Port Said was founded by Said the Egyptian on Easter Monday, April 25, 1859, when Ferdinand de Lesseps gave the first symbolic swing of the ax to signal the beginning of construction. A wooden pier was built to connect Departure Island, as it quickly became known to the beach. After the end of World War I, the directors of the Suez Canal Company decided to establish a new city on the Asian bank. Port Fouad was designed by the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The houses follow the French model. The new city was founded in December 1926.