Teaching the History of Architecture in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco: Colonialism,Independence, and Globalization
Teaching the History of Architecture in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco: Colonialism,Independence, and Globalization
Author(s): Ali Djerbi and Abdelwahab Safi
Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Mar., 2003), pp.102-109
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3655087
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Teaching the History of Architecture in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco: Colonialism, Independence, and Globalization ALI DJERBI Ecole Nationale d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme, Tunis Colonial Heritage The teaching of architectural history in North Africa is closely linked to the history of French colonization in Alge- ria, Tunisia, and Morocco. It was only during the period of colonial rule that architecture was first taught in these coun- tries, and architectural education varied according to the approach the colonizing power adopted in each case. Through a succession of "reforms," the educational system was transformed from an exogenous, imported one into an endogenous one, in an effort to respond to the cultural and historical realities of each country. However, the cultural identity born of a long history shared by the three countries led to the convergence of the three systems toward similar objectives, focusing ultimately on the same concerns.' The French conquest of Algeria in 1830 was followed by a systematic annexation that divided the new territory into departments, or administrative divisions, of France. All actions by the new settlers were long-term imperial invest- ments intended to turn the region into a fully integrated part of France on all levels-social, political, economic, and cultural. Cultural differences were not considered instru- mental to development, with the assumption that the French "civilizing mission" would eventually overpower local cultures. The traditional educational system was con- sequently abandoned, and the Arabic language was rele- gated to a secondary status and eventually taught as a foreign language, of far less importance than English, Ger- man, Italian, or Spanish. With notable exceptions, indige- nous youth who had access to schools were discouraged from pursuing higher education; hence, their chances of reaching management or decision-making jobs in the administrative and economic structure tailor-made for the new settlers was restricted. The colonization of Tunisia took place in 1881, when Ottoman power was greatly weakened as the result of a heavy debt burden and growing discontent among the pop- ulation. The regency of Tunis became a protectorate run by its French residents, who set up a system of economic and sociocultural management very much like the one in operation in Algeria, in which French models were rigor- ously imposed. In Algeria and Tunisia, the teaching of architecture was not a priority. The primary colonial interests were agricul- ture, trade, and industry, and consequently, the most attrac- tive professions were those that directly related to sectors such as agronomy, administrative management, accounting, law, mining, hydrology, and geology. Architectural practice basically followed the French model and did not require professionals with knowledge of local building traditions. The teaching of architecture was begun in the schools of fine arts of Algiers and Tunis to provide colonists with the kind of education then available in the provincial cities of France. It was limited to a preparatory cycle for students destined eventually to complete their academic training at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Nevertheless, with the growth of urban centers in North Africa, together with the increasing need to adapt con- struction and architectural models to the local context, it soon became necessary to set up consulting firms there. Architecture, as a profession, became a viable economic activity and was taken up by colonial practitioners operat- ing on familiar ground, rather than by experts specially imported from France. The number of candidates attracted to the profession continued to rise, first with settlers' sons, followed by the children of the Jewish community (who were given access to education by the Crimieux decree, which made it possible for this ethnic population to obtain French citizenship).2 The last to join was a handful of Mus- lim students who overcame the roadblocks on the way to higher education and ignored the taboos of a traditional cul- ture that looked down on fine-arts schools as bohemian and thus unsuitable to the standards of a well-educated and morally sound person. Paralleling the situation in Algeria, where architects were trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d'Alger (EBAA), the first Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Tunis (EBAT) opened in 1930, initially to teach art, but offering an introductory course in architecture. The pedagogic programs were tai- lored after French models, which in turn were based on a classical vision of the fine arts; the learning process depended on the master-disciple relationship, whereby an artist in charge of a workshop would train a few gifted stu- 102 JSAH / 62:1, MARCH 2003This content downloaded from 146.230.187.153 on Thu, 16 May 2019 09:08:44 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
dents according to his own style. After World War II, the teaching of art was deliberately oriented toward the applied arts. That was the first step toward a pragmatic approach, to cultivate in the students' minds not only a taste for and knowledge of art, but also to suggest the possibility of bringing artistry into their work as draftsmen, architects' assistants, interior decorators, or ceramists.3 The colonization of Morocco occurred in a different context in 1912. The country was made a French protec- torate under the pretext of shielding it both from German ambitions and the expansionist schemes of Spain. Due to the specificities of Morocco's history, the French found there a relatively homogeneous and well-structured society, generally at peace with the power of the Sultan, despite some tribal unrest.4 The protectorate realized the potential problems in attempting to break up a traditional system strongly attached to its cultural heritage, and opted for pre- serving a dual structure. French rule in Morocco was based on material exploitation, without any ambitions to trans- form the indigenous society. This goal was clearly spelled out by Louis-Hubert-Gonzalve Lyautey: "The French bring a superior administrative organization, the resources of a more advanced civilization, and material means to take better advantage of the country's resources, and a force that guarantees [order] against anarchy. Under this tutelary pro- tection, the others [native Moroccans] will maintain their status, institutions, the free practice of their religion, and will develop their sources of wealth in order and peace."' This cohabitation of two cultural systems offered an alternative to subjection to a foreign sociocultural model. Local handicrafts and arts de vivre could continue to evolve in tranquility and, in some cases, even compete with new colonial production. The French did not feel the urge to create a school of architecture. Architects constituted a pro- fessional corps to whom the traditional construction prac- tices of the country were alien. To develop new urban centers and expand the existing ones, the French colonists and the assimilated nationals who had subscribed to the new cultural models would appeal to expertise from metropoli- tan France. After Independence The teaching of architecture in the Maghrib continued to develop along the lines of the French system, while seeking to meet the redefined national requirements of each inde- pendent country. To carry out the restructuring process, it was necessary to challenge the academism prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s and to readapt the form and content of the curricula to the new objectives of the development policies of the three countries. The objectives called for considera- tion of specific contexts and knowledge of local referential models. As a result, the teaching of architectural history was closely linked to professional training. History was turned into an instrument to help develop a set of stylistic refer- ences to be put at the disposal of architects. Therefore, course content would change according to the current polit- ical orientation favoring this or that culture or period. Independence set in motion a broad range of reforms including a call for wider integration of the North African heritage into the curricula. This proposal was far from easy to implement. The architecture student and the architect would be brutally and continuously faced with a cultural clash between, on the one hand, traditional systems repre- sented by local forms and, on the other, systems shaped by modern technology and economics and represented by unfamiliar forms from abroad. From linguistic concepts to referential models of objects and spaces, the design of the architectural environment depended on highly complex intercultural choices and compromises. The language of teaching continued to be French, posing a major obstacle to comprehending local cultural phenomena unfamiliar to the Francophone school. Thus Arab and Berber sources remained inaccessible. The adoption of a pedagogical sys- tem based on professional requirements determined by exogenous criteria inevitably led to a teaching of history dominated by foreign references and cut off from the sur- rounding culture. Successive reforms were attempts to address the specificities of the Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan contexts more effectively. Algeria Established in Algiers soon after the declaration of inde- pendence in 1962, the Ecole Nationale d'Architecture et des Beaux-Arts (ENABA) followed the academic principles of the French fine arts schools. In 1968, the academic approach in France was subjected to radical transforma- tions, which led to the creation of a new model based on a course-credit system. This triggered a similar move in Algiers, producing a total restructuring of ENABA and ulti- mately bringing about its replacement in 1970 by a new institution, the Ecole Polytechnique d'Architecture et d'Ur- banisme (EPAU). EPAU was founded as an institution attached to the Ministry of Higher Education. Its relative administrative and financial autonomy helped in reconciling the specificity of architectural education with a university curriculum spread over five years and divided into semester- long courses. In 1980, the semester system was turned into one based on annual credit. Compared to fine arts pro- TEACHING THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE 103This content downloaded from 146.230.187.153 on Thu, 16 May 2019 09:08:44 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
grams, the EPAU curriculum was more oriented toward technology and engineering and required that prospective students hold a scientific or technical baccalaureate degree. In view of the growing demands resulting from rapid urban development, the government of Algeria allowed sev- eral regional universities to form architectural institutes. Over a period of ten years, five new schools were estab- lished.6 However, according to reports of evaluation com- mittees, the creation of these institutes was not founded on a careful reflection process that clarified the concepts and articulated the impact they intended to make on the university, but only maintained the EPAU model of autonomous pedagogic management and supported the same curriculum. Currently, the teaching of architectural history spans a two-year period, starting in the second year of the univer- sity program. In order to reconcile an identity strongly influenced by the Arab-Islamic cultural heritage on the one hand, and belonging to a rich and diverse Mediterranean geocultural environment on the other, the emphasis is on Maghrib history. The Algerian territory, its Roman sites and monuments, medinas, and mosques from different periods, as well as various categories of Berber architecture, are well represented in the curriculum. The first part of the architectural history program is ambitious, even if it is meant to be introductory. It covers periods from prehistory to the present, from Mesopotamia to modern Europe. Impregnated by the colonial heritage, the course follows the classical approach, which focuses on successive civilizations as recorded in the annals of West- ern culture. The second part (offered in the third year) is devoted to the architecture of the Arab-Islamic Maghrib. Mosques and other major monuments are studied in detail in order to illustrate the specific characteristics of regional traditions. While the first part has the disadvantage of pre- senting an overly broad account, the second part is limited by its concentration on one aspect of Maghribi culture, which carries the risk of distorting the overall picture the course is meant to convey. The shortcomings of this sequence have led to a very interesting reform project, still under discussion. In this proposal, which is described below, the history of architecture is distributed over a four-year period, beginning in the first year and progressively cover- ing the local, regional, and universal aspects of architectural expression in the Maghrib. The first year introduces the student to the mecha- nisms of architectural code formation and provides a broad referential field. It gives an overview that relates successive civilizations to the phenomena that defined them; for exam- ple, Mesopotamia is presented as the earliest agricultural Figure 1 Jules Voignot, Post Office, Algiers, ca. 1910. Buildings from the colonial period are now covered in architectural history courses in Algeria. civilization, and Egypt's architecture is contextualized in reference to cosmology and geometry. The second year continues the basic training and examines the origin and evolution of the environmental patrimony and its restitu- tion. It, too, offers an initiation in architectural language, now supplemented with a focus on the development of crit- ical judgment. The Maghrib (and its related areas of cul- tural influence) is taken as a case study for investigating the early achievements of Islamic civilization, from the Khariji- Rustamid to the Ottoman eras (that is, from the eighth to the sixteenth century). The third year is devoted to the acquisition of methodological tools required for a nuanced reading of architecture, based on a critical evaluation of the historic and modern languages of architecture. This course continues, in part, the classical pattern used for the analysis of the modern movement in Europe and North America, from its genesis to the postmodern period. The fourth year is aimed at examining the language of architecture from the 104 JSAH / 62:1, MARCH 2003This content downloaded from 146.230.187.153 on Thu, 16 May 2019 09:08:44 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
perspective of the "tradition versus modernity" dichotomy. Studying the Algerian context before and after colonization (from 1830 to the present), topics considered include the imposition of a "French" architecture in the early decades of the colonial rule, and the main features of neo-Mau- resque expression around 1900. Tunisia After 1956, when Tunisia gained independence, the EBAT was placed under the supervision of the Secretariat of State for National Education. Five years later, the school was attached to the newly created Secretariat of State for Cul- tural Affairs. The new status meant that the school's orien- tation was to depend largely on the political choices of the country, that is, it would be influenced by a certain defini- tion of "progress" inspired by models from "advanced" countries. It was, therefore, only natural to continue align- ing EBAT's programs with French schools of fine arts. In 1966, a full-fledged architecture section was created within EBAT with the cooperation of American Peace Corps instructors. Distinct from the other artistic disci- plines, this department admitted holders of a baccalaureate of science and offered a six-year program, followed by a year of professional traineeship. History of art and architecture was included in a course called "Problems of the Environ- ment," which centered on man and his surroundings. Again under the influence of the events of May 1968 in France, EBAT introduced a set of theoretical topics that invited questioning of the academic system inherited from the colo- nial past. A decisive move was made to address the Tunisian context in the fine arts and architecture. The history of art and architecture began to be taught from the perspective of national patrimony. Greater attention was paid to the study of local objects, monuments, and archaeological sites; they were documented carefully, and the records were kept as an archive in the school. Although this approach still high- lighted the monuments of antiquity, the examples were drawn from national sites and, above all, from the Bardo Museum and Carthage. Similarly, Arab-Islamic architecture was no longer addressed merely from the viewpoint of its contribution to the monumental order by analogy to clas- sicism. Some mosques and palaces were studied as stylistic models illustrating a given period in the history of Islamic art, but they were also examined in reference to their urban contexts as well as their underlying meanings. These transformations cleared the way for a second reform in 1973, which restructured the school entirely. EBAT was even given a new name, Institut Technologique d'Art, d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme de Tunis (ITAAUT). The cohabitation of two sections-architecture and plastic and graphic arts-was maintained; the mission of the reju- venated institute was to train urbanists, architects, and art teachers for secondary schools. By the mid-1970s, the ITAAUT had entered a period of lively intellectual and ideological activity. Furthermore, the economic crisis that had led to a critical assessment of Western values as the unique references for progress reawakened a sense of identity and stimulated a quest for alternative cultural choices more deeply rooted in the national heritage. It thus became crucial to study local tra- ditions in vernacular architecture, as well as handicrafts, in an effort to promote techniques and skills better suited to the country's socioeconomic realities. Journals from the early 1960s, such as Les Cahiers des Arts et Techniques d'Afrique du Nord were revived and proved instrumental in the analysis and documentation of vernacular architecture and handicrafts. These developments had a powerful impact on methodology. As most of the case studies were not included in the mainstream literature and there were no tra- ditions and relevant sources on which to draw, the instruc- tors had to design their own pedagogical approach and materials, and often conducted fieldwork. The very selec- tion of faculty members posed a difficult issue. In the first stages, conventional art historians were replaced by spe- cialists who could address the cultural components of an environment still lying fallow; the mission was commonly entrusted to theorists and critics, as well as to foreign archi- tects with multidisciplinary training. In 1979, ITAAUT was attached to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and its two sec- tions were turned into separate departments with distinct functions. One concerned the training of architects and planners and the development and dissemination of research in architecture and urban planning; the other was directed at the creation and promotion of plastic arts that were culturally significant from an aesthetic and technical perspective. With this change, the institute began to con- sider architecture as a scholarly field and the history of art and architecture as one of the fundamental disciplines. It also advocated a multidisciplinary approach and intellectual rigor in its curricula. The ITAAUT finally split into two totally independent schools, the Ecole Nationale d'Archi- tecture et d'Urbanisme (ENAU) and the Ecole Supdrieure des Beaux-Arts (ESBA). Established in 1995, ENAU maintained the principles inherited from its two predecessors, EBAT and ITAAUT. Its ambitious objectives were developed during numerous preparatory seminars: to promote knowledge and nurture architectural research in order to build and enhance the stu- TEACHING THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE 105This content downloaded from 146.230.187.153 on Thu, 16 May 2019 09:08:44 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
'NOW.. low-r Figure 2 A Vernacular (see Figures incorporated courses in dents' artistic and scholarly human and social dimensions technological progress plines; to work toward aesthetic that reconciles Mediterranean cultural modernity and the latest architecture; and to contribute tion, improvement of tion of architectural and compliance with the guiding history of art and architecture elements of the cultural structive and valorized History courses in this students understand the events in a relative perspective, tic and architectural references of each civilization. The first-year course at ENAU follows an anthropo- logical approach to human settlements. It examines the phe- nomena underlying mankind's journey in time and space and their manifestations in the built environment, culture, and art from prehistory to the Middle Ages. The course begins by looking at primordial events such as massive migrations, the emergence of agricultural activity, the dis- covery of metals, and environmental control via the man- agement of goods and means of communication. It then proceeds to the great civilizations around the Mediter- ranean basin and, in particular, to the ones that most influ- enced art and architecture in North Africa. Starting from the premise that artistic and architectural productions reflect technical and industrial discoveries, social and demo- cratic revolutions, and cultural currents, the second year deals with economic and political upheavals and the effects of religious thought and technological progress on Euro- pean art and architecture from the fifteenth to the twenti- eth centuries. The focus on Europe is for the most part a legacy of colonial rule, but also stems from an understand- ing that this geocultural region presents useful case studies in architectural theory and practice. The third-year course is devoted to Islamic art and architecture. The mosque con- stitutes the central building type in this study of various aes- thetic trends. Notwithstanding the stated purpose of discovering the complexity and wealth of Islamic culture through art and architecture, the syllabus reveals yet again the lingering traces of the colonial heritage. It reaches lit- tle beyond the reductive contents of a chapter on Islamic art and architecture one would find in textbooks of the colo- nial period; only mainstream monuments are included. The shortcoming is largely due to a lack of consideration of the cultural, spatial, and temporal interrelationships that shed light on the complexity of artistic and architectural pro- ductions. Modern movements and twentieth-century archi- tecture form the topics of the fourth year. After an investigation of the origins, development, and main features of modern architecture, the course turns to the work of major architects, highlighting in the process the most notable trends such as Constructivism, Expressionism, Futurism, Purism, Brutalism, postmodern eclecticism, and deconstructivism. The examples are drawn from Europe and North America. Besides this four-year-long survey, two additional his- 106 JSAH / 62:1, MARCH 2003This content downloaded from 146.230.187.153 on Thu, 16 May 2019 09:08:44 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Figure 3 A street in Tozeur, Tunisia tory courses are required. "History and Theory of Urban- ism," which is taught in the third year, aims to provide the students with a set of references on cities and the schools of thought that have given birth to contemporary urban- ism. Once again, the scope is limited to Europe and North America and to the theoretical works of such authors as Le Corbusier, Louis Mumford, Leonardo Benevolo, and Franqoise Choay, ultimately marginalizing the urban reali- ties of Tunisia and drawing a reductive world picture. The second additional course is a seminar on vernacu- lar architecture, added as if to compensate for ENAU's Eurocentric curriculum. In it, fifth-year students are intro- duced to the vast architectural environment that commonly falls under the heading "architecture without architects" and constitutes an essential dimension of architectural cul- ture in North Africa. According to the interdisciplinary approach applied, the history of human settlements plays a decisive role in explaining how human and spiritual phe- nomena manifest themselves in architectural forms. Ver- nacular architecture provides a useful means to understand the interaction between a specific environment and a spe- cific society since it expresses patterns of production and of the division, construction, and expression of space. Sup- ported by theoretical frameworks, students conduct on-site research and analysis, producing original documents of pre- viously unrecorded buildings and sites. For example, many Berber villages are now considered part of the country's her- itage on a par with the better-known archaeological monu- ments, such as the Antonine baths in Carthage, the El Djem coliseum, the Dougga forum, the villas of Bulla Regia, and the mosque of Kairawan. The subject matter of the seminar parallels a broader national initiative that seeks to extend historic interest in vernacular architecture to the entire fab- ric of medinas and villages. Morocco The Ecole Nationale d'Architecture (ENA), established in 1980 in Rabat, is the only institution that trains architects in Morocco. As in Algeria and Tunisia, admission is by examination open to holders of a baccalaureate of science degree and the educational system is derived from French model. The program is spread over a six-year period divided into semesters and broken down into three cycles two years each. The last year is devoted to a thesis and diploma project. A survey of the history of art is taught the first two semesters and follows a format inherited from the colonial period, moving chronologically from prehis- tory to the present. The third semester focuses on Islamic architecture; local mosques and monuments are studied detail to illustrate the contribution of Morocco to Islamic architecture in general and to the architecture of the Maghrib in particular. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth semes- ters, students take a course called "History and City Devel- opment," which outlines the main trends in Western urbanism. The primary goal is to explicate the systems inherent in the urbanization process in order to provide a better understanding of the transformations experienced by traditional cities exposed to contemporary development. All the history courses are taught either by art historians, by architects who pursue extensive research on the history of architecture, or by architectural historians with doctoral degrees. The differences in faculty profiles allow for a diver- sity of approaches and accommodate the specific context of the school, paralleling the trends in the other architecture programs in the Maghrib. Prospects Among educators in the Maghrib, the history of art and architecture is unchallenged as the discipline that articu- lates the references required for sound design. As we have seen, the schools of architecture in the Maghrib still oper- TEACHING THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE 107This content downloaded from 146.230.187.153 on Thu, 16 May 2019 09:08:44 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
i T : ? ~nq rrw 2L- Figure 4 Rooftops Morocco ate along the lines of a pedagogy informed by the French system and based on notions developed in the self-centered environment of western Europe; the referents pertain to a universe that is largely foreign to the cultural realities of the region. The culture of the Maghrib can find no place in such a universe, or, at best, a very minor one, as a subchap- ter to the major narratives-reiterating the colonial posi- tion that it was inferior to the cultural heritage of Europe in general and of France in particular. The mimetic attitude adopted in teaching could only lead to inadequate solutions incompatible with the demands of the region's sociocultural conditions. The Tunisian and Algerian attempts to reform their history curricula should be viewed in this framework. Today the situation is even more complicated as the ref- erential context is continuously broadened by the crosscul- tural nature of the contemporary condition. The accelerated pace of this process increases fragmentation, creates discon- tinuity with cultural specificity, obstructs the smooth assim- ilation of marginalized cultures into the global scene, and leads to a confusion in codes. We thus find ourselves increas- ingly involved in a highly complex semiotic environment. The student-architect feels isolated from what he does, con- fronted with a collective imagination from which he is excluded. Yet, he is expected to expand the field of investi- gation of that collective imagination through the exercise of his own imaginative power. Consider the virtual vacuum in which a student born and reared in a southern village of the Saharian Atlas finds himself as he attends a lecture on the moldings of Baroque architecture or on the composition of aJacques-Louis David painting. How can he be expected to make meaningful connections between the referents of his own culture and those of a world he only glimpses through a projected slide? How can he manipulate polysemic notions in a process at once intelligent and sufficiently open to allow his imagination to produce new potentialities? The prob- lematic is, no doubt, of a pedagogic nature. Yet it addresses an aspect of the conceptual process, namely the move from concept to form; in semiotic terms, the articulation of the signified to its signifying. The question leads us to the core of Rudolph Arnheim's treatise on "visual thought" and the intrinsic relationships between perception and imagination.7 As long as the range of memorized forms is stable and coher- ent (that is, cognitively structured), notably by historic knowledge, the semiotic process will operate at the level of this conceptual articulation. But, against amnesia and cul- tural loss, history is helpless as images become isolated from their meanings and all forms become equivalent, hence unreliable for any conceptual choice. Furthermore, today the teaching of architecture inte- grates other disciplines and covers a great diversity of top- ics, from the simplest everyday objects to the most complex spaces. Architectural conception is influenced by the sweep- ing developments in science and technology and their implications in relation to our apprehension of phenomena underlying the environment, as well as by the new forms of expression those phenomena assume in their own evolu- tionary process, be they material, human, or spiritual, as observed by Christian Norberg-Schultz.8 What is the role of history in such a system? EPAU's recent program suggests that while architec- 108 JSAH / 62:1, MARCH 2003This content downloaded from 146.230.187.153 on Thu, 16 May 2019 09:08:44 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
ture is closely connected to science and technology, critical history alone helps organize the diverse relations binding architecture to science and technology. The same program argues, however, that due to inadequate initiation in the arts, lack of resources, and abstract forms of teaching, few students fully benefit from their architectural education. In response, the objectives of teaching history are outlined as "to widen the students' referential and cultural field; to re- read the history of architecture and urbanism from the per- spective of a specific historic and geographic context; and to understand the evolution of architecture."9 Theory and his- tory are thus connected in a dialectic relationship. Theory of architecture represents the philosophical, ideological, and linguistic support mechanism. It helps identify the actors and the movements that contribute to or influence archi- tectural and urban production, as well as crosscultural rela- tions. An anthropological dimension that would revalorize all cultural aspects discarded by the European discourse could further enrich the teaching of architectural history. To rehabilitate this complex heritage, historians are called upon to dig out of the archives the fundamental materials of Maghribi culture and to reevaluate them using appropriate methods. As reflected in the programs of EPAU (Algiers) and ENAU (Tunis), the introduction of vernacular archi- tecture as a fundamental part of the core curriculum, and the new emphasis on the art and architecture of the Maghrib, mark a significant move in this direction. Nevertheless, the process of opening the Maghribi horizon to a new way of teaching history may encounter difficulties due to the unavailability of reference materials and other resources, including methodologies that have been well tested elsewhere. Instructors of history are, for the most part, not only newcomers to the field, but they also face resistance in the form of pedagogical conventions and the professional emphasis of architectural education. In the Maghrib, we find ourselves grappling with a discipline that is still fundamentally in the making, and a great deal depends on the personal knowledge and initiative of history faculty, whether they are trained as historians specializing in architecture or architects specializing in history. Information on the teaching programs in Algeria and Morocco has been provided, respectively, by Prof. Youcef Kanoun, Director, Ecole Polytech- nique d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme, Algiers, and Prof. El Fakroune, Director of Studies, the Ecole Nationale d'Architecture, Rabat. I owe them my sincerest thanks for their kind contributions. TRANSLATED BY ABDELWAHAB SAFI Notes 1. The seminars organized by the Union Internationale des Architectes and the Institut Technologique d'Art, d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme and con- ducted in Hammamet, Tunisia, in May 1981, and by the Ecole Polytech- nique d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme and held in Algiers in January 1982 should be recognized for the development of the architecture schools in all three countries. Representatives from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco made recommendations involving, for example, the teaching of architectural his- tory through its practical application in relation to issues such as the defin- ition of architectural and urban policy in the Maghrib; the encouragement of all forms of research and exchange among the three countries; the use of local traditional materials; and the enhancement of architecture and urban- ism through elements drawn from the cultural heritages of the region. 2. Adolphe Cr6mieux, French minister of justice, signed a decree in 1870 granting French citizenship and voting rights to the Jews of Algeria. 3. Aycha Fileli, L'Enseignement des beaux-arts en Tunisie. Chemin d'une crise (Tunis, 1992), 121-30. 4. The situation stems in part from the fact that Morocco had never been incorporated into the Ottoman empire, unlike Algeria and Tunisia. Another factor may be the relatively late date of the French occupation. 5. Quoted in Marc Ferro, Histoire des colonisations (Paris, 1994), 182. 6. The Institut d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme de Constantine (IAUC) opened in 1974; the Universite Scientifique et Technologique d'Oran (USTO) in 1978; and the Institut d'Architecture de Stif (IAS), the Institut d'Architecture de Blida (IAB), and the Institut d'Architecture de Biskra (lAB) in 1980. 7. Rudolph Arnheim, Visual Thinking (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969). 8. Christian Norberg-Schultz, Meaning in Western Architecture (New York, 1975). 9. Ministrre de l'Enseignement Superieur et de la Recherche Scientifique, Direction des Enseignements, Programme d'architecture (Algiers, 1996). Illustration Credits Figures 1-4. Photographs by Zeynep ?elik TEACHING THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE 109This content downloaded from 146.230.187.153 on Thu, 16 May 2019 09:08:44 UTCAll use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms