Wekalat Al- Nekhely In Luxor Between The Past And The Present

Wekalat(وكالة)AL-Nekhely is considered the only remaining Ottoman-era traditional commercial building in Luxor, it was used as a place to store goods and sell merchandise, fabrics, and crops, Merchants would come to it to rest in the rooms and wait for the scheduled market day, which was Tuesday of each week.There were also designated areas for animals to rest from the fatigue of travel on the ground floor, the merchants came from various places, such as Esna, Asyut, Aswan, and other surrounding areas, Wekalat (وكالة)AL- Nekhely was distinguished from others by selling certain products, including "Al-Habra" or "Al-Malth," which is a wide garment worn by women in Upper Egypt, another unique feature of the Wekalat are the presence of what is known as "Al-Araqa," a small room with a specific temperature where unripe green bananas are placed for two days until they ripen and are sold to the Wekala’s merchants.The research aimed to explore the Wekala’s(وكالة) architectural engineering, a layout design was created for it for the first time by researchers and specialists, through field visits and seeing the Wekalat (وكالة) on the ground, it was observed that local materials and traditional building methods were used, during the study note the use of locally available stone in building the walls due to its lightweight, in addition to the use of bricks in building the interior walls due to their ability to withstand high temperatures, unlike stone or marble, wood is also used in the ceiling with ventilation openings in the walls that provide natural ventilation, additionally, plant-based decorations with a local environmental character and Ottoman elements were used, the study depended on the field visits, Descriptive, Documentary, Comparative and Historical Approach