THE IMPACT OF COLONIAL ARCHITECTURAL AND URBAN PRINCIPLES ON HOUSING AND URBAN PLANNING OF THE CURRENT ALGERIAN CITIES. CASE OF M’SILA

Abstract

Architecture is the mirror through which we look at a society, its specificities, culture and identity. However in Algeria, like everywhere else in the Arab world, urban architecture generally and the domestic architecture in particular are at the crossroads, between the anvil of the cultural identity and the hammer of modernity. Due to the colonization, the Indigenous urban and domestic models of Hodna region, specifically the city of M'sila- considered to be like antiquated, exceeded and retrograde by the political elite- have evolved to give models similar to those of western colonial culture - currently recognized as contemporary and international in the direction of modern and modernistic. However, domestic models transmitted from the French colonial civilization did not reflect the identity of the Algerian user and his way of living. The spatial practices were in disagreement with the social practices. The present paper aims to show the imprint left by the colonial city on the current Algerian city. It also attempts to show with which conceptual gymnastics, M’silis adopt these colonial architectural spaces so that they answer as well as possible to their way of life, their culture and their modern aspirations