The built and open spaces surrounding Tahrir Square—the public plaza and staging ground of political demonstrations during the 2011 Egyptian revolution—have undergone a transformation this year: Beaux-arts facades received a fresh coat of paint, a 1,700-space underground parking garage was finally completed, and the square was topped off with a 65-foot-tall flagpole. An International Style hotel known as the Nile Hilton has been reborn as a new Ritz Carlton, and the Stalinist structure which housed former president Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party is now a pile of rubble that, when hauled away, will become a riverside park sloping from the Egyptian Museum.

These cosmetic improvements are emblematic of the desire of Egyptian authorities to distance themselves from the neglect associated with Mubarak’s regime. The state holds title to the square, the museum, and the Ritz Carlton, but ownership of the estimated 228 pre-1945 buildings that line the streets and squares between Tahrir and the medieval Islamic City is significantly more diversified.