Zeynep Celik. Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Under French Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. xiv + 236 pp. $40.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-520-20457-7.

Reviewed by Patricia M. E. Lorcin

Published on H-France (February, 1998)

In her study of French colonial urbanism, and control over local populations; the impor‐ Gwendolyn Wright states that much can be tance of ethnography in the colonial enterprise; learned "about the European response to imperi‐ the ways and means, intentional or inadvertent, alism by focusing on French colonial cities. The of marginalizing local populations; the promotion widespread endorsement of colonialism had as of the concept of "the Other" (in this case the in‐ much to do with culture and imagery as it did digenous population). with economic advantage and political Its originality lies in the narrowness of its strength."[1] Zeynep Celik has taken up the chal‐ subject, namely Algiers. Algiers was not just any lenge of this hypothesis by concentrating her at‐ colonial city, it was the leading city of what tention on Algiers under French rule. The result is France considered to be its Southern Mediter‐ a detailed examination of the way in which the ranean "departements." Whatever the local popu‐ architecture and urban forms of the capital city of lation may have thought, from 1848 onwards the France's longest-standing and most important city was considered to be "French", with the colony contributed to imposing and perpetrating added bonus of an exotic ambience. The urban a colonial identity on . transformation of the city therefore had a dimen‐ Cultural imperialism, practically an unchart‐ sion which other French cities did not have. ed territory two decades ago, is now a bustling di‐ While the French architect Joseph Marrast vision of historical activity. Colonial urbanism is could, in 1920, claim that his respect and use of just one of its sub-divisions. Celik's contribution to Moroccan-style architecture in Casablanca would this literature is to focus on one particular colo‐ "conquer the fears of the natives and win their af‐ nial city. Using the case of urban design, the book fection" (Wright p. 1), as far as Algeria was con‐ reiterates many of the well-worn themes found in cerned any consideration of the sensibilities of the any analysis of cultural imperialism: the use of local population, in the 19th century at least, was colonial projects to establish and express power more from anxiety about possible unrest than H-Net Reviews from a desire to win its afection. Hence, Celik Celik's goal is to "gain a better understanding tells us that the architect (identifed merely as Lu‐ of architectural and urban forms by situating vini) who put forward the frst proposal for the them in their historical, political and cultural con‐ place du Gouvernement shortly after conquest in texts" and she sets out to achieve this through the 1830 felt little compunction at suggesting the de‐ use of inter-disciplinary source material, "particu‐ molition of the al-Jadid and al-Sayyida mosques to larly ethnography" (p. 6). The monograph has a clear the area for construction. Eventually the lat‐ good selection of illustrations and plans. The se‐ ter was torn down and the former, left standing to lect bibliography is amplifed by material in the appease the religious sentiments of the Arab pop‐ footnotes. ulation. This was at the insistence of one Colonel One of the most interesting aspects of the Lemercier (about whom we are told nothing and book is the discussion of the way spatial and ar‐ whose role in Algiers is left entirely to the reader's chitectural forms were used to segregate Algeri‐ imagination). ans from Europeans. Be it the belief that horizon‐ By 1855 major alterations of the city were un‐ tal housing was more suited to the Muslim popu‐ der way. Among the new thoroughfares was the lation and vertical to the European, or that the Al‐ rue de la Lyre. "Its architectural qualities made it gerian accustomed to the interior courts and in‐ especially signifcant to the French as a reminder ward looking spaces of his traditional house of the Rue de Rivoli, a cherished fragment from would fnd European lay-outs awkward, urban Paris now implanted in Algiers" (p. 37). A corner planning efectively cordoned of the Muslims. of France was being constructed in Algeria. The Whether this was in the form of respect for Mus‐ one area of the city which remained relatively in‐ lim sensibilities, as was initially the case, or in the tact, was the casbah. Not only were "interventions form of policies which ignored such sensibilities, in the casbah relatively few", but it was consid‐ was irrelevant. The result was the same: the Mus‐ ered to be exotically enchanting and historically lims were short-changed in their housing. The en‐ interesting. In short, it was in the interests of deavour to accommodate cultural diference or French administrators to preserve the casbah as a maintain the "exotic" dimension of Arab living tourist attraction and this they did. quarters nearly always translated into inadequate Celik's monograph is, therefore, a presenta‐ sanitation, small kitchens, and cramped living tion of these parallel endeavours, namely the cre‐ quarters. ation of a French urban environment and the The myth of the casbah, the heart of Muslim preservation of the "mythical" casbah. Inevitably Algiers, is another noteworthy point. In this con‐ the former eventually encroached upon the latter text Celik also discusses gendering as a colonial and this too features in the account. In the frst tool. "The gendering of Algerian society," she two chapters Celik situates her material and states, "became blatantly referential to power blocks out the background of French urbanism in structure" (p. 22). As all that was feminized had to Algeria, drawing attention to its close ties with de‐ do with the colonized, what was construed as velopments in the metropolis. In the following feminine carried with it not only the connotation three chapters she examines in detail the question of diference to the inferred masculinity of the of "indigenous" housing policies and design and colonizer but also of subordination. The casbah the altering shape of the city at diferent stages of exemplifed this subordination. "It was colonial‐ its development. The epilogue is a discussion of ism that framed the casbah with certain concepts the predominant trends in urbanism and housing (gender, mystery and diference), which in turn since independence. shaped colonial policies regarding the casbah" (p.

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21). In explaining these three concepts Celik is its imagery, as a citadel of resistance, in the colo‐ least convincing with regard to gender. nized/colonizer urban relationship than the more In the frst place, Celik's choice of sources to ubiquitous one of gendering. illustrate her argument is unsatisfactory. She re‐ Far more successful, in this domain, are the lies on the travelogues of Dr. Marius Bernard, and author's arguments concerning the gendering of the works of the architect Edouard Le Corbusier private space in connection to colonial urban poli‐ and the novelist Lucienne Favre. Of these only cy. The "interiority," as Celik puts it (p. 104), of the Favre's is specifcally about the casbah; Bernard's traditional Muslim home, as described above, and and Le Corbusier's are about the city of Algiers the French desire to perpetrate this tradition was (although one quotation from the latter does in‐ tied to the image of the encloistered Muslim wom‐ clude the casbah). Furthermore, all quotes come an who was simultaneously mysterious and unlib‐ from works published between 1893 and 1950.[2] erated. Even when Algerian women's active par‐ The point is that the encircling of the casbah by ticipation in the war of independence called this Parisian-style boulevards, of which the rue de image into question, French architects, urban Lyre was but the most nostalgic example, started planners and policy makers refused to acknowl‐ in the 1840s (p. 37). The gendering of the casbah edge the change (p. 178). To be sure, the circum‐ was one of the conceptual tools shaping colonial stances of war were hardly conducive to a radical urban policies which diferentiated between the reassessment of such positions, but it is still a Muslim and European districts in urban planning, measure of how entrenched certain colonial according to Cecik. It is misleading to imply that tropes had become. this gendering was merely of the Muslim casbah, In her discussions on Algerian ethnography and was therefore a way of psychologically dimin‐ and its connections to the construction of colonial ishing the urban space of the colonized when the policy on the indigenous habitat, especially in the quotations provided by the author to support her rural setting, Celik would have done better to go argument concern Algiers as a whole. Moreover, directly to the primary sources rather than rely the quotations are taken from works written at on Philippe Lucas and Jean-Claude Vatin's the end of the 19th or in the 20th century, when L'Algerie des anthropologues, a compilation of an‐ Algiers was no longer merely a "Muslim" city, but notated extracts which refect the authors' unnu‐ a markedly French one. To confuse the issue fur‐ anced view of the links between colonialism and ther, the author's analysis of the gendering of the anthropology.[4] Celik starts with Emile Mas‐ casbah comes at the beginning of her book when query's classic on the Kabyles (or the sedentary she is discussing developments after conquest people of the mountains of ), but his work (1830). was preceded by others which are also relevant to Secondly, the gendering of cities is a common her subject and to her discussion of the links be‐ literary device. From biblical times to the present, tween the rural and urban indigenous habitat as the city has been portrayed as a woman, often in viewed by the French.[5] overtly sexual terms.[3] The casbah as an example Ernest Carette's two-volume work on Kabylia of gendering as a colonial tool is therefore decep‐ (1848) predates Masquery's by 38 years and con‐ tive. A more rounded picture of the gendering of tains discussions of public and private buildings cities in general would have put a diferent per‐ and links the art of building to the notion of spective on that of Algiers, to say nothing of the progress in civilization.[6] Other early ethnogra‐ casbah. Casbah means citadel in Arabic. It might phers such as Eugene Daumas, Henri Aucapitaine, have been more fruitful to explore this aspect of and Charles Richard also broached the question of

3 H-Net Reviews indigenous habitats. To be sure, these ethnogra‐ given feld. Her detailed discussions of the urban phers were military men, but their work was im‐ planning of Algiers also sheds light on an unex‐ portant both ofcially and unofcially in the cre‐ plored area of colonial policy. It is a welcome ad‐ ation of colonial discourses on the indigenous dition to the growing literature in English on colo‐ population. The most signifcant being the an‐ nial Algeria. tithesis between the sedentary Kabyle and the no‐ Notes madic Arab and the suggestion that the former [1]. Gwendolyn Wright, The Politics of Design was a better candidate for assimilation than the in French Urban colonialism (Chicago, 1991), p. latter. 303. Indeed, one of the many reasons why the [2]. Marius Bernard, Autour de la Mediterra‐ Kabyles were considered more assimilable was nee: vol. I de Tripoli a ; vol. II de Tunis a Al‐ the "advanced" nature of their rural dwellings, ger ; vol. III d'Alger a Tanger [from which Celik constructed in stone, in contrast to those of the ru‐ quotes] (Paris, 1893); Lucienne Favre, Tout ral Arabs whose nomadic lifestyle favored the l'inconnue de la casbah d'Alger (Algiers, 1933); Le tent. In the 19th century comparisons of Arab and Corbusier, La ville radieuse (Paris, 1933); Poesie Kabyle an especially interesting omission is that sur Alger (Paris, 1950). of the urban Arab, who was as sedentary as the Kabyle and whose dwellings were certainly as so‐ [3]. Some examples: Babylon, the mother of phisticated. What, if anything, was it about the ur‐ harlots, and Jerusalem, a bride adorned: (The ban space which precluded such a comparison? A Book of Revelations); Venice, a maiden...bright look at some of these earlier documents might and free: (William Wordsworth); Paris, _jeune have produced some rewarding material. veuve batarde et interlopee (Mourad Bourboune). Even the realist Emile Zola used his courtesan As far as urban policies go, Celik divides Nana to symbolize Paris of the Second Empire in French rule into three periods, 1830-1930, his novel of the same name. 1930-1945 and 1945-1962. Her discussion of the urban projects and plans devised for the city dur‐ [4]. Philippe Lucas and Jean-Claude Vatin, ing each period is comprehensive. What is not al‐ L'Algerie des anthropologues (Paris, 1975). ways clear is which projects were shelved and [5]. Emile Masquery, La Formation des cites which were implemented, for example, in the sec‐ chez les populations sedentaires de l'Algerie tion on urban housing in chapter four. Indecision (Kabyles du Djurdjura, Chaouia de l'Aures, Beni- and inconsistency were features of many aspects M'zab) (Paris, 1886). The Kabyles were Berbers of colonial policy in Algeria. Perhaps the same from the mountains of Kabylia, which include the was true of urban policy. Knowledge of which Djurdjura, the Biban and the Guergour ranges. plans actually reached fruition would have [6]. Antoine Ernest Hippolyte Carette, Etudes helped to clarify the extent to which colonial ur‐ sur la Kabilie (sic) Proprement Dite, 2 vols. (Paris, banization followed this pattern of indecision and 1848), I, p. 217. inconsistency. Copyright (c) 1998 by H-Net, all rights re‐ Celik's monograph is a useful contribution to served. This work may be copied for non-proft the study of colonial urban history and to the educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ ever-growing literature on cultural imperialism. thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ Its value lies in the way she demonstrates just tact [email protected]. how subtle this type of imperialism could be and the way in which it intersected at all levels of a

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Citation: Patricia M. E. Lorcin. Review of Celik, Zeynep. Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers Under French Rule. H-France, H-Net Reviews. February, 1998.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=1732

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