Lessons from Tradition in the Building of Contemporary Settlements: The Case of Tafilalt in the M'zab Valley, Algeria

Abstract

Since Algeria’s independence from France in 1962, the M’zab Valley in the northern Sahara has witnessed a rapid growth in population. Both legal and illegal housing has been built outside the walls of the M’zab’s ancient towns, damaging the environmental and cultural heritage of the area. In response, its long-standing residents have identified protocols for building a number of carefully planned settlements inspired by the original towns. One of these new settlements is Tafilalt, begun in 1997. Based in part on in-depth interviews with residents and the developers of the project, this article studies the construction of Tafilalt by its occupants and their perceptions of their new home. It asks how the M’zab’s traditional methods of planning, building and managing settlements have been adapted to the community’s current needs, who makes up the community, and to what extent Tafilalt might be seen as a model to be used elsewhere.

Keywords:

• contemporary vernacular architecture
• tradition
• modernity
• Ksar
• Tafilalt
• M'zab Valley

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Ahmed Nouh, Chairman of the Amidoul Foundation and Mr. Mustapha Tallai, Secretary and Deputy Director of the Amidoul Foundation for their generous assistance and cooperation, to the residents of the Ksar of Tafilalt for their help and hospitality, to Mr. Brahim Fekhar, Director of the Tourism Guidance Office of Ghardaïa, Mr. Azzeddine Guedha, director of Discover Ghardaia travel and tourism agency and to my Egyptian student, Ahmad Abdelkhalek, for translating interviews in Arabic into Persian. Special thanks to Diana Periton and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments.

Notes

1. Abed Bendjelid, “L’Algérie en quelques chiffres” (Alger: Office national des statistiques, no. 30, 2001),  Insaniyat no. 16 (2002), 249. Available online: http://journals.openedition.org/insaniyat/7870 (accessed September 2018).

2. Rim Meziani and Toshiyuki Kaneda, “L'utilisation du SIG [GIS] dans l'analyse de la croissance urbaine à Ghardaia – Algérie Communication” (paper presented at the Conférence francophone ESRI, Issy les Moulineaux, France, October 6–7, 2004). Available online: https://www.esrifrance.fr/sig2004/communications/meziani/meziani.htm (accessed September 2018).

3. See Brahim Benyoucef, “Les villes nouvelles. Autopsie d’une expérience locale,” Vies de Villes 13 (2009): 54–61; Mounia Bouali-Messahel, “Tafilelt, un projet communautaire pour la sauvegarde de la vallée du M’zab” (paper presented at the 23rd ENHR Conference, Toulouse, France, July 5–8, 2011). Available online: http://www.raddo.org/Publications/Tafilelt-un-projet-communautaire-pour-la-sauvegarde-de-la-vallee-du-M-zab (accessed September 2018).

4. See URBAT Ghardaïa, Rapport du plan permanant de sauvegarde et de la mise en valeur du secteur sauvegardé de la vallée du M’Zab, 2011, 6; Nora Gueliane, “Les nouveaux ksour du M’Zab: le produit d’une dynamique sociale” (paper presented at Séminaire international: Habiter en Algérie, expériences et comparaisons internationales, Université Hadj Lakhdar – Batna, Algeria, April 12–13, 2015). Available online: http://crh.ehess.fr/docannexe/file/4529/colloque_batna_repaired.pdf (accessed September 2018).

5. See Med Cherif Adad and Toufik Mazouz, “Les anciens et nouveaux ksour: étude comparative. Cas du M'zab,” Courrier du savoir 16 (2013): 81.

6. See Benyoucef, “Les villes nouvelles. Autopsie d’une expérience locale,” 61.

7. This act was part of a series of reforms launched in 1963 by the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, intending to bring about the regeneration of Iranian society in order to transform Iran into a global economic and industrial power.

8. Tehran has five such new towns at distances ranging from 20 to 80 km from the capital. In the early stages, these new towns were residential only, without any facilities. They do now have the necessary infrastructure, with public buildings such as schools, health centers and commercial complexes. However, the residents often work in Tehran; the lack of high-speed public transport for their daily commute remains a problem.

9. The aim of the Mehr housing program was to construct houses for low-income classes, borrowing from the idea of social housing in Europe. As a result of the program, more than two million houses have been built on the outskirts of existing urban settlements.

10. The poor construction quality is due to the use of low-cost materials and a lack of supervision of the construction process.

11. There is a developing literature on the new settlements in the M’zab Valley. I am particularly indebted to Adad and Mazouz, “Les anciens et nouveaux ksour,” 2013; Mohammed Chabi and Mohamed Dahli, “Une nouvelle ville saharienne. Sur les traces de l’architecture traditionnelle” (paper presented at the colloquium Le patrimoine bâti et naturel au regard de la question du développement durable et du lien social, Université de Rouen, France, March 17–18, 2011). Available online: http://mc3.lped.fr/spip.php?action=acceder_document&arg=601&cle=e76ad498013b01b9f1e85f97bac7ab889b459b6b&file=pdf%2FCommunication_Rouen_17_03_2011.pdf (accessed December 2018); Bouali-Messahel, “Tafilelt, un projet communautaire pour la sauvegarde de la vallée du M’zab,” 2011; Gueliane, “Les nouveaux ksour du M’Zab: le produit d’une dynamique sociale,” 2015.

12. Adad and Mazouz, “Les anciens et nouveaux ksour,” 77; Chabi and Dahli, “Une nouvelle ville saharienne,” 2.

13. See Imen Bensalah, Badreddine Yousfi, Nadjat Menaa and Zohir Bougattoucha, “Urbanisation de la vallée du M’zab et mitage de la palmeraie de Ghardaïa (Algérie): un patrimoine oasien menacé,” Belgeo 2, 2018. Available online: https://journals.openedition.org/belgeo/24469?lang=de (accessed February 2019).

14. Adad and Mazouz, “Les anciens et nouveaux ksour,” 3.

15. On the secondary housing in the palm groves: “The secondary residences of the Mozabites are for the hottest months only (from the beginning of June to the end of September), temporary dwellings scattered amongst the palm groves,” Bensalah et al., “Urbanisation de la vallée du M’zab,” 6, translation by the author.

16. Chabi and Dahli, “Une nouvelle ville saharienne,” 3.

17. Brahim Mohammed Tallai, M'zab: Balad Kofah [M’zab: The Territory of Struggle] (Ghardaia: El Afaq, 2013), 26.

18. Nora Gueliane, “Performances énergétiques du patrimoine architectural mozabite,” Annales du patrimoine 17 (2017): 61–62.

19. André Ravereau, Une leçon d’architecture (Paris: Sindbad, 1986), 139.

20. Ibid., 99.

21. Gueliane, “Performances énergétiques du patrimoine architectural mozabite,” 67.

22. Armand Dutreix, Bioclimatisme et performances énergétiques des bâtiments (Paris: Eyrolles, 2010), 28.

23. Interview with an architect from the Ksar of Beni Isguen, February 2019. See also Fazia Ali-Toudert, Moussadek Djenane, Rafik Bensalem and Helmut Mayer, “Outdoor Thermal Comfort in the Old Desert City of Beni-Isguen, Algeria,” Climate Research 28, no. 3 (2005): 245.

24. Ravereau, “Une leçon d’architecture,” 99; Adad and Mazouz, “Les anciens et nouveaux ksour,” 85.

25. Med Cherif Adad and Aiche Messaoud, “Involvement of Inhabitants in Housing: The Case of New Ksurs in the M’zab Valley (Algeria)” (paper presented at the International Seminar on Architecture and Islamic art in Algeria, The University of Constantine 3 and the University of Emir Abdelkader, Algeria, June 9–10, 2014, 10). Available online: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308689929_INVOLVEMENT_OF_INHABITANTS_IN_HOUSING_CASE_OF_NEW_KSURS_IN_M’ZAB_VALLEY_ALGERIA (accessed October 2018).

26. Henriette Didillon and Catherine Donnadieu, Habiter le désert: les maisons mozabites, recherches sur un type d'architecture traditionnelle pré-saharienne (Brussels: Mardaga, 1977), 38.

27. Ibid.

28. Mostefa Mimouni, “La Twiza: entraide d’hier et d’aujourd’hui” (paper presented at the colloquium Transmission, mémoire et traumatisme, Strasbourg, France, May 9–10, 2003). Available online: http://www.parole-sans-frontiere.org/spip.php?article108 (accessed July 2019).

29. Mimouni, “La Twiza: entraide d’hier et d’aujourd’hui”; Richard Sennett, Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation (London and New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 263.

30. Quran, Surah 5, Verse 2.

31. Sennett, Together, 264.

32. Ibid., 38.

33. Youcef Ibn Bakir Al-Hadj Said, Tarikh Beni M'zab [The History of M'zab People] (Algiers: Almatba Alarabia, 2017), 71.

34. Amélie-Marie Goichon, La vie féminine au M'Zab (Paris: Geuthner, 1927), 239.

35. Mustapha Tallai, Secretary and Deputy Director of the Amidoul Foundation, interview with the author, May 2017.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Here, “wasat” is an Arabic term meaning center, while “eddar” is “el-dar,” the house. The “wasat eddar” is thus “the center of the house.”

39. Chabi and Dahli, “Une nouvelle ville saharienne,” 4.

40. Ravereau, Une leçon d’architecture, 147; Adad and Mazouz, “Les anciens et nouveaux ksour,” 17.

41. Resident in the old Ksar of Ghardaïa, interview with the author, May 2017.

42. Quran, Surah 5, Verse 32; Surah 6, Verse 98; Surah 30, Verse 40; Surah 49, Verse 13.

43. Those without work have also been enabled to acquire houses, with the help of their fraction, or using Zakat, Islam’s system of obligatory charity, and government aid.

44. J. Ponce Valverde, “Towards a Contemporary Vernacular Architecture: the Coast Region of Ecuador” (Ph.D. diss., Texas Tech University, 2004). Available online: https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/ttu-ir/bitstream/2346/50048/1/ttu_etd001_012719.pdf (accessed July 2019).

45. Amos Rapoport, “Vernacular Design as a Model System,” in Vernacular Architecture in the Twenty-First Century: Theory, Education and Practice, eds. Lindsay Asquith and Marcel Vellinga (Abingdon: Taylor and Francis, 2006), 179-182.

46. Ahmed Nouh, Chairman of the Amidoul Foundation, interview with the author, May 2017.

47. Interview with the author, December 2018. Interviewees were selected with the help of the Amidoul Foundation; Mustafa Tallai, Secretary and Deputy Director of the Foundation, contacted them and explained to them the nature of my research. The interviews were conducted within Amidoul’s offices in Tafilalt, in residents’ homes, or in public outdoor spaces in Tafilalt. I asked my interviewees their profession and their age but did not insist that they gave this information. In some cases, I have estimated their age.

48. Interview with the author, December 2018.

49. Ibid.

50. Alain Farel, Bâtir éthique et responsable (Paris: Moniteur, 2007), 11.

51. Jyoti Hosagrahar, Indigenous Modernities: Negotiating Architecture and Urbanism (London: Routledge, 2012).

52. Ibid., 8.

53. Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking Press, 1961), 2.

54. Resident in the Ksar of Beni Isguen, interview with the author, May 2017.

55. The informal Quran courses are social-religious gatherings, very similar to those I am familiar with in Iran. When I was invited to dinner with one of the families in Tafilalt, they showed me the room where these classes were held (the equivalent of 6 on the plan shown in Figure 5).

56. Interview with the author, December 2018.

57. Resident in the Ksar of Beni Isguen, interview with the author, December 2018.

58. Interview with the author, February 2019.

59. Ahmed Nouh, Chairman of the Amidoul Foundation, interview with the author, May 2017.

60. Online interviews with a young woman, 20 years old, and a man, 25 years old, January 2020.

61. Resident in the Ksar of Beni Isguen, interview with the author – see note 57.

62. I learned about the charter during my interviews. It is mentioned on the website of the EcoUrbanism Research Network, as follows: “The protection of the environment is governed by a green charter that all inhabitants must sign before purchasing their property,” see https://ecourbanismresearchnetwork.com/research/compendium/15/ (accessed November 2020). An article entitled “Ksar Tafilelt, Eco Citizen Utopia becomes Reality at the Gateway to the Algerian Sahara,” Newsbeezer, April 3, 2018, also mentions the charter: “Everything is codified in Ksar Tafilelt, from the rules of the neighborhood to wedding ceremonies. ‘Life is governed by a charter that all residents have to sign’, says Ahmed Nouh. It implements various rules of etiquette, neighborhood, cleanliness, participation in collective work …,” see https://newsbeezer.com/belgiumeng/0649-ksar-tafilelt-eco-citizen-utopia-becomes-reality-at-the-gateway-to-the-algerian-sahara/ (accessed November 2020).

63. Interview with the author, December 2018.

64. Ibid.

65. Interview with the author, February 2019.

66. Xiang Ren, “Rural Face, Urban Mask: Architecture of Communal Form and Collective Practice in Two Chinese Villages from 2010 to 2015,” Architecture and Culture 5, no. 1 (2017): 60.

67. The tribal life continues in some regions in the south of Iran, such as Khusizistan Province and the Province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad. Social ties remain relatively strong too in some areas where there is an ongoing presence of vernacular architecture, such as Kerman Province, Sistan and Baluchestan Province and so on.

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Naimeh Rezaei

Naimeh Rezaei is assistant professor at the School of Urban Planning in the University of Tehran’s College of Fine Arts. After her initial architectural education at the University of Tehran, she worked for the city’s Office for Urban Renewal before traveling to Paris, where she completed her PhD in urbanism at the University of Sorbonne-Paris1 in 2014. Her current research interests include urban heritage, city center transformations and urban sociology.