After twenty years of work, since the Dublin-based Heneghan Peng Architects won the competition held by the Egyptian government in 2003, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) is almost ready to open its doors, after political protests and environmental setbacks which caused the project to be delayed.

The building – located outside Cairo, on the west bank of the Nile River, just over a mile away from the Pyramids of Giza – is planned to host five million guests per year and more than 100,000 antiquities, that date back from prehistoric times to Greece in the Roman era, including the whole catalog of relics from pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb – composed of 5,000 objects.

The museum will house also an exhibition space, a library, an education center, and a children’s museum.