The team, which includes representatives of UK engineering firms Ove Arup & Partnersand Buro Happold,and German lighting specialists Bartenbach Lichtlabor, won $250,000 for its design for a low-lying building which mirrors the angles of the nearby pyramids while acting as a stepped extension to the desert plateau at Giza. According to the jury report: 'The poetic statement of the project is extremely strong, still retaining a delicate and discreet approach to the site and the architectural programme.' (MEED 2:5:03.)

Fifteen local and international companies have been prequalified for the project management contract, but a full tender for the project awaits interior modifications to the winning design. 'We hope that by September we will have awarded a contract for the project manager, and we expect to invite contractors [to bid] early next year,' says the head of the technical committee, Yasser Mansour. It has not yet been decided whether the design team will act as consultant on the project, or whether an outside consultant will be brought in - that decision will wait on the selection of the project manager.

The project will be financed by the Egyptian government - through the Supreme Council of Antiquities - as well as grants from foreign governments, individual and group donations and World Bank loans.

The Grand Egyptian Museum is scheduled to open in 2008, and is projected to receive some 15,000 visitors a day. Comprising 38,000 square metres of exhibition space on a 500,000-square-metre plot of land, the museum will display a selection of the more than 100,000 Pharaonic, Coptic, Greek, Roman and Islamic artefacts kept in storage by the antiquities council. The collection will also include the 4,000 artefacts recovered from the tomb of Tutankhamen, currently housed in the National Museum in downtown Cairo. The museum, which celebrated its 100th birthday last year, can display only a tiny fraction of the government's archaeological collections.

A technical committee set up by the Culture Ministry spent nine months evaluating 1,557 entries submitted by architects from around the world, before shortlisting 20 designs in early May. A selection of the designs was unveiled on 8 June at a purpose-built gallery in central Cairo, and has since been moved to the museum site, where it will be open for viewing until construction gets under way next year.