After 111 years of tinkering and fixing, Essam Ahmed can’t bring himself to acknowledge the demise of what may well be the oldest watch shop in Egypt. He shows off an alarm clock his father fixed for the last monarch, King Farouk, and a ledger with neat handwriting that meticulously records the names of every customer who has come into the shop, including prominent Egyptian personalities from the 20th century such as feminist activist Hoda Al Shaarawi and actor Naguib Al Rihani.

“This place is still alive for us,” he says. “It’s my home and it is being taken away from us by brute force.”

He learned his craft from his father and his grandfather, who bought the shop, Hinhayat, from its original Bulgarian owner, Solomon Hinhayat, in 1956. But by the end of this week, the shop will be gone – demolished as part of a huge urban redevelopment plan in Cairo, known as the Maspero Triangle.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hinhayat watch shop, with the X marking it out for demolition. Photograph: Farid Farid

Close to the River Nile and surrounded by historic buildings including the Italian consulate and the labyrinthine Radio & Television Building, the 35-hectare Maspero Triangle district will involve a new financial centre, luxury hotels and malls.

Demolition and relocation costs are estimated at four billion Egyptian pounds (£170m). Tenders for construction firms to rebuild the area have not yet been put forward.

The area was a key flashpoint during the Arab spring, with protracted clashes between protesters and the army. In October 2011, tanks mowed down 29 Coptic Christian demonstrators during the Maspero massacre,a turning point for the revolution..

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Many of the shops and homes of the Maspero Triangle have already been reduced to rubble. Photograph: Khaled Elfiqi/EPA

Now the bulldozers are moving in – and erasing a host of Khedivial buildings, which meld Arab and European motifs. Under Ottoman ruler Khedive Ismail in the mid-nineteenth century, Cairo was modernised with architecture that featured elegant decoration and neo-classical columns – exemplified by buildings such as Cairo’s first opera house, which burned down in 1971.

They are killing us slowly. A slow torturous death to squeeze us out of the area Hashem Abu El Ela, resident

Critics of the latest modernisation plans say Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, is looking to turn Cairo into a lucrative playground for wealthy investors and tourists while potentially displacing up to 18,000 residents in Maspero. A new administrative capital in the desert is already under construction, powered by Chinese developers such as State Construction Engineering Corporation and China Fortune Land Development, which have invested around $20bn (£15bn).

The Maspero redevelopment is part of a wider plan to redesign downtown Cairo. Named after the French archaeologist Gaston Maspero, who conducted excavation work on the Sphinx at Giza and headed the Egyptian Museum, the redevelopment contract was awarded to architecture firm Foster and Partners, which boasted in its glossy winning bid in November 2015: “The future of Maspero burns bright, and we are sure our sustainable model of development will set the benchmark for urban regeneration throughout the country.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Part of the Foster + Partners vision for the redeveloped Maspero Triangle. Photograph: Foster + Partners

But for Ahmed and many other residents in the area, the destruction of buildings on one side of 26 July Street – including his watch shop – represents a dark end to a majestic era – not to mention his main source of income.

“It’s worth millions and they (the authorities) want to give us pennies,” Ahmed says. “But more importantly, it should be left as a museum. We served kings and celebrities and this is what Hinhayat’s legacy has been reduced to. How can a proud country kill its heritage with its own hands?”

Safety of people comes first. And to be honest, I don’t see any form of architectural heritage in these buildings Khaled El Seddiq, Informal Settlements Development Fund

Demolition has already begun. Bulldozers have started knocking buildings down and workers dump wheelbarrows of rocks in plumes of suffocating dust. Hashem Abu El Ela, 55, a loyal customer who lives in a heritage building nearby takes a more defiant tone.

“They are killing us slowly. A slow torturous death to squeeze us out of the area,” he says. “This is our home and come hell or high water, we won’t go.”

He says authorities are offering 60,000 EGP per room to every resident across the area. Others add that compensation has not been paid out even though they were approved to receive the funds before being forced to evacuate.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters run for cover during clashes with the Egyptian riot police in Cairo, November 2011. Maspero saw repeated clashes during the revolution. Photograph: Khalil Hamra/AP

Ahmed was offered 7,000 EGP per square metre to vacate the watch shop, well below the market price of 50,000-100,000 EGP per square metre according to local real estate brokers. El Ela’s friends took the money and moved elsewhere, leaving him to chase lawyers and send letters to local officials pleading his case. An administrative court hearing is scheduled for end of this month.

Residents have also been offered 40,000 EGP for relocations costs. Property prices have boomed on the back of the devaluation of the currency, which bodes well for investors and second home-buyers. Buying new apartments in an area close to Maspero, such as Imbaba in southern Cairo close to the banks of the Nile, though, would set back a buyer at least 300,000 EGP. In addition, living costs have soared after Egypt agreed to undertake austerity measures to secure a $12bn loan from the International Monetary Fund.

The government is using informal settlements as a quick way to make some cash by exploiting the rent gap Yahia Shawkat, 10 Tooba

The Informal Settlements Development Fund, the government agency behind the Maspero plans, says it has a responsibility to get rid of buildings that are residentially unsafe, including the Hinhayat building.

“We want a successful fabric of urban and social cohesion,” says Khaled El Seddiq, the head of the agency. “Maspero Triangle is one of the biggest slums in Egypt, where there have been plenty of cases of urban decay and untenable living situations because of human density.”

El Seddiq noted that the final amount of compensations is estimated to reach 1.3 billion EGP to more than 4,500 families.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Although demolition has begun, no construction companies have yet been contracted for rebuilding. Photograph: Foster + Partners

Asked whether buildings and shops with significant cultural heritage, such as Hinhayat, would be protected, he adds: “If I am opening up a new corridor that will serve one million pedestrians daily, and I have a heritage building – which is more important for me? The public good is always better. Safety of people comes first. And to be honest, I don’t see any form of architectural heritage in these buildings.”

There are broader concerns that Egypt’s urban vision is creating spatial and class inequalities.

Norman Foster's Cairo redevelopment has locals asking: where do we fit in? Read more

“The government is using informal settlements as a quick way to make some cash by exploiting the rent gap,” says Yahia Shawkat, co-founder of 10 Tooba, a Cairo-based think tank focused on the built environment. “The difference between the cost of eviction and expropriation is low, and the investment/resale value of the empty land is high.”

Outside Hinhayat, mounds of broken stone and concrete send clouds of dust into the air as residents pick their way through the street. For Ahmed, simply packing up the hundreds of precious watches and clocks has been an emotionally laborious task.

“I still can’t accept that this all coming to end,” he says. “Look at the rubble outside the shop. This is what we’ve become as a state.”

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