 square meters and is located approximately one mile from the ancient pyramids of Giza. It houses approximately 20,000 artifacts from ancient Egyptian civilization.
GEM was built by teams from Egypt’s Orascom Construction and Belgium’s Besix over a period of more than 10 years, and the groundbreaking ceremony was completed in 2002.
The complex is divided into four basic categories: exhibition galleries, conference center, landscaped areas, commercial retail and restaurants. It will also host temporary exhibition galleries, special exhibitions, a children’s museum, 3D experiences and large screens with a total floor space of 32,000 square meters.
Another exhibit features King Khufu’s 4,500-year-old solar boat, thought to be the world’s oldest ship. The conference center is located within the main complex and includes a 1,000-seat auditorium, three 250-seat seminar rooms, gallery space, meeting rooms, a business center, and a press room.
The majority of the museum is designed to host a variety of outdoor activities through a system of outdoor spaces consisting of squares, open-air exhibition areas, Dunar Park, Nile Park, recreational gardens, temple gardens, and Lands of Egypt Park. In addition, GEM houses several support buildings and structures, including a multifunctional parking garage, ticketing building, and an accessible pyramid climb overlooking the desert and the Giza pyramids.
Construction of the museum was carried out despite extraordinary challenges, including the economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, and was coordinated with advanced Building Information Modeling (BIM) and the collaboration of more than 300 partners and suppliers, resulting in more than 120 million man-hours. The Besix-Orascom construction team was responsible for the full scope of construction, including structural works, finishes, advanced mechanical, electrical, plumbing (MEP) and ICT systems, equipment, and a secure environment for artifact preservation.
The architect formed a joint venture with Arup and Bureau Happold for design development in Heneghan Pen, Ireland, and expanded to include UK-based museum services Cultural Innovations and Metaphor and landscape design firm West8 in the Netherlands.
GEM’s engineering highlights include the fact that the building is composed almost entirely of triangles (an architectural homage to the pyramids), with very few right angles. The building also features a double-glazed façade with 25-meter-high ceilings, 20-meter cantilevers, and Africa’s first prestressed vertical cables.
In terms of architecture, the museum structure starts from the outer focal point of the entrance and radiates outward toward the pyramids along a visual axis that directly coincides with the location of the three pyramids. The interior walls form a fan-like shape along these radial lines, and the roof slopes upwards along similar visual lines, coinciding with but not exceeding the highest point of the pyramid.
A six-story grand staircase serves as a chronological route that takes visitors through the various galleries, with the entrance to the permanent exhibition located at the top of the staircase and visitors completing their experience with a view of the pyramids. Many of the largest and heaviest artifacts are located on stairs at various levels.
The site also includes extensive gardens that provide public green space for the local community. Developed in collaboration with landscaping company West 8, the garden was designed to tell the story of the Nile floodplain, where the stones of the pyramids were once transported by boat. This open zone will open the entire 800-meter-long museum to the public and accommodate five hectares of outdoor exhibition space where artifacts will be displayed.
In addition to galleries for the public, GEM features a preservation center, laboratory, and storage facilities connected to the main building via a tunnel. It is one of the largest facilities in the world with 17 different laboratories dedicated to preserving museum artifacts.
GEM is also the first environmental museum in Africa and the Middle East to receive Edge Advanced certification for green buildings in February 2024.
The museum employs an intelligent energy management system that includes the use of solar panels, low-power LED lighting systems, and natural ventilation technology, contributing to 62% energy savings compared to traditional standards and significantly reducing carbon emissions. The majority of the structure is made of concrete to reduce temperature fluctuations in the vast space and minimize the need for air conditioning.
The development also uses advanced rainwater harvesting and reuse for irrigation, along with water-saving fixtures and smart irrigation technology. This includes green space for an air purification and cooling system based on ancient Egyptian ventilation, using Egyptian marble and granite taken from the local environment and integrated with modern technology.
“Based on a strong architectural concept, a smart, multi-level museum campus was born, which today can accommodate millions of visitors,” said West 8 founder Adrien Gouze. “The grandeur of both the building’s heritage and scale are elegantly blended on the edge of the Giza Plateau. This has resulted in a museum that is truly embedded in its historical and geological context.”
In an exclusive interview, the museum’s contractors, Besix and Orascom Construction, spoke to ConstructAfrica about the challenges they faced in delivering the project and how they overcame them.
Q) What challenges did the museum’s unique design pose for the contractors and how were they overcome?
The triangular geometry (of the museum) and the lack of right angles meant that every component in every discipline (structure, architecture, MEP) was unique and, as a result, there was no repetition. We leveraged advanced BIM and collaborated with hundreds of partners to achieve millimeter precision. for example:
– Designed and installed 3D folded concrete roof slabs spanning up to 40 meters using custom formwork. The 30,000 square meter triangular roof made of white concrete demonstrates the high level of precision required. All formwork lines had to align seamlessly with the marble joints in the floor and the ceiling tiles above them, extending continuously for almost a kilometer without a single right angle.
– We designed Africa’s first prestressed cable supported façade to maintain structural integrity.
– Digital tools enable real-time collision detection and sequencing to ensure perfect alignment with the pyramid.
Q) This museum is said to be a complex engineering masterpiece. What other engineering challenges did you face during construction?
Several challenges stand out.
– Design and installation of a 40 meter 3D concrete roof slab
Folded roofs are considered for the roofs of both the museum and conference center buildings (where they are concrete structures), as well as the roofs of the entrance court, food court, and temple gardens (which are steel structures trapped between upper and lower perforated aluminum mesh panels).
The concrete folded structure is divided into six bands in each building, covering the area between the digital stream walls. Digital stream walls are concrete walls placed radially from the foundation level along the radial axis of the main building. Each folding roof band is supported by digital stream walls on the west side and steel columns on the east side, with windows between them to allow natural light into the main gallery. This gives the folded roof a serrated shape in the east-west direction. Additionally, the roof structure is folded into irregular peaks and valleys along the north-south direction.
The levels and dimensions of the concrete folded roof were based on several equations considering radial and chronological grids. These equations were used to validate concrete Revit models, concrete dimensional drawings, and formwork construction drawings/coordinates accordingly.
Several studies were done on the concrete mix to achieve the design strength (50MPA) and a white concrete mix was made to achieve the required workability to avoid segregation due to the severe slope of the roof structure.
– Stiletto Wall
The same intricate design has been applied to the Stiletto Wall, which consists of 23 modules ranging in height from 14 meters to 35 meters and varying degrees of slope. During construction, important decisions were made in order to overcome the complexities, such as sloped scaffolding, bottom-up or top-down installation methods, and how to pick up stones with a minimum weight of 60 kg.
– Huge cantilever stretching 20 meters and ceiling reaching 25 meters high
– Finishing structural work on the top and surrounding area of the 11-meter-tall statue of Ramesses II
– Relocated Khufu’s solar boat, traveling 8.5 kilometers and lifting it 30 meters into the building with millimeter precision
One of the most iconic highlights and challenges at GEM was relocating Khufu’s 44-meter-long wooden solar boat into a sealed, temperature-controlled, specially constructed steel container. It was transported on imported specialized multi-wheeled equipment from the existing Solar Boat Museum building adjacent to the Giza Pyramids to the new purpose-built Solar Boat Building built in and around the GEM venue.
– Integrate and coordinate over 30 MEP and ICT systems in a structure without parallel axes
Each required superior logistical, structural and architectural solutions. The project’s key quantities reflect the following challenges:
– Onyx facade
Another major challenge was the translucent onyx facade. Onyx degrades when exposed to the outside air, so we worked with our client to design an innovative system that encased the onyx within thin glass panels. The technology was later reused in other museums, including Abu Dhabi’s Guggenheim Museum, which is scheduled to open in 2026. Projects like this push us to create materials that didn’t exist before, in constant dialogue with our suppliers and subcontractors.
Q) The museum took more than a decade to build and overcame challenges from the financial crisis to a global pandemic. How did Orascom and Besix address these challenges?
The project spanned more than a decade and required particularly strong project management to overcome multiple challenges, including global disruptions like the pandemic. A phased delivery was used to allow artifacts to be installed early while construction continued. Remote adjustment tools and advanced digital modeling helped maintain progress through complexity.
In addition to the famous Belgian diplomacy and tenacity, a key success factor was the excellent complementary cooperation between the joint ventures. Besix brought international expertise in managing complex projects, while Orascom provided valuable local knowledge and resources. This partnership ensured continuity and resilience throughout the process.
Q) Advanced BIM modeling was used during construction. Please tell us how this technology helped you during construction and its potential for other projects.
GEM was one of the first projects to use 100% BIM in 2012, allowing it to coordinate the work of 300 subcontractors and companies and avoid conflicts between more than 30 MEP and ICT systems. BIM is now standard at most Besix and Orascom construction sites.
(At GEM) I worked on Autodesk’s BIM 360 platform. This allows them to manage complex geometries and the sequencing of tasks such as aligning roof slabs, detect clashes and reorganize designs in a timely manner.
For example, (BIM was used) to reroute pipes if they were causing conflicts with other infrastructure paths such as cable trays or ductwork, or to align all joints between stone floors and stone wall cladding to the ceiling pattern. Besix received the Autodesk Excellence Award for Best Construction Project for its work with GEM.
Top photo: Grand Egyptian Museum (Source: Heneghan Peng)
