Architecture of Algeria

Ancient Carthage gained control of coastal Algeria by the 5th century BC. The empire's influence on Algerian architecture is visible in the adoption of hybridized styles that integrated Punic, Hellenistic, and Roman architecture into pre existing architectural traditions. == Royal Numidian architecture ==

Under the ancient Berber kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania, Algeria saw increased urban development. "Numidian Royal Architecture" is the term coined for the monuments constructed by the Numidian kings, which comprise tombs, tumuli and sanctuaries. Urbanization is especially associated with the reigns of kings Masinissa (202 BC–148 BC) and Juba II (30 BC – 25 AD). Evidence of urban planning during the kingdom of Mauretania has been found in neighboring Morocco and Tunisia. They used Iol (modern Cherchell) as their royal capital, renaming it Caesarea and developing it into a city with a regular grid plan and the kind of architecture associated with the Roman Augustan period. Some structures in Caesarea have been dated or tentatively dated to Juba's time, including the theater, the amphitheater, and the harbor. A number of large scale funerary monuments and tombs built during the era are the most well documented examples of Berber kingdom architecture. The monuments combine a number of different architectural styles introduced by the Carthaginians, frequently referencing Hellenistic and Punic motifs. The oldest of these is Medracen in present-day Algeria. Possibly influenced by Greek architecture further east, or built with the help of Greek craftsmen, the tomb consists of a large tumulus constructed in well-cut ashlar masonry and featuring sixty Doric columns and an Egyptian-style cornice. or to the time of Masinissa at the end of the third century BC and the first half of the second century BC. A number of "tower tombs" from the Numidian period can also be found in sites from Algeria to Libya. Despite their wide geographic range, they often share a similar style: usually a three-story structure topped by a convex pyramid. They may have initially been inspired by Greek monuments but they constitute an original type of structure associated with Numidian culture. Examples of these have been found at Siga and Soumaa d'el Khroub, as well as at Dougga (in present-day Tunisia) and Sabratha (in Libya). File:Mausolée des Rois numides dit le Medracen -2.JPG|The Medracen mausoleum in Batna Province, built sometime between the 4th century BC and second century BC File:Juba II of Numidia burial place.jpg|Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania, built in the late 1st century BC or early 1st century AD File:Detail of Mausolée libyco-punique.jpg|Hellenistic and Punic motifs visible on the 2nd century BC Mausoleum of Dougga (in present-day Tunisia) == Roman era ==

The Romans annexed eastern Numidia in 46 BC. After the death of Arabio, six years later, Western Numidia was annexed as well. The two provinces were later combined with Tripolitania to form the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis. The Romans built more than 500 towns and cities in what is now Algeria. When developing plans for their new cities, Roman engineers most frequently utilized an orthogonal, rectilinear grid plan characterized by a decumanus (east-west oriented street) and cardo (north-south oriented street). The two streets were capped with gates as each of their terminals and a forum stood at their intersection. The city of Timgad, established by Trajan around 100 AD, is a well preserved example of Roman urban planning in Algeria. The city is laid out in an exact square, measuring 1,200 Roman feet on all four sides. The city was further subdivided into square city blocks, each with an area of 100 square Roman feet. File:Timgad تيمقاد 4.jpg|The decumanus in the Roman city of Timgad File:The Roman theatre of Guelma 02.jpg|Roman theatre in Guelma (ancient Calama) File:Arc Diana Veteranorum.jpg|Triumphal arch of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, built in 165 AD, in Diana Veteranorum File:Djemila7.jpg|Ruins of Roman city of Cuicul, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982 File:Caracalla tebessa 3.jpg|Arch of Caracalla in Tébessa (ancient Theveste) == Early Islamic era ==

Islam reached Algeria in the 7th century via the Muslim conquest of Northern Africa. Islamic conquest brought many of the hallmark features of Muslim cities to Algeria, including the souq as a commercial center, the hammam as a social center, and the mosque and accompanying madrasa as a religious center. In 790, Idris I, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty, founded the Mosque of Agadir on the site of Roman settlement of Pomeria (later to become Tlemcen), whose remains have been excavated by modern archaeologists. The Rustamids established a new capital for themselves at Tahart (near present-day Tiaret), which was occupied seasonally by its semi-nomadic inhabitants. It was destroyed by the Fatimids in 909 but its remains were excavated in the 20th century. The city was surrounded by a fortified wall interspersed with square towers. It contained a hypostyle mosque, a fortified citadel on higher ground, and a palace structure with a large courtyard similar to the design of traditional houses. (11th century) In 934, while in the service of the Fatimid caliph al-Qa'im, the Zirid leader Ziri ibn Manad built a palace at 'Ashir (near the present town of Kef Lakhdar in Algeria). It is one of the oldest palaces in the Maghreb to have been discovered and excavated by archeologists today. The Hammadids, an offshoot of the Zirids, based themselves in Algeria and in 1007 they founded an entirely new fortified capital known as Qala'at Bani Hammad, northeast of present-day M'Sila. Although abandoned and destroyed in the 12th century, the city has been excavated by modern archeologists and the site is one of the best-preserved medieval Islamic capitals in the world, with multiple palaces and a monumental mosque. == Zayyanid period ==

After the Almohads, the Zayyanid or Abd al-Wadid dynasty ruled from their main capital at Tlemcen. Yaghmorasan (r. 1236–1283), the founder of the dynasty, added minarets to the earlier Mosque of Agadir and the Great Mosque of Tlemcen.|alt=Fragments of zellij (mosaic tilework) decoration from the Madrasa Tashfiniya (retrieved prior to its 19th-century demolition): 125–126 == Ottoman period ==

In 1518 the Ottoman Empire gained control of Algeria. Under Ottoman rule, a hybrid style developed influenced by traditional Turkish styles, including central-plan mosques and glazed tile panels. The influence of Ottoman architecture was largely limited to the Algerian coast and, in particular, the regional capital of Algiers. Algiers developed into a major town and witnessed regular architectural patronage, and as such most of the major monuments from this period are found there. By contrast, the city of Tlemcen, formerly a major capital, went into relative decline and saw far less architectural activity. A citadel-fortress, the qasba (the origin of the current name "Casbah"), occupied the highest point of the town. (after recent restoration of the original floor plan), built in 1622, showing the main dome and side galleries with smaller domes The oldest surviving mosque from the Ottoman period in Algeria is the Ali Bitchin (or 'Ali Bitshin) Mosque in Algiers, commissioned by an admiral of the same name, a convert of Italian origin, in 1622. Several other mosques in Algiers have (or had) a similar floor plan: the Safir Mosque, rebuilt in 1826, the al-Sai'da (or al-Sayyida) Mosque, built by Muhammad Ibn 'Uthman (r. 1766–1791) and demolished by the French in 1832, and two other mosques built in or near the qasba by Hussein Dey right after his accession to power in 1818. It was built in 1660–1661 by al-Hajj Habib, one of the Janissaries in Algiers, and became one of the most important Hanafi mosques in the city. Some were still built elsewhere. One of the governors of Constantine, Salah Bey (d. 1792), built two madrasas in that city: the Madrasa of Sidi el-Kettani in 1775 and the Madrasa of Sidi al-Akhdar in 1779. The residential palace of the ruler in Algiers, the Janina or Jenina ('Little Garden'), was situated at the center of a larger palatial complex known as the Dar as-Sultan in the lower part of the city. This complex served as the ruling palace until 1816, when the Dey moved to the qasba following a British bombardment of the city that year. It was originally on a sloping site and had several stories. Its original ground floor, somewhat like a basement, contained storerooms, kitchens, stables, and shops along its exterior, but these have since disappeared and the floor above it has become the ground floor. The main building is a two-story structure centered around an internal square courtyard (the wast ad-dar or 'center of the house'). The courtyard is ringed on all four sides by a two-story gallery with pointed horseshoe arches supported on marble columns. Diverse ceramic tiles, carved stucco, lattice windows, and a fountain are used for decoration, with the decoration generally increasing in richness on the upper level. The rooms of the upper story are also grander and include the main reception hall. A grand staircase leads from the floor of this courtyard to an annex, the dwira (also transliterated as douira, meaning a smaller house or apartment), which was partly demolished in the 19th century. The grand staircase itself is unusual in North African domestic architecture of this period and suggests that the builders may have been familiar with European architecture. Until the 19th century, the qasba contained the largest janissary barracks in the city. It contained a mosque, warehouses, shops, and other buildings for military purposes. The area around the palace also contained two main gardens and an ostrich park. and the residence known as the Palais des Rais (Palace of the Rais), dating from the 16th century. A number of suburban and countryside villas have also been preserved outside the walled city, again characterized by internal courtyards. Between 1826 and 1835 the independent ruler Ahmed Bey (also known as Hajj Ahmed) in Constantine, built a palace for himself that includes courtyards and two large internal gardens. == Colonial era ==

Early colonial era In 1830, France invaded Algeria and began its colonial rule of the nation. In reference to Lutaud's policies, the combination of Moorish architecture with European architectural styles in Algeria is sometimes referred to as the Jonnart style (). File:Alger La Prefecture.jpg|L'hôtel de Préfecture (Jules Voinot, 1908) in Algiers File:البريد المركزي - الجزائر.jpg|The Grande Poste d'Alger (J. Voinot and M. Tondoire, 1910) File:Gare d'Oran 01.jpg|Oran railway station File:MaMa2012.jpg|Interior of the museum of Modern Art (Algiers) Modernism (1956) In the subsequent decades, the formation of a new colonial academic elite and the advent of Modernism together brought a period of architectural experimentation that pushed Algerian architecture even further away from established European styles. During this period, Algeria emerged as a viable location for modernist experimentation among French architects. Algeria's nature as a "sandbox" for architectural experimentation is perhaps best exemplified in Le Corbusier's unimplemented 1932-1942 master plan for Algiers. The unofficial plan, entitled Plan Obus, included a series of developments built over the existing casbah around an ambitious set of elevated bridges and roadways. During the 1950s and 60s, Algerian architecture, particularly that of Algiers, was characterized by new ideas of urban modernism influenced by Le Corbusier. Architects Bernard Zehrfuss, Louis Miquel and Fernand Pouillon constructed a number of major modernist buildings within Algeria in the decades including housing developments Diar El Mahcoul and Climat de France. Within the ultimate years of colonial Algeria, the French administration initiated the Constantine Plan of 1959 which pushed for increased development of social housing projects, particularly those for residents of slums (bidonvilles). Dubbed cites de recasement (relocation cities) and millions, these developments have been criticized for allegedly providing residents poorer living conditions than their original bidonvilles. File:Culture Palace (Oran) 01.jpg|The Culture palace of Oran (1920-1930) File:Marché couvert de Annaba.jpg|Covered market of Annaba (1936-1938), one of the early manifestations of modern art between the two world wars at the city level File:Diar el Mahçoul1.jpg|The architecture of Fernand Pouillon's Diar el Mahçoul sought to reinforce a sentiment of French-Algerian cooperation amid growing colonial unrest File:Parlement (chambre basse) d'Alger en 2025.jpg|People's National Assembly building (Algiers), a compact building in late Art Deco or Stripped Classicism style. File:Mosquée El Badr (façade de l'église).jpg|Church Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Mostaganem, built in 1953 by André Coron File:Cathédrale Alger.jpg|Cathédrale du Sacré-Cœur d'Alger (Paul Herbé and Jean Le Couteur, 1956) is an example of late colonial modernism in Algiers == Post colonial era ==

Immediately following Algerian independence in 1962, a significant effort was made by the nation's new authority to decolonize through the eradication of French impacts upon Algeria; however, few architects within the country were prepared to design within a still ambiguous national identity divorced from the nation's history of colonization. 20th century File:USTHB en été.jpg|University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene (Oscar Niemeyer, 1968) File:El Aurassi Hotel.jpg|El Aurassi Hotel (Luigi Moretti, 1975) File:Monument of the Martyrs 01 Algiers.jpg|Martyrs' Memorial, Algiers (Bachir Yelles and Marian Konieczny, 1981-1982) File:Abd al-Qádir 18.jpg|Emir Abdelkader Mosque in Constantine, by Moussa Mostafa Moussa (1968-1994) 21st century File:Hôtel Sheraton Annaba.jpg|Sheraton Hotel of Annaba (2016) File:Grande Mosquée d'Alger.jpg|Djamaa el Djazaïr (KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten, 2012-2019) == Berber architecture and other local forms ==

Northern Algeria Northern Algerian Berbers traditionally utilize two types of vernacular dwelling: the Chaoui house and Kabyle akham. Shawia housing, traditional to the Chaoui Berbers of Aures, consists of flat-roofed mud brick houses with stone foundations. The ground floors of chaoui homes contain a central room used for sleeping with a hearth, weaving station, storage room, and water receptacles. These dwellings are sometimes built directly against other houses or rocks, in order to improve the efficiency of construction and reduce the costs of building materials. The houses are typically entered via a bent or winding passage that leads to a central courtyard on the ground floor, with a gallery typically surrounding this space on the upper floor. Sections of the house sometimes overhang above the street and are supported by stone corbels. == References ==