The Pentagon is a symbol. It is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense and, from time to time, it makes the news for news about extraterrestrials or for the controversy of being the first to break the ban on dealing with Huawei. But more important than being synonymous with this branch of the federal government, what characterizes the Pentagon is its peculiar shape. It is an imposing building that, until the opening of Surat Diamond City in 2023, was the largest office building in the world.
They could continue saying that they were the largest government office building, but that too is going to change in not so long. The reason is that Egypt is preparing something that will make the Pentagon look tiny. Your name? The Octagon, the new headquarters of the State Strategic Command Center.
Faranico. Literally, and figuratively. If the Pentagon stands out for its surface 603.900 m and the nearly 30,000 people who come to work daily, the Octagono will do so through its -attention- floor plan, 4,700,000 m. It is an absolute outrage that is being built in a pharaonic style and is planned to be the new headquarters of the Egyptian Ministry of Defense, among many other things. The Ministry of War, rather.
It aspires to be the largest headquarters in the world and will be in the NAC of Greater Cairo. Construction began in 2018 and the cost is about 400,000,000 dollars, something that is not that expensive if we compare it with the more than 1,100,000,000 for the Pentagon when adjusting for inflation. Its structures will have five floors and the plan is imposing.
Symbolism. Officially it has not been revealed whether this having more sides is to surpass the Pentagon, but taking into account the name, there is surely some vanity in all this construction. Now, the reason given for giving the complex this whimsical shape is because it represents the eight branches of the Egyptian Armed Forces.
Furthermore, strategically it makes a lot of sense from the point of view of communication between buildings. The Octagon will be composed of a dozen of buildings. Eight of them are external and the remaining two are inside the perimeter. Furthermore, each of these buildings is an octagon in itself and has communication with the rest. And that communication also extends to the heart of the structure, a central building that is accompanied by two other ministerial buildings.
Six centers. The complex will be made up of several departments or centers, many of them focused on the country’s stability and defense logistics. In addition to different warehouses of strategic goods, the Octagon will be made up of the following centers:
- Unified Strategic Data Center.
- Strategic Network Control Center.
- Center for Management and Operation of State Public Services.
- Telecommunications Network Control Center.
- Emergency and Security Center.
- Meteorological Forecast Center.
From afar, it is still impressive
Offices and more. Inside these megabuildings there are not only offices. The pentagon itself is an example. In it, we have areas such as restaurants, the subway, a shopping center, buses and its own police and fire stations. Something similar will happen in the Octagon, since it will have schools, hotels, shopping centers, places of worship, hospitals and residential projects, and considering the number of employees that this building will be able to house, it is not crazy to think that some could live directly in the complex.
In favor of the Pentagon we can say that the Octagon is really a set of smaller octagons, so, although the total surface area is much larger than that of the North American building, as the flagship building, the Pentagon still has an advantage. Now, I’m dying to see which defense department builds the decagon.
Images | Google Maps
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