Hassan Allam

Hassan Allam was born in Port Said and subsequently moved to the Upper Egyptian town of Al Minya with his family. His father owned a small shop that sold construction materials including tiles and ceramics imported from Great Britain. Allam attended primary school but did not continue his education, joining his father's business instead.

In 1923 at the age of 19, he immigrated to Cairo where he formed a small informal contracting outfit. In 1936, he founded Hassan Mohammed Allam & Co. for General Contracting - a limited partnership company. Despite having received no formal education in the field of construction, however his managerial & technical expertise were substantial. He was also widely popular with construction laborers and engineers

In 1938, King Farouk was on his way to Ismalia when he was injured in a car accident and was whisked to the nearby village of Kassassin to be treated in a small medical facility. As a result of the incident, the King ordered that a hospital be built in the area. Hassan Allam thus landed his first major contract and El Kassaseen Hospital was built on the Cairo-to-Ismaïlia agricultural road. Other early contracts included the Mebara hospital in Port Said, a power station in Damanhur, and the first Egyptian oil refinery in Suez. His firm was beginning to seriously compete with El Abd Pasha, Ahmad Bakir (a road contractor) and Ali Ibrahim Pasha (whose work includes the Television Building and the Tahrir Office Complex in Cairo). Eventually, the company became one of the largest in the construction field in the country together with Osman Ahmad Osman's Arab Contractors Co...