Maurice Joseph Cattaui

Born in Cairo to the wealthy, well-educated, and Europeanized Cattaui (or Cattaoui, Cattawi, Cattavi) family, Maurice Cattaui studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Returning to Cairo, he opened an architecture firm with Eduard Matasek, an Austrian Roman Catholic. Their Sha‘ar Hashamayim Synagogue was inspired by Charles Chipiez’s and Georges Perrot’s models of the Temple of Jerusalem (1889) but drew on Egyptian, Assyrian, and art-nouveau motifs as well. This synagogue design was later borrowed for the Karaite community’s Moshe Dar‘i Synagogue (1931). Cattaui and Matasek also designed a number of Cairo villas, the Cairo Stock Exchange (1928), and the Austro-Hungarian Hospital in the Cairene neighborhood of Shubra (1913).