L’Habitat pour les Musulmans à la période coloniale en Algérie: cas de la Cité Ourida à Blida

Abstract

The production of the collective habitat during the period going from the célébration of the centenary of French colonization in Algeria in 1930 until 1962, constitutes a very broad field of study where mingle forms and expressions of habitat conceived for the European population with those envisaged especially for the Muslim population. Besides, the outbreak of the war of Algeria led the French colonizer to think of the question of the accommodation for Muslim Algerians as political resolution allowing to counter Algerian revolution. Since then, a new form of habitat for Muslims marked by the reflections of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) was thought out. These achievements present an architectural and urban heritage that is interesting in its concepts and in its expression, which mixes the local Arab-Muslim culture and principles of modernity such as the city of Ourida in Blida (1956). This city built according to the plans of Candilis and his ATBAT Afrique team is characterized by the reinterpretation of the patio according to a new assembly principle which refers to the city of Carrières Centrales in Casablanca (1952, Morocco). This research work attempts to present the different forms of housing designed for the Muslim population during the colonial period, to describe their evolution and the issues that initially revolved around them; and to highlight the characteristics of the city of Ourida in relation to the Central Quarries of Casablanca by comparing them according to four types of articulation dictated by the functionalist method of Candilis and his team in a second step