Book chapter
Broadening the Study of North Africa's Planning history: Urban Development and Heritage Preservation in Protectorate-era and Postcolonial Tunis
Urban Planning in North Africa, pp 115-132
01 Jan 2016
Abstract
The study of urban planning in French colonial North Africa remains in many ways dominated by major cities in Algeria and Morocco – chiefly Algiers and Casablanca – and in surveying existing literature one generally finds them functioning as physical and theoretical opposites. These two territories and their cities’ stories would thus seem to frame dialogues on the history of the region and its colonial-era development, exhibiting a strong presence in the consciousness of urban historians. On the whole, Algiers typically exemplifies violent imposition and change, while Casablanca is often cast as a culturally sensitive and innovative improvement. The case of neighbouring Tunisia, however, offers an alternative; its particularities reflect lessons learned from the earlier and more invasive Algerian experience, and at times inspired later developments in the much-celebrated and allegedly benign Moroccan context. Examination of Tunisia therefore challenges the longstanding Algeria-Morocco binary and facilitates a more complete understanding of planning and preservation practices exported from the metropole and rearticulated across diverse, yet associated, colonized terrains in North Africa. It furthermore provides an opportunity to bring this history, which is inexorably tied to issues of architectural style, modernity and conceptions of tradition, to Anglophone audiences for whom the particulars of Tunisia's past remain largely unexplored. This chapter therefore emphasizes the need for larger- scaled and inclusive perspectives, and for broader contextual approaches that acknowledge and incorporate local nuance, relationships, and complexity in built environments and their study.
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Details
- Title
- Broadening the Study of North Africa's Planning history: Urban Development and Heritage Preservation in Protectorate-era and Postcolonial Tunis
- Creators
- Daniel E. Coslett - Drexel University, Architecture, Design, and Urbanism
- Publication Details
- Urban Planning in North Africa, pp 115-132
- Series
- Design and the Built Environment
- Publisher
- Routledge; ABINGDON
- Number of pages
- 18
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Architecture, Design, and Urbanism
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000388823000011
- Other Identifier
- 991021880115404721
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Regional & Urban Planning
- Urban Studies