Research Catalog

Urban forms and colonial confrontations : Algiers under French rule

Title

Urban forms and colonial confrontations : Algiers under French rule / Zeynep Çelik.

Author

Çelik, Zeynep.

Publication

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 97-8863	Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description

xiv, 236 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"During its long history as the French colonial city par excellence, Algiers was the site of recurrent conflicts between colonizer and colonized. Through architecture and urban forms confrontations were crystallized, cultural identities were defined, and social engineering programs were shaped and challenged. In this pathbreaking book, Zeynep Celik reads the city of Algiers as the site of social, political, and cultural conflicts during the 132 years of French occupation and argues that architecture and urban forms are integral components of the colonial discourse. -- Algiers' city planning, based on what Celik calls "the trial-and-error" model of French colonial urbanism, included the fragmentation of the casbah, ambitious Beaux Arts schemes to create European forms of housing, master plans inspired by high modernism, and comprehensive regional plans. Eventually a dramatic housing shortage led all planning efforts to be centered on the construction of large-scale residential enclaves. French architects based their designs for domestic space on the concept of the "traditional house," itself an interdisciplinary colonial concept intertwined with the discourse on Algerian women. Housing also offered the French colonizers a powerful presence in a country where periodic resistance to the occupation eventually culminated in a seven-year war of liberation and an end to French rule."

Subjects

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-226) and index.

Contents

The casbah and the marine quarter --- An outline of urban structure --- The indigenous house --- Housing the Algerians : policies --- Housing the Algerians : grands ensembles.

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