Khedive Ismail built the Gezira Palace (currently the Marriott Hotel), in order to receive the distinguished guests he had invited to attend the celebrations of the opening of the Suez Canal, but the guest who was keen to impress her was the Empress Eugenie, whom he chose to be the guest of honor of the celebration, as he granted her The honor of announcing the inauguration of that event, and in order to ensure the comfort and admiration of the beautiful Empress, Khedive Ismail ordered the construction of this magnificent palace.
In the year 1863 AD, the Khedive Ismail ordered the commissioning of the German architect Julius Franz (who was later granted the title Bey (Bey), and through cooperation with the famous engineer de Corel del Russo, who had designed the Abdeen Palace, Julius Franz designed and constructed the 174-tall island palace. The palace took 5 years to construct, and it was completed in the year 1868 AD.
The Khedive also ordered that it be carefully decorated in the style of the decoration of the residence of Eugenie in the Tuyuri Palace, with an Islamic character in the architectural style through the use of designs made of marble, in addition to windows and balconies made in the Mashrabiya style.
After that, the French landscape architect Barrier Deschamps transformed the entire island into a sprawling park that includes within it the island palace, in addition to Muhammad Ali's booth, noting that all the architectural arches used in the construction of the island palace were made of cast iron, and were manufactured at the time in Germany. Then German engineers assembled and installed it on the construction site,
As for the interior decorations and ornaments of the palace, Khedive Ismail ordered to import them from Paris, and the famous German interior designer (Karl Wilhelm von Dibbich) in his workshop in Berlin designed and assembled the interior decorations of the palace, which are the decorations through which he was keen to take into account harmony and harmony between all the elements The interior including furniture, curtains, carpets and even the patterns on the walls.
After Weptsch finished preparing these decorations and furniture, he shipped them in giant containers on a train that transported them first from Berlin to Trieste, then they were shipped from there on a ship to Alexandria, where they were transported to Cairo by train.
The cost reached 750 thousand pounds, and according to what Ali Mubarak, who was then the Minister of Public Works in Egypt during the reign of Khedive Ismail, said that the construction costs of the palace amounted to more than 750 thousand Egyptian pounds, and that amount was very huge by the standards of that time.
But that cost did not include the costs of the landscaping mission surrounding the palace, a task that was very huge in itself as it required strengthening and strengthening the bank of the Nile River opposite the palace, in addition to protecting the areas surrounding the palace from the risk of flooding, and he also paved the road leading to the pyramids. And he built several bridges, including the Qasr al-Nil Bridge and the Abu Al-Ela Bridge, to enable the delegations participating in the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal to move to the pyramids from the Gezira Palace.
The palace was the only building built on the island of Zamalek at that time, and the palace garden included the rarest plants and trees, in addition to that, it contained a distinguished zoo for the entertainment of the guests and invitees, which in turn became the first nucleus of the Giza Zoo.
Upon completion of the construction of the palace, Franz Bey said that Al-Jazirah Palace is truly the most beautiful building of its kind with a modern Arab style, when he entrusted the world musician Verdi to compose music, on the occasion of the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal, where Verdi composed the music of "Aida Opera" specially for this occasion. The music was played for the first time in the garden of the island palace.
The palace, which witnessed and witnesses amazing social celebrations, includes expensive paintings and statues by the most famous European sculptors and painters, and the palace was inspired by its drawings of oriental style and Islamic art, and the interior designs harmonize between fabrics, furniture and artifacts from French, German and Italian schools.
Among the most prominent assets of the palace, some of which have been restored, are a fountain made of wrought metal, a marble staircase, six ancient wall clocks, and various paintings, including a drawing of Empress Eugenie, and a marble table dating back to the reign of King Louis XIV.
Khedive Ismail also established two sleeping rooms for the first Empress Eugenie, with a French character quite similar to her room in the Tuileries Palace in France and another Islamic character (Arabesque), and wrote verses of poetry on them welcoming her arrival.
As well as the lavish foyer of the palace, which contains two contemporary paintings, one of which is the legendary dinner plate, which was attended by the elite and among them was Empress Eugenie, the princess of the fashion of that era, as well as another painting for the celebration held in Ismailia for the opening of the Suez Canal.
To show Egypt's agricultural riches, a royal salon was dedicated, and all its inscriptions depicted Egypt's agricultural crops at that time, in addition to the rare marble statues that adorned the palace garden, which were specially made in Italy for Khedive Ismail, this man who invested all his ideas and wealth to serve Egypt and did not spare it. To show it to the world in its most beautiful form and to be at the top of his artistic creations (Al-Jazeera Palace) in Zamalek.
After the sale of the palace, its gardens were divided into several separate sections, including the Khedivial Garden, which became the Gezira Sports Club, which includes the horse race track and the polo field, and the Khedivial Fish Garden on the western side of the palace was transformed into a separate huge fish garden, and it was officially opened in The year 1902, and still exists to this day under the name of the fish garden.
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