Attaba Square, once the nexus of Cairo's commercial district, is an area where low income dwellers live vicariously among unlimited debris, ragtag shops and wholesale warehouses. The Tiring building is itself the lieu of hundreds of squatters and sweatshops. in its heyday Tiring's architecture rivaled its Parisian contemporary 'Aux Galleries Lafayette'The architect of the Cairo Tiring - Oscar Horowitz - was one and the same who built many of Europe's commercial masterpieces. Tiring's original owner was the Constantinople-born Victor Tiring considered by many as the César Ritz of department stores. When, in 1910, he chose Ataba for the site of his Cairo emporium, the famous square stood as a copula between the Cairo of the old and the Cairo of the new. The Tiring building was completed built in 1912-13 making it the first large selling-floor shop of its kind in Cairo. Tiring's luxurious four floors offered everything in terms of Parisian haute couture and perfumes, English cloth, Austrian textiles and German housewares.the firm Victor Tiring & Brothers, Tailors & Exporters branched out all over the Tiring's adopted city Vienna and across the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Unluckily for them, just as they set out to open branches overseas, World War I interrupted their expanding activities.In 1915, Tiring of Cairo, was listed as enemy property.The British who governed Egypt at the time had imposed martial law and all properties belonging to enemy aliens had been sequestered. Tiring was eventually granted a conditional license "to trade in Egypt with the British Empire and with the Allies of Great Britain". But due to the loss of its supply sources the sequestered store liquidated its activities in 1920.