Historic Development

The settlement was founded by the Arab Zirid dynasty in the tenth century and named al-Jaza'ir ("the islands") in reference to the islands facing the waterfront. Its fate locked to the rest of North Africa, it was ruled by successive Arab dynasties as a minor port until the sixteenth century, when it was made the capital of Algeria by the Ottomans.

A major turning point in the history of medieval Algiers was the recapture of Spain by Christians in the fifteenth century, which resulted in a wave of Muslim refugees to Algiers. The Muslims from Spain contributed further to the "Western" Islamic taste that already character-

ized the artistic and architectural culture, but perhaps more important to the livelihood of the city they established themselves as corsairs, or pirates, in response to the reconquista , the Spanish expulsion of Muslims to North Africa. To suppress the corsair activity, Spain imposed a levy on Algiers in 1510. With support from powerful Ottoman corsairs (first Aruj, then Khayr al-Din), however, the Spaniards were driven away and Algiers became an important port of the Ottoman Empire in 1529. Piracy remained the main income-generating activity for the city, providing for all sections of the population but also provoking frequent attacks from Europe.^[3]

Not much is known about pre-Ottoman Algiers. The walls of the Arab settlement might have corresponded to the later Ottoman walls, but the density was considerably lower than that of the post-sixteenth-century period. The Ottoman walls ran continuously for 3,100 meters and enclosed the town from all sides, including the sea. They were dotted with towers and had five gates: Bab Azzoun to the south, Bab al-Jadid to the southwest, Bab al-Bahr on the sea front, Bab Jazira on entry of the harbor, and Bab el-Oued to the north. The streets leading from the gates met in front of the Ketchaoua Mosque. The citadel at the highest point on the fortifications was built in 1556.^[4]

The road connecting Bab el-Oued to Bab Azzoun divided Algiers into two zones, in accordance with André Raymond's notion of "public" and "private" cities: the upper (private) city, called al-Gabal or "the mountain," and the lower (public) city, called al-Wata or "the plains."^[5] The lower part developed as an administrative, military, and commercial quarter (Fig. 3). It was inhabited mostly by Turkish dignitaries and upper-class families whose luxurious houses synthesizing Eastern and Western influences dotted the neighborhood. The Dar al-Sultan, or the Janina Palace, built in the 1550s as the residence of the dey, was also located in this area, together with the major mosques and the military barracks.^[6] The souks (markets) and warehouses were concentrated along the main streets, with the al-Souk al-Kabir (the road connecting Bab el-Oued and Bab Azzoun), only 3 meters wide, standing out as the largest artery of Algiers. Commercial structures also provided accommodations for foreigners and "bachelors" from other parts of the country. The commercial zone was shaped according to concentrations of different merchandise, and merchant associations were strong and well organized.^[7]

The upper city was comprised of approximately fifty small neighborhoods. As was typical of the decentralized Ottoman urban system

Figure 3.
View of the waterfront, c. 1830. In the foreground is the al-Jadid Mosque; to the right is
the al-Kabir Mosque. The Bab al-Bahr (Sea Gate) is to the left of the al-Jadid Mosque.

throughout the empire, every neighborhood was under the administrative responsibility of religious chiefs and qadis (judges), hence each community was controlled and supervised by its own leaders. The population was mixed. Old families with Andalusian and Moorish roots engaged in commercial and artisanal activities; kabyles formed the working class; Jews, who had three distinct neighborhoods in the upper casbah, were tradespeople. The presence of European consuls and businessmen, Saharans, and Christian slaves made the population of Algiers truly cosmopolitan.^[8]

The street network—considered thoroughly inadequate and irrational by the French—demonstrated a clear and functional hierarchy, made up of three distinct types of thoroughfares.^[9] It revealed a carefully articulated logic, a "system of filtered access."^[10] The streets of the lower town, catering to commercial, military, and administrative functions, differed in their physical character and the concentration of their activities: they were lined with shops, cafés, and large structures, and crowded

with people and merchandise all day long, but especially during morning hours. The arteries leading to the gates were particularly prominent. The transversal roads that climbed to the upper town formed the second category; as straight as the topography permitted, they cut through the urban tissue and provided efficient communication between the two sections of Algiers. The neighborhood streets made up the third and the largest category. Narrow, irregular, often with dead ends, they accommodated the introverted lifestyle that centered around the privacy of the home and the family; their configuration also enabled the use of gates to close off a neighborhood in the evenings to ensure its safety (Fig. 4). Respect for privacy dictated the design of facades as well: windows and doors were carefully located to prevent views into the houses across the street. Neighborhood streets had the lightest circulation; they functioned instead as playgrounds for children, especially boys. The citizens of Algiers took great pride in the cleanliness of their streets , where, they boasted, one could sit on the ground, even to eat.^[11]

The urban structure of Algiers, dominated by its short, crooked neighborhood streets, is a hallmark of the "Islamic city"—a problematic construction by European historians, which has been recently subjected to serious revision. Janet Abu-Lughod, the most convincing critic of this concept, has argued, nevertheless, that Islam shaped social, political, and legal institutions, and through them, the cities. She pointed out that gender segregation was the most important issue, and by encouraging it, Islam structured the urban space and divided places and functions.^[12] To put it schematically, in the "traditional Islamic city," public spaces, hence streets, belonged to men, and domestic spaces to women.

Gender-based separate "turfs" prevented physical contact and relegated the lives of the women to their homes. Privacy thus became a leading factor and resulted in the emergence of an interiorized domestic architecture. Regardless of the family's income level or the size of the building, the houses of the casbah were organized around a court surrounded by arcades (Figs. 5 and 6). This was the center, indeed the "principal room," the setting for the "theater of work and women's leisure, for children's games."^[13] Some houses had water fountains here, with water coming from the aqueducts that tapped the sources in the hills around Algiers.^[14] Entrance to the court was indirect and achieved through several labyrinthine lobbies. The largest room of the entry level could be used by the man of the house to entertain his friends without interfering with women's activities. The upper floors contained the

Figure 4.
Street view in the upper casbah.

Figure 5.
Plans and section of a modest house in the casbah. (1) Basement floor
plan: A, room; B, cistern; C, laundry room; (2) first-floor plan: A, entrance
hall; B, vestibule; C, patio; D, portico; F, G, I, rooms; (3) a half floor between
the first and second floors, where the latrines are located; (4) second-
floor plan: J, kitchen; K, L, M, rooms; (5) plan of the terrace level;
(6) section through the courtyard (X—Y).

Figure 6.
Courtyard view from an upper-class house (Dar Aziza) in the casbah.

main rooms, all opening onto the arcade. A stairway led to the roof terrace, which often had a cistern to collect rainwater.^[15]

Like the court, the terrace was an essential part of the house where women spent many hours of the day, working and socializing with their neighbors. The dense configuration of the casbah made it possible to pass from one terrace to the other and visit other homes without having to use the streets. The rooftops of the casbah functioned as an alternative public realm that extended over the entire city. In contrast to the interiorized court and the relatively contrived rooms, the rooftops opened up to the city, to the sea, to the world (Fig. 7). With the appropriation of this space by the women of Algiers, the casbah became divided horizontally into two realms: on the top, occupying the expanse of the entire city, were the women; at the bottom, the streets belonged to the men.

Algiers boasted religious and public buildings throughout. Right before the French conquest, there were about a dozen major mosques and sixty smaller ones.^[16] The primary mosques, namely the eleventh-century al-Kabir (Fig. 8), Ketchaoua from 1612 (transformed into a cathedral in 1838), Ali Bichnin from 1632, al-Jadid from 1660, and al-Sayyida, perhaps the most elegant of all the religious buildings in Algiers and reconstructed in 1794, were concentrated in the lower section.^[17] Nevertheless, the entire city was dotted with masjids (smaller prayer halls), endowing every neighborhood with its own prayer spaces. Minarets were placed strategically around the city so that the calls to prayer could be heard from every house. Religious schools were scattered throughout, as well as public fountains and hammams (baths). The management of all religious and public buildings was in the hands of the religious leaders, regulated by the waqf system.^[18]

Mosques and religious schools were frequented by the male population, but the baths were used by women on special days reserved for them. Their outings included visits to the tombs of venerated figures, some inside the city walls, some outside. It was not uncommon to see small groups of women passing through the streets of Algiers, creating an "exotic" scene much cherished by the French.

When the French occupied Algiers in 1830, they found a dense, fortified town, nestled against steep green hills facing the Mediterranean (Fig. 9). The city was crowded with monuments and public buildings, criss-crossed by an efficient street network, well maintained, and cosmopolitan. However, the urban image owed its uniqueness and

Figure 7.
(above) Rooftops of the casbah; sketch by Charles Brouty, 1933. 

Figure 8.
(below) Exterior view of al-Kabir Mosque, c. 1930. Part of this mosque was
demolished to make room for the Rue de la Marine. During the operation,
one row of interior columns was turned into an exterior colonnade.

Figure 9.
Nineteenth-century view of Algiers from the sea.

integrity to the residences, collectively an impressive mass of white, cubical structures that had evolved incrementally.