Born in Egypt, Mahmoud Riad graduated from the Liverpool School with a B.Arch in 1931 and returned to Egypt where he built extensively as well as designing a mosque in Athens. His student 5th year thesis design for A Combined Bus and Railway Terminal Station for Alexandria owes much to his Beaux Art training in Liverpool and little to his native Middle-Eastern traditions - as might be expected at this time of cultural imperialism. This seems at odds with our contemporary sensibilities but was not seen as being at odds at the time by figures such as Reilly. Indeed as Joseph Sharples notes, 'By 1935 Reilly could write, apparently without irony how strange it was 'that with the variety of climates and races included in the Empire, so few buildings with local characteristics are put up...'
Fifth Year Thesis Design: A Combined Bus and Railway Terminal for Alexandria, Perspective Drawing of Concourse. Published in the Book of the Liverpool School of Architecture, The University Press of Liverpool and Hodder and Stoughton Ltd London, 1932. Plate XXXIV
Further Reading
Joseph Sharples, Charles Reilly and the Liverpool School of Architecture 1904-1933, Liverpool University Press, 1996, p132.