Tool 4 Town planning analysis and architectural values planning analysis and architectural values 4 ... the road network and the built-up fabric, ... Town planning analysis and architectural

Tool 4 Town planning analysis and architectural values

EN-2-Diagnosis-L 4/7/07 12:34 Página 99

Tool 4 Town planning analysis and architectural values


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The view of the town planner:traditional sites and their territorialcontext

René GuerinArchitect and town plannerVaucluse Council of Architecture, Town Planning and theEnvironment (CAUE)France

Despite a strong common identity, the Mediterranean spaceincludes a great diversity of territories which, beyond the simple"coast - inland" or "town - rural area" dualities, establish a systemof growing complexity. Before the diagnosis, the structuralanalysis of a project's territory should be backed by a dynamicapproach making it possible to understand the mechanisms forcontinuously reorganising the space, whatever pace these moveat. This analysis must be aimed at better closing in on thecomponents and variables of the space under consideration,seeking a relevant definition of the setting for the urbanrehabilitation project.

The origins of territorial analysis

Territorial analysis has not always been present in the ethos ofurban projects. Town planning, influenced for a long time by thethought of utopians like Thomas More1, was for a long timesupported by independent models of place. The concept of urbananalysis appeared with Baron Georges Haussmann2. It means thatoperations are accompanied by an in-depth knowledge of the localhistorical and geographical context. Patrick Geddes3 sought to relatethe different branches of knowledge in the service of human life. Inthis spirit, he proposed that the town, which he understood as aliving being, should be studied in all its aspects, putting forward theterm "eutopia" (a good place) as against utopia (no place), which hecriticised. Patrick Geddes thereby defined the concept of preliminarysurvey with its components of space and time.

Defining a territory for analysis, depending on the nature ofeach project.

Firstly, it is a question of defining the spatial field for analysis.The area of study depends on the nature of each project: so thescale of the territory under consideration is defined dependingon the issues raised and expected impacts of the project. Whilea programme to rehabilitate a whole district needs to take inthe urban context on the scale of agglomeration, even theentire urban area, the rehabilitation of a block can content itselfwith a simple analysis of the district concerned. It is thereforefirst necessary to analyse the interactions of the project and itssurrounding space, which is a question of rigorous limitationwith a concern for saving on engineering.

Defining a territory for analysis, depending on the nature ofeach project.

Depending on the place, the characteristics and impact of eachurban rehabilitation project belong to a specific territorial logic.The Mediterranean and its hinterland show a great variety ofsituations. Some regions are extremely polarised around theiradministrative and economic capitals, thereby contributing to thedesertification of surrounding rural territories. The big multi-polarurban regions are organised in networks around thecomplementariness of functions guaranteed respectively by thecentral agglomerations and the medium-sized and small townslocated around them. Some regions are the subject of linear urbandevelopment, along valleys or the coastal fringe: the urban gridthere is generally less hierarchically organised because of its rapidand spontaneous development. Many mountainous rural regionsor those extending over plateaux, with low populations, havecommercial centres represented by small towns or villages with alarge impact, despite their limited size.It can initially be estimated that the project is rather morestructuring if the urban grid is weak. However, reality is lesscategorical: for example, in a region provided with a powerfulurban apparatus, a modestly sized rehabilitation project can have

The urban analysis should analyze the accessibility of the historic enclave in relationwith the territory in which it is located, not only from the physical point of view butalso considering the mobility of its residents and users and the flows of materialsand information.


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a strong medium-term structuring impact, through thereproduction of the operation model at the level of the urbanarea. Conversely, quite a large urban rehabilitation andrestructuring project at city level risks having only a limited socialand economic impact if the urban grid and dynamic of theterritory concerned are weak.

Determining the tangible and intangible accessibility of the site

The accessibility of a project site is defined both at regional oragglomeration level and at the level of the district or blockconcerned. Clearly geography largely conditions the accessibilityof a region: for example, insularity or relief are aggravating factorsfor territories established furthest from urban poles, ports or

communication axes. In the same way, population density and thelevel of urban development go along with the range of services,as well as the level of facilities and the road infrastructure. Atdistrict or block level, the urban morphology, characterised by thetopography, the road network and the built-up fabric, certainlyhave an effect on accessibility; however, first of all it is useful toconsider the presence or absence of basic facilities, as well as theproximity or distance of transport networks and polarisingstructures which contribute to urban centrality. Proximity ordistance should preferably judged by comparing access timerather than distance.The accessibility of a place is also assessed with regard to themobility of its population or the fluidity of tangible and intangibleexchanges, such as access to information. This returns to thenotion of virtual accessibility that can notably be measuredthrough the level of facilities or through the use of communicationsystems.

Identifying the social and economic context throughterritorial dynamics

The reading and interpretation of the components of a territoryand its dynamics are established in a retrospective and prospectiveapproach so that the urban rehabilitation project can form part ofa logical process of urban development. As project has been, apriori, inspired by durability, it is a good idea to record the long-term context: beyond the confirmed trends underlining certainirreversible developments, it is a question of detecting differentphenomena following variable trends and establishing differentscenarios based on which the highest common denominator willbe considered as a valuable, weakly random base considering thedefinition of the setting for the project.

The analysis of the existent uses in the territory should allow the taking of decisionson its deficiencies with regard to expectations of the residents..

The urban context must, as often as possible, be understood at the level of theagglomeration: view of Cairo (Egypt).

The almost deserted territory of Castille – La Mancha (Spain), which marks a strongcontrast with the sustained urban growth of Madrid.


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Territorial dynamics can generate pressures, even tensions,particularly when certain social or economic trends areaccelerating or when these phenomena exceed critical thresholds,causing noticeable imbalances. Analysis of strengths, weaknesses,opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis) for a territory canprovide support for identifying recorded phenomena based onindicators of state, pressure and response.4. State indicators makeit possible to characterise the space studied at a particular point intime based on significant data. The pressure indicators aredesigned to predict future situations by expressing dynamic trendsor static situations. Finally, the purpose of response indicators is toassess the appropriateness of insufficiency of policies andmeasures undertaken to support or even extend positive trends or,conversely, halt or attenuate the effects of negative trends.The relevance of the choice of indicators is essential: the data tobe included must be selected according to the characteristics of

each project and the analysis systems must be in phase with theobjective of the planned rehabilitation. It is also a good idea torelativise the data provided by the indicators, depending on eachterritorial context. For example, the price of old flats in Marseille,France, increased by an average of 88% between 2001 and20055, which constitutes an unprecedented phenomenon in thistown; during the same period, the price of riads has, on average,increased five-fold in the medina of Marrakech, Morocco6,because of residential pressure and extreme tourism. Based on thiscomparative situation, it would be hasty to state that there is a stateof moderate tension in the Marseille market in view of a propertydynamic which is noticeably less sustained than in the medina inMarrakech. By contrast, comparing the income of the populationsand property prices in a particular territory makes it possible to assessthe level of pressure or tension experienced by the local population,as well as by the various political, economic and social agents.

A small town on the plain of Lombardy (Italy): the dense urban grid is organised ina network around Milan, the regional capital.

The Costa del Sol (Spain), near Malaga, has been subject to extremely rapid urbandevelopment since the middle of the 20th century.

The town of Chefchaouen (Morocco) and its medina exercises a very far-reachinginfluence on a large part of the Rif massif.

Accessibility to Chania (Greece), as with all towns on Crete, is penalised byinsularity.


The question of the development of uses is particularly difficult topick up: a certain degree of hindsight is needed for the pressureindicators. It is a question of knowing how to distinguish lastingand irreversible trends linked to the development of ways of life inresponse to the fundamental needs of populations from certainpassing effects. Urban analysis must show usage links to theplaces studied to develop certain insufficiently representedfunctions or those responding to the necessary social demands oflocal life to strengthen certain complementary beneficial effects inorder to resolve usage conflicts or to reduce the extent of usesdamaging to the general interest.

Territorial analysis does not exclusively resort to exact sciences; theart of this study also lies in its sensitive and intuitive dimensions,fed by the experience and culture of the place: this is really whatmakes this practice interesting.

1 Thomas More or Thomas Morus (1478 – 1535): Chancellor of England, author ofUtopia.

2 Georges Haussmann (1809 – 1891): French administrator and Prefect of Paris,where he directed many town planning operations.

3 Patrick Geddes (1854 – 1932): British biologist, sociologist and town planner.

4 Culturalp project (European Interreg IIIB programme "Alpine Space"): SWOTAnalysis

5 Source: Chamber of Notaries Public of Bouches-du-Rhône

6 Source: Estate agency Khalid Bounouis, Marrakech

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The city of Nice (France), subject to poorly contained property market pressure, to the detriment of the preservation of natural areas.

This square in the historic centre of Cagliari (Italy) corresponds to an essential needof residents as a space for playing, meeting and relaxation.

A riad adapted as a tourist residence in the medina at Marrakech (Morocco), in acontext of extreme property speculation.

The old tramway in Lisbon (Portugal) considerably reduces the difficulty of access todistricts perched on the slopes of the hills.


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Heritage values of traditionalarchitecture. The example of Italy

Michelangelo DragoneArchitectItaly

Italy, that crowded peninsula surrounded by the MediterraneanSea, is characterised by a very varied territory shared by lakes andmarshes, plains, hills and mountains. This has led to the origin ofa wide variety of types of building depending on the subsoil, thematerials, the demands of the climate, the quality of the site andagricultural production – fundamental elements in the occupationof the territory and, consequently, in defining the architecture ofbuildings and landscapes.As everywhere, each territory expresses particular local buildingfeatures, ranging, for example, from the hard, constant slates ofthe mountains of Dolomite origin to the soft, uncertain"chianche" of Karstic origin in the south; from the wooden load-bearing structures in the Alps and the Apennines to the fired orunfired brick ones of the plains of the north or the central hills orthe rough dry stone masonry blocks of the arid lands of the south.Italy has also been a politically unified country only since the endof the 19th century. Where national identities have beenconfirmed earlier, the circulation of models of identity hasconstituted a kind of national, rather than local, "transversality",even "absorption" of models on one hand and, on the otherhand, a facility through the "opening up" of these models and thecirculation of a variety of local images unified under the samepolitical and administrative culture, thereby favouring thepossibility of adopting effective, unitary, protection policies at theright time.The lands of Italy were, for almost two millennia, politicallydivided, often dominated directly or indirectly, by other countriesand other cultures. The result was the establishment of humanisedspaces which, limited by nature, have absorbed the influence andintegration of dominant foreign cultures more easily than others.That is evident in the most everyday aspects of life, from thelanguage (the dialects are actually a mixture of local and foreignexpressions...), cuisine and culture in general, to the definition, ofcourse, of architectures and landscapes. So, while "noble"construction culture was at times exported throughout Europe aspart of the process of conquest, "poor" architecture, everydaybuildings and rural spaces lived and regenerated themselvesbetween local identity and the influence of different foreigncultures.Although the first productive organisations in the country and theestablishment of towns in the Roman period were defined on the"centuriatio" model so dear to the organisation of the militarysystem of the Roman Empire, the fall of the Empire, followed byconfused reorganisation, the organisation of "national States"

inside national territory, conquests multiplying in these states,wars and insecure territories, led to an urban decline in favour ofthe hinterland. On the inland hills, after the second half of the firstmillennium, an urban and rural system was organised that wasprotected against the outside, exploiting geographical conditionsand new architectural models defined by the need for protection(town walls, farm walls, agglomerations characterised by verydense use of land and new forms and dynamics of links betweenbuilt-up and public spaces). The countryside, for its part, was characterised by its naturaltendency towards impenetrability (geographical protection), orwas organised, on one hand, with a temporary occupation ofspace (the great majority of human activity was inside the towns)and, on the other, with real rural communities that were physicallyprotected (fortified farms). The appearance of certainarchitectures on the southern coast of Italy (such as, for example,the coastal towers for spotting any danger coming from the sea)has, for more than a millennium, defined the character andoutline of the land seen from the sea, underlining the closedelements of protection that have characterised this land for almosttwo millennia.Building techniques are the result of the use of local materials andof human capacity to translate the need for survival in physically,

Traditional architectural values, very diverse as in the cases of Italy, are theexpression of the application of certain constructive techniques, product of givenmaterials and the capacity of mankind to translate them into space and architectureas a response to the physical, social and economic needs of each place.


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economically and socially closed territories on to the spatial andarchitectural plane. It is the techniques themselves that oftendefine the types of construction plan (for example, open or closedcourtyard systems); otherwise it is the production system with theinevitable pyramid organisation of society that designs thelandscape and determines the organisation of the architecture (bigfarms, spaces for the master, the foreman and the workers). Mainly in the south, alongside the architecture of the big estatesand grand noble properties, poorer architectures have spreadgradually, first consisting of shacks, then the houses of agriculturalworkers who aspired to own a plot of land. These are thearchitectures very specifically defined under the term "traditionalarchitecture". It makes sense that rudimentary materials and techniques shouldappear on poor land that was difficult to exploit. This is wheresimplicity is best expressed, where lack of means and humaningenuity are closely linked. Appearing spontaneously without thepresumption of being architecture, over a series of opportunitiesthese rudimentary constructions could become so, helped by theremorseless collapse of the large landowners due to the economicdisruption of the passing centuries, which gave them the chanceto occupy even more of the space they came to characterise. The fragmentation of land ownership in the second half of the19th century ended up by disrupting the image of the landscape

and definitively generalised the traditional existing models in thecountryside of the regions of this southern peninsula; thisphenomenon consecrated the adoption of models of buildingaccompanied by a strong tendency towards specialisation in thetraditional art of construction and the definition of ever morerefined architectures in terms of techniques and use of materials. The possibility since then of living in the country without fear, aswell as the development of an agricultural economy based onmeeting needs at family and local level, determined considerableurbanisation of the countryside and, consequently, thedevelopment of traditional building techniques (where the farmerhimself is often the builder).Simplicity of form, linear surfaces, décor limited to the essentialand extremely readable structures define the human value of thisarchitecture.The function is defined by the simple classification of the interiorspaces: simple shapes without exterior differentiation, distributedaccording to elementary schematic plans, generally over one ortwo floors.The essential unity of these architectures lies in the use of colourand material, and above all because of a particular arrangementof service volumes, which are rarely smaller than the others.The structure becomes expressive through the constructionmaterials, often poor and simply cut and placed.

Castellvechio di Roca (Italy) Florence (Italy)


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XConcern for defence conditions and explains the shapes of ruraland urban housing, expressed in the readability of the volumes aswell as by psychological and non-technological reasons.The defensive elements are analogous, despite the multiplicity ofbuildings and sites: walls, defence of corners, rare, small openingsto the outside.Both at the level of a territory and at the level of an architecturalgrouping, the symbol of religious belief takes the form of smallchapels for peasant devotion.The distinction between residential and service buildings is usuallyunderlined by the type of roofing, the rendering on the masonryor the length of the buildings.The classification of the architecture can be qualitative (accordingto its use) or typological (simply according to its architecturalstyle).An attempt at classification cannot disregard the difficulties linkedto the fact that it may refer to a single building or a grouping; thatis, the fact that it may be established in a context where it mustbe possible to identify the different components using a dynamicapproach.In differentiating between important isolated buildings andgroups of small elements of rural architecture, it should behighlighted that, for the latter more strongly than for the former,a stylistic formulation can be identified that very particularly

integrates the environment, not only in establishing the physicalsize of the works and the particular technique using localmaterials, but also in expressing the particular nature of thedefence ensured by man. The urban space reflects a situation and conditions that havealready been mentioned. Until the industrial period, towns wereclosed in on themselves, surrounded by ramparts. The inhabitedarea within the walls is characterised by long, narrow Gothicblocks where simple architecture is established, running parallel tothe streets and occupying volumes over two or three floors, withone given over to storing goods. The centres of the blocks arearranged into outdoor courtyards. The materials are always similar and the simple buildingtechniques are analogous to those of the countryside, althoughadapted to a better protected site. The particular dynamics are notperceived in terms of the landscape, as in the countryside, but interms of the use of private and public spaces. The importance ofsquares and communal spaces characterises the destiny of towns,determining spatial dynamics which, in the same way, provide avalue of shared tradition between empty and built-up spaces andwhich, still today, characterise what is still called "the culture andart of living Italian style".

Naples (Italy) Ozieri, Sardinia (Italy)


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Modern versus traditional typologiesin Algerian medinas

Bougherira-Hadji QuenzaArchitect and town plannerLecturer at the University of BlidaAlgeria

Modern architectural typolgies in the old centres of algerianmedinas

The urban crisis our regions are experiencing in a morphologicaland urban landscape sense essentially concerns the problem oftypological integration at a level that is as much architectural asurban.Perception of spaces makes it possible to determine whether thelatter conform to the authenticity we expect from them, whetherthey are in harmony with their cultural territory or not; for this,perceptual observation is an important element of reading andanalysis. It is, in a way, an index of a deeper structural situation.Perceived reality corresponds in fact, then, to the expression of astructural typology that can be accessed by a more in-depth study:it concerns the urban structure with what this involves in terms oftypologies of materials, aggregates, nodes, hierarchies, etc.This structure generally conditions a certain type of space:organically structured types of housing based on hierarchicalmodular repetition in traditional architecture makes it possible toobtain a unified whole in a harmonious and coherent relationship.Meanwhile, so-called modern housing, making up big collectivehousing developments, disregarding the structural unity andmodular coherence resulting from centuries of practice andchanges and adaptations presents, in terms of experience andperception, alienated spaces, not recognised and notcomprehended by the residents. It is an artificial solution breakingwith the cultural reality of the place.One sees in the act of spontaneous building – that is, the naturalpractice of construction by populations who have a common codeof type of building corresponding to their cultural surroundings –the transplantation of suburban architectural types as the"conceptual type" of the present time. In as far as this practicepreserves the same building methods, adding the naturalevolution due to everyday adaptations, the old centres preservetheir coherence and their harmony. Today, the brutal change inbuilding techniques and materials used without any care for thehistoric heritage creates situations of malaise concerning theexperience of these spaces.This "transplantation" of newtechnologies with new materials and new forms, creates, then, anew urban landscape, sometimes respecting the old fabric, whichis itself heritage (not merely the buildings making it up), but often,unfortunately, not respecting it at all. We sometimes even see the total demolition of old centres whichare generally in an advanced state of dilapidation, and theirreplacement by so-called "modern" constructions.

Is replacing them worthwhile?

Do we have the right to carry out such actions, to introducemodernity so violently into the old centres, destroying heritagethat represents an increasingly rare asset and which has less andless chance of being reproduced?As for transformation on an urban scale, this concerns the loss ofurban fabric through the demolition of old structures and theirreplacement by new types, essentially made up of "rows" andlarge spaces, where the urban notion of the old districts isirredeemably lost.In order to contribute to an improvement of this state of affairs, itwould be useful to establish capital in the form of knowledge ofthe historic centres and traditional architecture as a basis forfuture action to preserve and highlight heritage buildings.In this article, we want to highlight this practice of integrated newarchitectures into old sites, which is regularly adopted inspontaneous construction in old centres.First of all, we should note that reconstruction in old centres iscarried out following the types of the periphery.This is quite a notable, common practice in unprotected oldcentres.

The study of the types existent in the territory should not only be centered in theanalysis of the characteristics of the traditional types, but also in their diversity andtransformation throughout history, as well as the presence of more modern types.


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It is notable that the spontaneous consciousness of a populationleads them to build according to the "taste of the day" and notto preserve old forms and techniques.The massive practice of ancestral know-how will never be seen;rather it will always appear in an evolved form, that is, as theknow-how of the moment.

Notions of typological evolution

The great typological variety in the same cultural surroundings ismuch more the product of adaptation to the residents' needs andmeans of meeting them, following a simple mechanism, than theproduct of the ex-nihilo creativity of builders and designers.The great mass of spontaneously constructed production bearswitness to massive popular activity showing a great degree ofanalogy between its components. The differences between eachof its elements would only be variations on the same theme.The great "collective work of art" making up the old centres(Saverio Muratori; Giulio Argan) is often only a composition ofsynchronous variants of a same type (Gianfranco Caniggia),leading to the harmony and unity of these manmadeconstructions.It is generally established that urban cores mostly come from thedevelopment of villages (apart from the urban centres founded astowns). They correspond to the same logic as that affectingarchitecture: that is, the fabric of the periphery is reproduced asfar as possible in the renewal of the centre (that is, in as far as itis allowed by the sites that are clear at the same time, because itis difficult to obtain big spaces that are free at the same time inold centres).

Here we are talking about urban cores that have undergonegradual transformations since they came into existence as ruralestablishments. It is notable that the type of building moves froma "proto-urban" type state to an "urban" type state. This ismorphologically translated by densification, which is firsthorizontal and then vertical depending on the spontaneousmechanisms for transforming housing over the centuries; first youwill see a staircase in the courtyard allowing access to the upperfloor, then a passageway to the rooms on the floor; the birth ofthe patio is the only remaining step.On a plot that has been built on, densification goes on graduallyuntil it occupies all possible space on the surface of the plot.Superimposition of building modules will come next, to obtainsuccessive floors. We can see the successive states in cities withvariable development like Algiers, a dense city that had achieveda high level of urbanisation in the medieval period. There we seean evolved type of building sometimes going up to G+4, with anaverage of G+2 in the Casbah.

Colonial building with traditional elements, Blida, Algeria Map of the town of Blida, Algeria (1842)


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A town like Dellys, on the other hand, although it was founded aslong ago, shows a stagnation of typological development at aproto-urban stage when compared to Algiers; staircases in thecourtyard, not integrated into the construction of the housing likea mature element of the typology, are present as an occasionalarchitectural element for accessing a space on a floor newlyintroduced into the typology, without, however, constituting atypological constant of R+1 housing.The very interesting typology of the rest of this town, partiallydestroyed by the earthquake of 2003, shows, in a way, atypological "petrification" at a stage between the rural(Andalusian rural + mountain Berber from the region) and theurban, represented by the Ottoman buildings of the period, asshown by the typical Turkish kbous.The town of Blida, on the other hand, shows, on one hand, aproto-urban typology resulting from Andalusian rural occupation(El Djoun) with its masters' houses and outbuildings such asstables, servants' houses and gardens, as well as, on the other, anurban typology imported from Algiers by the Turkish people fromthe town in the Rue du Bey and Rue d'Alger district.The most recent constructions in the El Djoun district are identifiedwith these urban typologies. So, all reconstructions will be madefollowing the typology of the house with patio, graduallyreplacing the proto-urban house with courtyard (for example, DarBen Kouider).We therefore note, through these cases, which are quiterepresentative as they were chosen considering different sizes oftown and geographical positions, different points in thetypological evolution of the Algerian town.In fact, these levels of evolution can be found in the same town,because a spontaneous fabric has the particular feature of

evolving at plot level and not as a whole. The time variation in theevolution of plots makes it possible to obtain the variety so muchappreciated by the human eye as against the monotony of adevelopment carried out in the same time period: (the case ofhousing estates or other medium- or large-scale urbanoperations).However, buildings are put up rarely and according to ancestralbuilding methods only in cases of rehabilitation.The spontaneous consciousness of a population leads them tobuild according to the "taste of the day" and not to preserve oldforms and techniques. This building logic can be observed at the level of the BardoMuseum in Algiers, the former villa of Fahç Algèrois in theOttoman period, which has undergone multiple rehabilitationsand extensions that illustrate this situation well. The massive practice of ancestral know-how will never be seen,rather it will always be in an evolved form, that is, know-how ofthe moment. This is also the case with El Djoun, the old quarter of Blida (if notnowadays the oldest that is partially preserved), where the newbuilding procedures (reinforced concrete structures and walls ofbricks and breeze blocks) have imposed this new type, which doesnot in any way fit into the local typologies. These practices couldbe avoided in a historic centre if it was classed as protected.Unfortunately, this not being the case, spontaneous awareness inbuilding production has been happily applied. This spontaneousawareness that has allowed the enrichment of typologies duringcenturies of adjustments and adaptations of architecture to users'needs, to give the most beautiful examples of heritage buildings,such as Saharan ksours or medinas, has ended up becoming theinstrument for the degradation of this very heritage, using foreigntechniques and procedures in the surroundings where they are

Bastion 23, Algiers (Algeria) Traditional typologies of the Algiers Kasbah, Algeria


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applied. So, the old historic centres are progressively wiped out forthe benefit of an architecture intended to be modern but far fromachieving the authenticity it is meant to express.

Spontaneous evolution of fabrics in relation to typologicalevolution

Having established that towns are born from villages, whichthemselves succeed more primary human establishments, that isisolated constructions or small groups of isolated settlements(Mumford, Caniggia), we can direct observation towards seekinghuman establishments corresponding to intermediary phases ofproducing the manmade space. This state of building generallycorresponds to a semi-nomadic socio-economic system, or aseasonal one, as is the case with El Oued, where one can stillobserve these little houses or groups of houses – the summersettlements of town dwellers.The context of their establishment is that of sufficiently vast spaces(assured of the presence of water, of course) to allow first of allscattered housing, then sufficiently large plots given over to eachhome (in relation to the degree of advancement of the state ofurban development) and with the surrounding land open betweenthe houses, thereby allowing future evolution throughdensification of the housing. If this group of homes meets thenecessary conditions (polarity, accessibility, proximity to an activityzone...), it will develop into an urban centre.A mutation phenomenon strangely analogous to biologicalbehaviour is, then, going to be put in place and, from sparsehousing, dense housing will be born, grouped by progressive infillof the interstitial spaces without buildings.Old towns as they have come down to us today, according to theland surveys generally carried out since the 19th century, give uslittle information on their actual birth and their first mutations.The ancient centres we know were already urban when they weredesigned or relaid out. With reading techniques developed byProfessor Caniggia, we can go back to the establishment of thegenesis of these centres, right to their very beginning.The hypotheses put forward are, of course, backed by historicaltexts or archaeological digs to obtain confirmation andverification. But what we can directly confirm is the developmentof this phenomenon of progressive densification of the fabric atthe level of successive extensions to the town.In effect, since the first land registries of the 19th century, we havebeen offered land surveys in the towns and their territories, and inthe countryside, about every decade, with the various surroundingagricultural plots, right up to mountain and forest areas.These successive land surveys make it easy for us to read theevolution of the fabric of the extensions to towns and from this tointerpolate the results to interpret the probable evolution of the

old centres according to this logic of settlement by human kind.What one can always see is that towns are gradually filled in,always densifying more in the centre and the nearestneighbouring parts, narrowing its road network and occupyingevery square centimetre offered by the space of the town beforeclimbing upwards once the land is saturated.During this mutation, the architectural typology, meanwhile, alsoexperiences this mutation phenomenon. In fact, because of thistightening of the fabric of the town, houses must also shed theirskins and transform themselves, gradually passing throughintermediary types, from a village house to a proto-urban house,then an urban one and finally varying to follow the cultural trendand the continual densification requirements.From this, then, we can deduce the essential relationship betweenarchitectural typology and urban typology.The results at the level of the urban landscape as it is perceivedremain, however, varied and they are defined by the culturalatmosphere.In places where plot organisation is identical, we can see anaggregation that is very dense horizontally, going as far asattachments on the four sides of the house in the case ofcourtyard houses (the case with central plots in Blida, Alger,Miliana, Dellys…). However, in the case of extrovert types, wecannot go beyond three sides with attachments.Architectural production today is mass production, based on serialproduction following a unique model with limited synchronous

Street in the kasbah in Algiers, Algeria


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variants, thereby leading to the loss of richness and typologicalvariety of previous urban centres.The coming of the row, the result of this production in series (itmust not be forgotten that the production of houses in series andin groups is as old as the houses of Egyptian workers at the timethe pyramids were built), has led to the disappearance of theorganic fabric of the town. It is because of this that those gigantictowns which project their tentacles into the surrounding territoriesare sometimes compared to cancers.So, with the help of new techniques and new constructionmaterials, the power of intensive, rapid production has becomeconsolidated and the direct relationship between man and hisproduct, in the case of the house, has been wiped out, leading tothe loss of the measurement of human scale in the production ofthe built-up environment, something which is the instrument ofthe harmonisation of all artificial things with nature, a sine quanon condition of the sustainability of the necessary resources andcontinued human occupation of the planet.

The arrival of recent types in old centres

In the case of Blida, it is noticeable that the new buildings in theold quarter of El Djoundo not in any way correspond to thecultural richness of the site.The few old houses that still remain are dominated by the newbuildings, which are generally higher (G+2, G+3) as against single-floor buildings for most old buildings. They use new constructiontechniques – reinforced concrete structures, infill with hollowbricks – introduced into a site where all the constructions are atground level in an area with strong seismic action. It is like sayingthe death warrant is being signed for these old buildings,considering the "hammer effect" relationships of concrete with

earth structures. So the neighbouring houses risk beingdemolished if there is an earthquake by these new buildings,rather than having houses that support one another in absorbingthe forces transmitted by the earth tremors, soaking up the shocklike a monolithic entity.It is the fabric that becomes anti-seismic, not the isolated house,another asset of the correspondence between urban fabric andarchitecture with traditional housing.As for the architectural elements and the typological details oflocal architecture, they have completely disappeared from the newbuildings. These express a mixture of languages in the absence ofa contemporary local typology meeting current needs. Some ofthese windows have loggia above the street, some Provençalwindows, some neo-classical façades with regular openings. Allthese new constructions disregard traditional local typologies,whether deliberately or not, and show a total typological changebased on diatopic types imported from colonial and universalsources.Even more serious is the destruction of whole districts of oldcentres to replace them with new buildings for mass housing. Anoperation of this kind was launched in Blida during the 1980s.Because it was impossible to confiscate the properties of theresidents of the time, the project was blocked for years, but wasrelaunched in 2003-4, with mass destruction and the compulsorypurchase from the residents of a district that is at least threehundred years old.The first part of this scheme to densify the town centre, which wasdeveloped in 1987 in the Remonte and Ducros military hospitaldistricts, was implemented on land that had hardly been built on,as well as an old Turkish cemetery.The Remonte which had been used for horse breeding, hadalready lost its functions and the stables had already been emptyfor a long time. However, the magnificent avenues of plane treesand open spaces between the stables should have been able tooffer an ideal leisure and relaxation site near the old centre. Theyare now built on with dense mass housing schemes that breakwith the pre-colonial centre and that of the 19th century.At the time of the excavations in order to build the residentialbuildings planned for the scheme, it was found that the site hadbeen the Turkish cemetery. This did not stop the works. The new town council's scheme shows an urban appearanceripped to shreds, without coherence or apparent relationshipswith the town, causing an additional divide between urban spaces.The new schemes, unlike those established at the level of ElDjoun, show another appearance of new typological action in anold centre, that of the mass building of collective housing in whichthe disappearance of fabric can be observed, with the loss of thedividing unit: the plot.In this case, the typology imported from the periphery is totallyalien to the centre and, although sometimes an architecturalColonial buildind in Algiers (Algeria)


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element is picked up, it is only symbolic and decorative, not as anauthentic element used for its original function.Conclusion

One constant seems to emerge from these observations:spontaneous construction is carried out according to the mostdeveloped and most economical typology and not according toold typologies because of the will of the person or people carryingit out.The second important note is the fact that typological mutationstraditionally operate within a well determined, well delimitedurban and territorial setting. The transformation of urban fabric iscarried out alongside transformations to buildings: when the plotreaches its limit, the town boundary constrains and retains theurban fabric. Far from these thousand-year-old laws, the commonaspect of the new typologies is their denial of traditional limits. Nomore plot boundary for buildings, no more urban boundary forthe town.This loss of limits is, perhaps, a redefinition of the notion ofterritory. The metropolis no longer recognises traditional territoriallimits; the only limit it seems to recognise is that of the planet, asa market.In the face of this situation, how can we still talk about atraditional typology? The divide between metropolis andtraditional typology seems frighteningly deep. However, residentsof the towns of today still want a peaceful life in spaces producedon a human scale, in the image of the old fabric. In this case,typological architectural production, even producing replicas ofthe old fabric, cannot guarantee its authenticity. For example thenew districts divided into plots in the suburbs seeking toreproduce building quality through the act of division into plots.

This leads us to ask ourselves the question: is the plot the essentialcondition for reconstituting an authentic urban space? LifelessEuropean suburbs spreading out of sight disprove this. The idea ofplots alone, without a return to the hierarchised integration ofterritorial culture, is not enough.This is why the integration of territorial, urban and architecturalscales is increasingly essential in defining schemes.This integration is translated at urban level by the determinationof a location that is suitable for the polarities and nodes of thetown, as well as structuring the fabrics within a hierarchical systemrespecting these polarities and nodes.In summary, a more complete and operational reading of humansettlement must involve the recognition of particular urbanmorphology in relation to the polarities and nodes structuring thetown. Dense plots in the centre, plots presenting their narrowsides to the most important routes, big plots on the periphery…As well as the recognition of the territorial structure as an initialframework for all human establishment and as a directionalindicator for all future evolution of the town and any new nearbyurban centres.And the recognition of cultural territory as an essential typologicalresource in the production of basic buildings This will implyparsimony in occupation of the territory and resources on ahuman scale in order to structure it, such as limiting theexploitation of the territory to its own resources in a concern forsustainable development.

New buildings in the Algiers Kasbah, Algeria



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