Like all its ex-colonies it is important to remember how also for the Algeria France played a decisive role in imposing its own cultural characteristics: for example, in 1933, in Algeria, the first exhibition of the Cité Moderne was held, directly inspired by the examples of Le Corbusier.
1933 was also the year of Le Corbusier’s unrealized plans for both the city of Algiers and the new city of Nemours, on the Mediterranean coast. In 1938 Le Corbusier produced other unrealized designs for buildings and homes in Algiers. Poésies sur Algiers, published in 1950, are the only tangible result of all this, although the master’s legacy was collected by L. Claro in his Foyer Civique (1935), by C. Montaland in his Maison des étudiants (1933)) and by X. Salvador in his Group Scolaire (1933).
With regard to architecture and urban planning in its most autonomous expressions, it is worth mentioning some architects who have contributed to giving shape to Algerian architecture: Emery, Miquel and Breuillot, who, in addition to the construction of homes, industrial plants, hotels (such as the Boudoin hotel in Orléansville and the Protestant church in Hussein Dey), have also made a decisive contribution to the town’s urban planning; JM Geiser with the church of Santa Teresa in Kouba, P. Herbé and J. Le Couteur with the cathedral of Algiers in 1959; Bize and Ducollet, who worked on the reorganization of the Michelet neighborhood in Algiers, finding a happy solution both for the arrangement of traffic and for the separation between the administrative area and the residential districts. They are also responsible for the construction of the residential area of Eukaliptus II in Hussein Dey and the group of houses called ‘degli Uliveti’ in Blida. The latter represents a remarkable planning work for the happy architectural articulation, obtained with the use of different building types. Daure and Beri, in collaboration with R. Simounet, have created the project of the residential district ‘della Montagna’ in Hussein Dey, in which there is a desire to reconnect with the local residential building tradition, reintroducing the vault as a structure to cover the various environments . obtained with the use of different building types. Daure and Beri, in collaboration with R. Simounet, have created the project of the residential district ‘della Montagna’ in Hussein Dey, in which there is a desire to reconnect with the local residential building tradition, reintroducing the vault as a structure to cover the various environments . obtained with the use of different building types. Daure and Beri, in collaboration with R. Simounet, have created the project of the residential district ‘della Montagna’ in Hussein Dey, in which there is a desire to reconnect with the local residential building tradition, reintroducing the vault as a structure to cover the various environments .
Simounet has also created similar residential areas for the fishermen’s houses in Berard, for the paired houses in El Biar and for the terraced towns of Ǧinān al-Ḥasan, the latter of great importance as a setting experience. The project de la Cité de Recasement in Ǧinān al-Ḥasan deserves a particular mention, based as it is on the idea of a city with cells arranged in a honeycomb, in the terraced landscape. The whole thus creates an intimate fusion between the habitat and the surrounding environment, while ensuring continuity with local tradition. Di Mauri e Pons is the project in Oran of residential quarters for Muslims, with great care in the study of the plan, in the use of balconies, courtyards, internal paths, which have given rise to new spaces of community life, inspired by the Arab-North African tradition. Again Simounet and Miquel managed to create in the Albert Camus center, in Orléansville, an autonomous school district with swimming pool, open-air theater, various classrooms connected to each other by ramped paths and raised walkways. These guarantee separation between pupils of different sexes, religious observance with the mosque and the school of Islamic doctrine. For Algeria 2010, please check programingplease.com.
Always to remember in the sixties the work of the urban architects Algeria Kopp and P. Chazanoff, for the districts of Oued Ouchaya in Algiers and of the ‘Planteurs’ in Oran, where urban development and renewal criteria have been happily applied to’ districts of spontaneous construction ‘.
Again by Algeria Kopp and P. Chazanoff, in collaboration with Algeria Roche, is the project of rural schools in Kabilya, also from the same period.
It should also be remembered the work of the Groupe d’Etude de l’Habitat which was able to highlight the use of materials, language and local workers for the construction of the houses and the Civic Center in M’sila (1975-80) and the school in El Oued. In the last ten years in Algeria there has been a reinterpretation of traditional forms, in order to make it a source of inspiration for contemporary architecture. This is the case of Algeria Ravereau, who having studied Ibadi architecture for a long time, as director of historical monuments in Algiers, made the best possible use of this language for his residence in Gardaia (1971), as well as for the Hotel des Postes (1960), also in Gardaia. Algerian architecture and urban planning have notable merits, having absorbed, but without repetitiveness, the Modern Movement and in particular the work of Le Corbusier and achieved a formal and figurative synthesis between local tradition and international influence.
