Cairo is known for its sidewalk cafés, where friends and strangers meet to read their newspapers and discuss the issues of the day. A café and patisserie, Left Bank optimizes its Nile-side location and evokes Downtown Cairo’s cosmopolitan past while taking as a point of inspiration Liberation Square, the scene of an historic social interaction.


“A café and patisserie, Left Bank optimizes its Nile-side location and evokes Downtown Cairo’s cosmopolitan past .”


Like Liberation Square, a large, open space bordered by iconic buildings, Left Bank is luminous with a central hub, its mosaic marble floor an abstracted figure-ground map of the city. The Square’s vertical boundaries were translated as the café’s bookshelves, bordering both intimate and interactive seating arrangements.