Contribution à la connaissance de la production architecturale à Alger à l’aube du Modernisme. « XAVIER SALVADOR

Abstract

During the colonial period, Algeria was the cradle of different types of architectures representative of the ideological, identity, economic and social policies of the settlers. From neo-classical 1830 until the advent of the modern movement in 1930. Qualified as a laboratory, the city of Algiers finally opens up a new field of artistic creations endowed with a local character with a modernist expression, translated under the precept of "Mediterranean architecture". This new current comes in reaction against the pastiche exercised on Algerian land for more than a century. It was led by a line of architects known as "Algerianists" founders of a prodigious architecture which is still present and deserves to be recognized and highlighted. Xavier Salvador is one of those protagonists who draws on local tradition to reinterpret modernity. He is a French architect of Spanish origin born in 1898 in Seville. He joined the School of Fine Arts in Algiers in the early 1910s. . Passionate about architecture, he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, in the Gabriel Héraud studio, where he won several architectural awards. He graduated in 1923 and moved to Algeria where he opened his own agency in 1925 to begin his professional life in the city of Algiers. He joined several professional associations in Algeria in parallel, which enabled him to occupy important state positions. The architect expressed himself with a diverse and extremely local production, ranging from simple private construction to buildings. His projects expressed in the first place an academic style influenced by the knowledge acquired during his training at the School of Fine Arts. Subsequently, the architect adopts a modern style that incorporates the elements and colors of the local architecture. This research is the result of a detailed study of the course and the work of the architect, who through the monograph tool offers the first detailed and articulated presentation of the course of the architect. Such a subject will contribute to the restoration of the urban and architectural history of the Modern Movement in Algiers.