Mediterraneanism: the politics of architectural production in Algiers during the 1930s

Abstract

MEDITERRANEANISM WAS A RALLYING CRY of architects in Algeria during the highly contested period of French colonization in the 1930s; it was then largely the discursive production of westem'educated architects, scholars and writers. Its definition was, and remains, semanticaUy unstable and politically volatile. During this period, Mediterranean architecture was characterized as a more inclusive form of regionalism, a more particularized practice of modernism than an earlier Algerian practice claimed by local, European architects. After setting out the historical and theoretical parameters of Mediterraneanism, the paper traces three mappings of this “Mediterranean” architecture. The contours of these “maps” highlight not only the disputed geography of Mediterranean architecture but also the political ramifications of the borders drawn in each instance. [Algeria, Algiers, architecture, Mediterraneanism, colonialism]