Le Corbusier, Orientalism, Colonialism

Author(s): Zeynep Çelik

Source: Assemblage , Apr., 1992, No. 17 (Apr., 1992), pp. 58-77
Published by: The MIT Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171225

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 Zeynep (elik
Le Corbusier, Orientalism,
Colonialism

Zeynep gelik is Associate Professor of Le Corbusier's fascination with Islamic architecture and ur-
Architecture at the New Jersey Institute banism forms a continuing thread throughout his lengthy
of Technology. She is the author of The career. The first, powerful manifestation of this lifelong in-
Remaking of lstanbul (University of terest is recorded in his 1911 travel notes and sketches from
Washington Press, 1986) and Displaying
the "Orient" - an ambiguous place, loosely alluding in
the Orient: Architecture of Islam at
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century discourse to the
Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs
lands of Islam in the Middle East and North Africa, and in
(University of California Press, 1992).
Corbu's case, solely to Istanbul and western Asia Minor.'

The formative role of this voyage d'Orient for Le Corbusier is

evident in his theoretical work and practice thereafter.2 Refer-
ences to Islamic architecture and urban forms appear in his
writings as early as 1915 and span his numerous publications,
among them L'Art dicoratifd'aujourd'hui (1925), La Ville
radieuse (1933), Quand les cathedrales etaient blanches
(1937), and Le Modulor (1949).3 A number of his early villas,
such as the Villa Jeanneret-Perret (1912), Villa Favre-Jacot
(1912), and Villa Schwob (1916), are inspired by the Otto-
man houses in terms of their interior organization around a
central hall, their simple spaces, massing, and blank street
fagades. The Mediterranean vernacular with an Islamic touch
surfaces sporadically in his built work - for example, in the
Weekend House (1935), the Roq and Rob project (1949),
and the Maison Jaoul (1956) - recording its most memo-
rable moment with the Notre Dame de Ronchamp (1950-
55), inspired by the sculptural mass of the Sidi Ibrahim
Mosque near El Ateuf in the Algerian countryside.

In one episode of Le Corbusier's career, however, Islam no

1. Le Corbusier, Fathma, 1939 longer only serves as a source of inspiration and reference, but

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 assemblage 17

becomes a living challenge: his projects for Algiers, developed

between 1931 and 1942, attempt to establish an ambitious
dialogue with Islamic culture, albeit within a confrontational
colonial framework. The most lyrical of Le Corbusier's urban
design schemes, these projects have been discussed at length
by architectural historians of modernism. Yet, aside from
brief references, their colonial context and ideological
implications for French policies in Algeria have remained
uninvestigated - a surprising oversight given their raison
d'etre: the decision to renovate the city in celebration of the
centennial of French occupation and in preparation for its
becoming the capital of French Africa.4 They have been ex-
plained as a parable of European modernism, as a poetic
response to the machine age, to syndicalism, and so forth,
and thus abstracted from the "political geography" of colonial
Algeria.5 Neither have the Algiers projects been analyzed as
part of Le Corbusier's infatuation with Islamic culture, on
one side, shaped by the legacy of nineteenth-century French
discourse on the "Orient," and on another, informed by the
Parisian avant-garde's preoccupation with the non-Western
2. Charles Brouty, sketch of the Other in the 1920s and 1930s.6 To fill this lacuna in the
casbah, Algiers
extensive literature on Le Corbusier, I will attempt to
read the work of perhaps the most controversial figure of
modernism from a shifted perspective informed by recent
postcolonial discourse.

Not surprisingly, architecture and urban forms constituted

the overriding theme in Le Corbusier's observations of other
cultures. Nevertheless, they were accompanied by an inquiry
into the social norms, in particular, religious and sexual ones
- two of the three realms historian Norman Daniel defines
as having characterized Islam for centuries in European dis-
course.7 It is my hope that an interconnected analysis of
Le Corbusier's ideas on these issues will provide a compre-
hensive understanding of the architect's vision of Islam as
the Other and reveal a new level of ideological complexity
within the Algiers projects.

Le Corbusier undoubtedly first encountered the "Orient"

through literature, travel accounts, and paintings. Certain
popular authors, among them Th ophile Gautier and Pierre
Loti, appear time and again in his writings. Furthermore, the
3. Postcard view of Algiers and illustrations in travel books must have shaped Le Corbusier's
its terraces expectations. His fascination with travel literature and its

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 ?elik

4. Le Corbusier, sketch of
Istanbul viewed from the sea

visual media is reflected in his own work, for example, by his that connected the shores of the city, thus finding something
use of Charles Brouty's drawings of the Algerian casbah in of the mental image he had constructed back in Europe. In-
addition to postcards in La Ville radieuse.8 As will be dis- deed, Corbu surpassed the formulas of Orientalist descrip-
cussed later, the impact of the Orientalist school of paintingtions by reading the urban form analytically: he studied the
becomes apparent in relation to Le Corbusier's studies of careful placement of monuments in respect to topography
Eugene Delacroix's Les Femmes d'Alger in the 1930s, but it that resulted in "summits formed by really enormous
is manifested earlier in Istanbul in his speculations about mosques" as well as their relationship to each other in the
Islamic women and the private life of the Muslim family. calculated composition of the skyline."

In a rerun of innumerable travel accounts, Le Corbusier firstLike Istanbul, Algiers makes a powerful impression from the
viewed Istanbul from a boat in May 1911. "Thus we did ap- sea - one that has also been recorded unfailingly in travel
literature. Theophile Gautier described the approach:
proach by sea," he wrote, "like in old times, to watch all these
things unfold."9 This was a strategy carefully planned by
A whitish blur, cut into a trapezium, and dotted with silver sparkles
Corbu, in order to be welcomed by an image already formed
- each one of them a country house - began to be drawn against
in his mind by everything he had read. Nineteenth-century the dark hills: this is Algiers, Al-Djezair, as the Arabs call it. We
travel books on the Ottoman capital followed a set pattern, approach; around the trapezium, two ocra-colored ravines define
the opening pages describing the striking impressions of thethe lower edges of the slopes, and shimmer with such a lively light
city from the sea, divided into three settlements by water, that they seem as though they are beds to two sun torrents: these
with Istanbul on one side of the Golden Horn, Galata on theare the trenches. The walls, strangely crenellated, ascend the height
other, and Uskiidar yet farther away on the Asian banks of of the slope. ... Two palm trees and four windmills stand out in
the Bosphorus; they talked at length about the harmony of contrast: the palm tree, symbol of the desert and the patriarchal
colors, the skyline defined by domes and minarets, and the life; the windmill, symbol of Europe and civilization.
reflections of the built and natural forms on the water. To Le
Algiers is built as an amphitheater on a steep slope, such that its
Corbusier, then, this was a familiar moment, much rehearsed houses seem to have their feet on the heads of others. Nothing is
in his imagination.'0 He knew what he wanted to see: stranger for the French eye than this superposition of terraces in
the color of chalk. ... When the distance gets smaller, we perceive
I want Stamboul to sit upon her Golden Horn all white, as raw as
amidst the general glare the minaret of a mosque, the dome of a sufi
chalk, and I want light to screech on the surfaces of domes which
convent, the mass of a great edifice, the Kasbah.14
swell the heap of milky cubes, and minarets should thrust upward,
and the sky must be blue. ... Under the bright light, I want a city all
Le Corbusier's drawings and descriptions of Algiers similarly
white, but the green cypresses must be there to punctuate it. All the
move from distant views to inner city (echoing again the
blue of the sea shall reflect the blue of the sky."
travel literature). The architect's main focus, however, was to
On that particular day, however, it rained, the sea turned show how his project would complement and enhance the
gray, the Golden Horn looked muddy, mosques dirty, and beauty of Algiers, whose "real face" would be a front de mer
houses flimsy. When he landed on the shore, Corbu was in his proposals as throughout the city's history." His essay
disappointed even further by the cosmopolitan atmosphere Poe'sie sur Alger thus begins with an argument about reincor-
of the streets, "swarming with a crowd of Greeks, Germans, porating poetry into urbanism, but follows immediately with
a
and French, all that suspect blend of the Leventine." Yet the description of the city from the sea:
burden of Orientalist tradition compelled him to partake in We are in Africa. This sun, this space created by azure and water,
the collective passion expressed by other Europeans before this foliage have formed the set for the actions of Salambo, Scipion
him: "I had to work at it," he admitted, "and most of all I and Annibal, together with those of Kheir-ed-dinn the Barbaresque.
wanted to love this place.""2 As witnessed by his numerous The sea, the chain of the Atlas Mountains, the slopes of Kabyle un-
sketches, Le Corbusier often relived the experience of fold their blue displays. The earth is red. The vegetation consists of
palm trees, eucalyptus trees, gum trees, cork oaks, olive trees and
viewing Istanbul from across the sea on the commuter ferries

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 assemblage 17

fig trees; the perfumes, jasmine and mimosa. From the first plan to
the confines of the horizons, the symphony is imminent. ... Build-
ing their Casbah, the Turks [sic] have created a masterpiece of
architecture and urbanism.'6

Elsewhere, Le Corbusier described the casbah as having

made the site: "The casbah of Algiers ... has given the name
Algiers-the-White to this glittering apparition that welcomes
at dawn the boats arriving to the port. Inscribed in the site, it
is irrefutable. It is in consonance with nature.""

The aesthetic appeal in the image of these two cities, created

by the powerful dialogue between geography and archi-
tectural form, turned them into unique poems. In Istanbul
the poetry resided in the "unforgettable spectacle" of the
urban form, with the light coming from behind and giving
5. Le Corbusier, sketch of
the city a monolithic appearance." In Algiers the quality of
Suleymaniye, Istanbul
light reflecting on the buildings and the landscape gave the
city its poetry, and complementing the geography, the vegeta-
tion, and the perfume of the air, created a "symphony."'9

Even in the early stages of his career, for Le Corbusier good

urbanism meant formal unity. In Istanbul this unity was
achieved by the modular design system that, following an
"elementary geometry," underlay the composition of the
great mosque complexes; cubic masses covered by domes
acted as modules, being "centered, measured, and propor-
tioned in relation to the sanctuary they belong to."20 The in-
tegrity of the urban form depended, therefore, on the cubic
elements, making Istanbul a masterpiece of urbanism, be-
cause, Le Corbusier stated, "great architecture is cubic."2'

Two decades later, Le Corbusier observed a similar unity in

Algeria, again based on a module, the square-shaped cell.
6. Le Corbusier, sketch of He commented on the cellular organization of Ben-Isghem,
Ben-lsghem a town in Mzab, "What an order, what a decision, what a
sensible tool to the service of mankind." And he provided
an architectural formula for happiness:22

the key = the cell

= men

= happiness

Displaying the historic fascination of Europe with Islam, Le

Corbusier attempted to explain architectural and urban
forms in terms of religious beliefs. Unversed in Muslim
philosophy, he recycled the cliche that the Muslim religion

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 (elik

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unity of religion. He considered this a most reasonable expla-

nation because "Asia [was] forever religious" - an ahistorical
if widespread reading that fixed the entire continent in some
ambiguous place in the past. Then, repeating another cliche,
he suggested that the module was derived from the nomadic
tent and "religion elevate[d] it to the infinite."23

Le Corbusier's sole insightful observation on the relationship

between Muslim religion and built form might be found
in his global diagram for the world of Islam, that is, in his
discussion of the unity of religion as expressed in the physical
and symbolic "pull" of Mecca: "the orientation of the axis of
every mosque on Moslem soil toward the black stone of
Kaaba is an awe-inspiring symbol of the unity of faith."24 The
mihrab of every mosque was indeed "a door to the Kaaba."25
Undoubtedly, Le Corbusier's obsession with the Kaaba also
derived from its simple, cubic form, which he illustrated in La
Ville radieuse with a postcard, but which he had studied ear-
lier while sketching a tile in the Valide Mosque in Istanbul.8. Le Corbusier, sketch of a tile
in the Valide Mosque, Istanbul
Le Corbusier's sporadic notes on Islam, otherwise, cannot
be considered as products of deep thinking and analytical
observation, but they reveal the young architect's claim to a
disposition of superiority toward other cultures. His choice
of words in these brief statements tells more perhaps than
their subject. He thus referred in Istanbul to the Muslims'
"poignant mysticism before Allah," their "loud laments ... in
the ritual rhythms of worship," "their supplication to the Un-
known, the mournful credo of their beautiful prayers," and
"the swooning of their souls and those undulating recitals of

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 assemblage 17

all the muezzins on their minarets when they chant and call fabrics, his deliberate determination in Algeria to turn away
the devoted to prayer."26 His reference to a performance of from monumental architecture altogether should be under-
whirling dervishes - a ritual transformed dramatically in the stood in reference to this discourse.
nineteenth century for touristic consumption and one often
In Istanbul Le Corbusier's eye and pen had wandered from
drawn and painted by European artists - evokes scenes that
the monuments to the side streets defined by blank garden
extend the imagination: "We have attended a fiery religious
walls, to the konaks, large mansions that he considered archi-
service by whirling Dervishes, of which I will say nothing just
tectural masterpieces, to the simple houses. He rediscovered
now because otherwise I would never finish.""27
the solitude of the residential streets of Istanbul in Algeria,
Compared to his curiosity in all aspects of life in the where, again, the houses - although much different in their
Ottoman capital, Le Corbusier maintained a marked dis- architectural character - were divorced from the street.
tance from the local culture in Algiers. In part stemming "The [Algerian] street is an anonymous corridor," he de-
from his mission to redesign the city, his analytical observa- clared; life and poetry flourished inside the house.32 The nar-
tions were keyed to vernacular urban and architectural row streets of the casbah, effectively sheltered from the sun
forms. He did not, as in Istanbul, indulge in speculations by the projections of the buildings that lined them, were only
about society or religion, neither did he record eyewitness public passages and places to shop. Yet a "miracle" occurred
accounts of religious rituals, although a populist version of when the door of an Arab house opened onto a lovely court-
Orientalist vocabulary surfaced every now and then in his yard, one or two stories high, surrounded by sculpted arches.
writings.28 Le Corbusier's references to the religious monu- Here silence reigned. "The street [was] abolished.""33 By ignor-
ments (the "high" art) of Algiers were brief and within the ing the street, that "violent passage," the Arab house afforded
context of his own proposals. For example, he envisioned a life in coolness (fralcheur) and tranquility. Furthermore,
clearing the area around the two mosques on the Place du Arabs had "conquered the view of the sea for every house"
Gouvernement and returning them to their original condi- by means of roof terraces that "created a roof over the city."
tion, sitting on a rock base. The Marine quarter would harbor The casbah thus became an "immense stairway, a tribune in-
"indigenous institutions" in a "vast ensemble of new [and] vaded at night by millions of adorers of nature." Comparing
grand Muslim architecture, as monumental as it would be the Arab city to the European, the "adorable courtyard" of
picturesque.'"29 the Arab house to the "sinister courtyard" of the European
apartment buildings, the protected passageways to the
This detachment from monumental architecture in Algiers
"jumbled streets," Le Corbusier concluded that "the 'civi-
was connected to current debates among the Parisian intelli-
lized' live like rats in holes," whereas "the 'barbarians' live in
gentsia, especially around the dialogue between ethnography
solitude, in well-being." Juxtaposing his own proposal for the
and surrealism in the 1920s. Questioning "reality" and
d redents housing in Algiers with the patterns offered by the
searching for alternatives to local (European) customs and
casbah, he summarized the lessons he had learned: "terraces,
truths, surrealist ethnographers had turned to the non-
suspended gardens, grand bays open to a landscape of dreams
Western, abandoning, in the process, the distinction between
conquered by height."34
"high" and "low" culture.3o Influential and rigorous, the de-
bate generated a new emphasis on ethnography, as witnessed Westernizing transformations in Istanbul's architecture and
by the extensive literature from the 1920s and 1930s. Not urban forms, a process that had begun in the mid-nineteenth
surprisingly, the majority of the fieldwork was carried out in century, created mixed reactions in the young Le Corbu-
the colonies, among them Algeria.31 Indigenous house forms sier.3 The hybrid and modern look of Pera, a former Genoese
and settlement patterns constituted major topics of interest settlement to the north of the Golden Horn, inhabited
to ethnographers; their publications were richly illustrated mostly by Europeans and non-Muslim Ottoman minorities
with examples from vernacular architecture, analyzed in in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, intrigued
terms of daily life and rituals. Although Le Corbusier had him as "a compressed city with the allure of New York"
always displayed a critical sensitivity to vernacular forms and whose buildings "thrust upward like dominoes,.., nothing

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 (elik

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10. Le Corbusier, sketch of Pera

Westernization. "The catastrophe that will ine

Istanbul [is] the advent of modern times," he
boul will die. The reason is that she is always
being rebuilt," he continued, diagnosing corre
factor behind the fast pace of Istanbul's trans
attributed the poor quality of the new archite
neighborhoods cleared by fires to the inabilit
companies (especially the German ones) comm
do the work." Another loss was the "majestic
wash" in mosque interiors to the "ignominy o
9. Le Corbusier, sketch and revolting painted ornamentation" - the s
comparing the European Young Turks, according to Le Corbusier."3 W
city with the Arab city tion between political reform agendas and pa
is far-fetched, Corbu's critique was broader; h
turn-of-the-century Ottoman adoption of Eur
soften [ing] the severity of [their] height."that,
Pera in
wasorder to replace the purity (the mode
"beautiful
historical forms,
and imposing."36 Other Europeans had, of course, lamented disguised these truly "moder
masks of decoration.
the Westernized appearance of Galata as not fitting into an In 1925, back in Paris, L
condemned
Oriental imagery. Gautier, for example, had the modernization programs of th
noted these
republic
apartment buildings as negative developments: that had succeeded the Ottoman Emp
ring again to whitewash: "And already today
Some ugly houses, of six and seven stories, line the road on one
and the monument to Mustapha-Kemal! Even
side, and rejoice a superb view, of which they are quite unworthy.
The die is cast: and
It is true that these houses pass for the best in Constantinople one more centuries-old civiliz
ruin. No more
that Pera is proud of them - judging them (rightly) as fit to figurewhitewash in Turkey for a long
come! "0
honorably at Marseilles or Barcelona, or even Paris; for they are,
in fact, of an ugliness the most civilized and modem.37
Le Corbusier expressed similar sentiments about the destruc-
Elsewhere, Le Corbusier echoed those Europeans
tion of Algiers, who de-
for which he blamed the French interventions.
plored the destruction of the old city by"The last fifty years of European
modernization andcolonization," he argued

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 assemblage 17

in 1942, "abolished without any regrets the natural richness prominent engineer working for the city of Algiers, argued in
and petrified the new city into a desert with its crowded 1933 that the city must be renovated by means of a "sane ar-
houses leaning onto noisy streets."4' Like the cities of Europe chitecture, following Aryan traditions," because of "its posi-
and America, Algiers had sickened, for it had been torn of tion on the axis of France."46 Furthermore, Le Corbusier's
its poetry by the engineers.42 Nonetheless, Le Corbusier re- sketches depict the idea of la grande France, which stemmed
spected the original achievements of the French colonial from an "imperial" French doctrine and a colonial conscious-
oeuvre and credited the first six decades of French rule with ness developed in 1930, and which culminated in the Co-
good urbanism. He had already clarified his standpoint in La lonial Exposition of 1931.47 As Paul Reynaud, Minister of
Ville radieuse, where, including a plan that indicated the first Colonies, expressed at the time, "the essential aim of the Ex-
interventions (the Place d'Armes and the main east-west ar- position is to give the French people consciousness of their
tery), he expressed his admiration of the early colonial urban- Empire. ... Everyone among us must feel he is a citizen of
ism: "The military rulers of the conquest knew how to make the greatest France [la plus grande France] that expands to
beautiful city plans. They knew how to urbanize."43 While Le five parts of the world."48
Corbusier's scheme to obtain the commission by associating
Given Le Corbusier's loyalty to the idea of la grande France
the current administration with the glorified conquerors is
and to French rule in Algeria, it makes sense to analyze his
quite transparent in this statement made on the centennial
projects within the framework of colonial planning traditions
of the occupation, his repetition of the same theme in vari-
in the earlier part of the century. In the history of French
ous contexts reflects his firm support of French colonial poli-
colonial urbanism, the name of Hubert Lyautey, governor-
cies. Celebrating the mission civilisatrice in Morocco, he
general of Morocco from 1912 to 1925, stands out. Under the
praised the instruction, loyalty, and justice brought by the
rule of Marshal Lyautey and the supervision of the architect
French, as well as the network of roads and the cities they
Henri Prost, France had undertaken extensive experiments in
had built - all "signs of civilization." These achievements,
urban planning that expanded Rabat, Fez, and Casablanca
he argued, had created an atmosphere of admiration, enthu-
according to a well-developed social strategy. Certain ideas
siasm, and respect among the Arabs:
and passions connected Lyautey and Prost to Le Corbusier.
The Arab discovered his educator, his instructor. He did not bat an Like Corbu, Prost had visited Istanbul as a young man while
eyelid of doubt. With two hands outstretched, leaving all his hope- studying at the academy in Rome, which he had convinced to
less deceit behind, he loved, admired, understood the new times and finance a study of Hagia Sophia - not as a monument in iso-
respected France with all his conviction. Architecture and urbanism lation, but in its urban context. The historical and cultural
can be the great educator.44 richness of the Ottoman capital as well as its formal structure
had indeed appealed to Prost and underlined his proposal for
In accordance with the colonial mission, Le Corbusier's
a restitution project for the neighborhood around Hagia
Algiers - the "French capital of Africa," the "head of French
Sophia.49
Africa," and the "phoenix of France ... reborn out of the
ashes of the mother country" - would reinforce French rule Lyautey and Le Corbusier shared an admiration for the ver-
not only in Algeria, but throughout the entire continent.45 nacular architecture of the Islamic Mediterranean, which
The architect expressed this view passionately in his writings, reflected on their implementations and proposals in the
but also in several drawings where an axis originating in the historic fabrics of the Arab cities they were involved in, as
north continues into Africa, connecting France, from Le well as on their preference for modernist aesthetics. Lyautey
Havre via Paris to Marseilles and across the Mediterranean, to confirmed the latter point clearly: "Islam gave me," he de-
Algiers and to Gao. Sketches of skyscrapers indicate the cities clared in 1931, "a taste for great white walls and I could
along the axis, proposing the unification of greater France almost claim to be one of the forerunners of Le Corbusier."50
through the new architecture and urbanism. The notion of a Furthermore, Lyautey and Le Corbusier both believed in
geographical axis between France and Algiers was not unprec- the central role urbanism played in changing people's lives.
edented in colonial discourse; for example, Cotereau, a Lyautey's urbanism aimed to accommodate his new colonial

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 (elik

12, 13. Le Corbusier,

diagrammatic maps showing
geographical axis between
France and Algiers

. .. ........ ...- .- - : --ii- iiii-: i: :::

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11. Le Corbusier, plan showing

the first colonial interventions
in Algiers

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 assemblage 17

order, based on diversity, where people of different social and This major difference between the two cultures required the
cultural circumstances would coexist. His widely quoted separation of the indigenous from the European populations
statement "A construction site is worth a battalion" meant in the city:
that city planning would replace the older colonial policies Large cities, boulevards, tall fagades for stores and homes, installa-
based on military force."1 The strong social engineering tion of water and electricity are necessary, [all of] which upset the
agenda in Le Corbusier's urbanism, especially in reference indigenous city completely, making the customary way of life im-
to the new man of the machine age, is well known. Yet his possible. You know how jealous the Muslim is of the integrity of
understanding of diversity, which also seems to imply region- his private life; you are familiar with the narrow streets, the fagades
alism and enables us to understand the Algiers projects bet- without opening behind which hides the whole of life, the terraces
ter, has remained more obscure. On the title page of La Ville upon which the life of the family spreads out and which must there-
fore remain sheltered from indiscreet looks.56
radieuse, Le Corbusier defined urban plans as "the rational
and poetic monuments set up in the midst of contingencies": Consequently, Lyautey made the conservation of the Moroc-
"places, peoples, cultures, topographies, climates... only to can medinas one of his priorities in urban planning. He an-
be judged as they relate to the entity - 'man."' The specific- nounced proudly, "Yes, in Morocco, and it is to our honor,
ity of some of these contingencies in Algiers - the place, the we conserve. I would go a step further, we rescue. We wish
topography, the climate - surfaces in the unprecedented to conserve in Morocco Beauty - and it is not a negligible
lyricism of Le Corbusier's Algiers projects. The other contin- thing."57 Behind these compassionate words, nevertheless, lay
gencies - different peoples and cultures - help to explain an economic goal: the medinas were essential for the develop-
the parallels between Le Corbusier's and Lyautey's urbanism ment of tourism, especially for the romantic travelers and
in the colonies.
artists who would be eternally thankful to Lyautey.58

The two principles that Lyautey had outlined for Prost at the The International Congress on Urbanism in the Colonies,
outset of the latter's arrival in Morocco in 1913 were, accord- held during the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Paris, recorded
ing to legend, to preserve the medinas in respect to the local the powerful influence of Lyautey's ideas and practice on the
culture and aesthetics and to build new, modern cities for the new rules of planning in the French colonies. Among the
European populations.52 Both of these principles underlie the goals of the congress, as listed by Prost, were "tourism and
structure of Le Corbusier's plans for Algiers, leading to the conservation of old cities" and "protection of landscapes and
separation of the French from the indigenous people, a phe- historic monuments"; the "wish list" of the participants in-
nomenon Janet Abu-Lughod has labeled "urban apartheid" cluded a respect for the beliefs, habits, and traditions of vari-
in reference to Moroccan cities.53 ous races and the creation of separate settlements.59 By then,
the implementation of such principles had already expanded
For Lyautey, the preservation of the Arab town held several to other colonial cities. In Algiers, for example, the casbah
meanings, some emotional, some practical. Above all, he sa- was placed under a special regime destined to conserve its
vored the aesthetic qualities of the Arab town, its "charm and picturesque character to promote tourism.60
poetry," which he attributed to the sophistication of the cul-
Like Lyautey's Moroccan medinas, Le Corbusier's Algerian
ture.54 To understand the difference between this culture and
casbah was "beautiful," "charming," and "adorable" and it
the European one was essential to building a colonial policy
"never, no, never must be destroyed."61 Its historic signi-
that would endure:
ficance as the "place of European and Muslim life during
The secret ... is the extended hand, and not the condescending centuries of picturesque struggles" was held to be of great in-
hand, but the loyal handshake between man and man - in order to terest for the entire world.62 Therefore, its historical and aes-
understand each other.... This [Arab] race is not inferior, it is dif- thetic values, the vestiges of Arab urbanism and architec-
ferent. Let us learn how to understand their difference just like they ture, should be protected to enhance the "gigantic" touristic
will understand them from their own side.55 potential of Algiers for western and central Europe.63 The

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 Celik

problem of the casbah was, however, an admittedly difficult horizontality of the former into a vertical element. Repeating
one. This was mainly due to overpopulation caused by the the concept in his later plans, Corbu himself emphasized the
influx of peasants escaping the miserable conditions in the essential separation of the two settlements: "This artery will
countryside; the casbah sheltered four to six times more be separated entirely from the indigenous town, by means of
residents than it could contain, sometimes twenty persons a level difference."70
in a single room, according to Le Corbusier's figures.64 If
Algiers was to become the capital of French Africa, the misery Le Corbusier's dramatic segregation of the casbah has been
of its Muslim population had to be addressed, the casbah commonly interpreted by architectural historians as a sym-

"purified" and reorganized, its population reduced.6 bolic gesture. Tafuri sees in Corbu's treatment of the casbah
a "timeless model ... the metaphor of an ancient time,"
Le Corbusier thus proposed to preserve the upper casbah in which is "foreign to time, foreign to the modern, indifferent
its integrity, while restricting the densities and intervening in to its destinies."71 These words from one of the most per-
the patterns of use, following the planning decisions made ceptive historians of our day belong, paradoxically, to the
before him.66 A number of buildings were to continue to Orientalist tradition that attributes timelessness and a
function as residences, but others were to be converted into prehistorical existence to the Islamic city, denying it change
centers of arts and crafts in order to initiate an indigenous and process and accentuating the difference between the dy-
"renaissance." Indeed, an impressive number of new schools namism of the European modern and the stasis of the an-
and workshops were established by the colonial authorities in cient Muslim. No doubt, Le Corbusier's new Algiers would
the 1920s and 1930s to develop local crafts - embroidery, have stood in sharp contrast to the Muslim town, but his
leatherwork, metalwork, copperwork, woodwork, carpentry, reading of the casbah was far more complex than Tafuri sug-
pottery, masonry, and decorative arts - with the goal of gests. Emphasizing its cosmopolitan nature and its fascinat-
increasing their commercial value.67 The lower casbah, on ing process of change, Le Corbusier praised the casbah for its
the other hand, would be expurgated of its slums; only the houses that recorded the "progress of styles, of periods, of his-
mansions would be preserved, converted into specialized tory.'"72 Nevertheless, the implications of the project carry the
museums for the indigenous arts. Parks and gardens would colonial premises much farther than does Lyautey's work: Le
replace the areas cleared from the slums, but the existing Corbusier's plan establishes constant visual supervision over
street network would be maintained to link the high casbah the local population and clearly marks the hierarchical social
to the Marine quarter and to the harbor.68 Following the order onto the urban image, with the dominating above and
Moroccan precedent, the Muslim residents of Algiers would the dominated below.73
be strictly separated from the Europeans.
The colonial planners envisioned the green belts as places
The policy of establishing separate cities was carried through where "contact and collaboration" between races would not
to such an extent that written into the wish list of the partici- be prohibited: they were the potential sites for interaction.74
pants in the 1931 urbanism congress was the creation of a Le Corbusier assigned this function to the starting point of
"green belt," sometimes referred to as cordon sanitaire (a his air belt, the Marine quarter, between the casbah and the
term that recalls the practice of evacuating Europeans from streets of Bab Azoun and its eastern extension, Bab el Oued.
epidemic-ridden towns in the Algerian countryside and Cleared and rebuilt with large d redents blocks over parks and
enforcing quarantine on local people).69 Le Corbusier gardens, harboring the "business center" and "civic center,"
reinterpreted the idea of the green belt while wholeheartedly the quarter would provide the link between the European
acknowledging its necessity. In his Obus plan of 1932, for and the Arab cities. Certain Arab institutions, such as offices,
example, a giant linear structure that connects the hillside shops, and meeting halls, would also be placed here.75 The
residences for Europeans to the cite d'affaires in the Marine location was most convenient for overlapping functions,
quarter forms a bridge over the casbah, transforming the because of its proximity to the port, its centrality in terms
sanitary green belt into an air band and reversing the of future growth, and its significance as a historical axis for

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 assemblage 17

14-16. Le Corbusier, three views

of the Obus plans

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 (elik

Arabs.76 At the time of Le Corbusier's involvement in Algiers,

this crowded quarter, occupied by residents of diverse nation-
alities, was the most problematic area for the city admini-
stration due to a lack of "material and moral hygiene."77
Provisions had already been made for its "destruction and
complete reconstruction."" Le Corbusier's cleansing would
be urban and social, at once providing for controlled activities
for Arabs and racial contact in an ordered environment.

Le Corbusier's projects would thus endow the colonial ad-

ministration in Algiers with a new apparatus for enhancing its
political power by means of an urban order that facilitated su-
pervision. In addition, a militaristic signal lies in the curving
forms of the building complexes, emphasized by the architect
himself in calling the plan "Obus" in reference to the trajec-
tory of an exploding shell. This is not a simple, light-hearted
metaphor and should not be dissociated from its political
context, from the violent confrontations between the French
army and the local resistance forces during the one hundred
years of occupation. Curiously enough, the curvilinear forms
of Le Corbusier's project relate to another major aspect of
French colonialism in Algeria: its obsession with Algerian
women. Under colonial rule, the European fascination with
Muslim women had led to controversial policies, among
them penetrating the privacy of Muslim family life by "liber-
POES IE
ating" the women. Women were, for example, strongly
encouraged (and at times forced) to discard their veils -
perhaps the most loaded symbol of Islam. The rationale was
that if women were conquered, the core structure of this
unyielding society would be destroyed, leading to its total
surrender.79

Le Corbusier himself provoked the association between his 17. Le Corbusier, sketch for the
projects and Algerian women by describing at length his en- cover of Podsie sur Alger
chantment with the women of the casbah and by likening the
city of Algiers to a female body: "Algiers drops out of sight,"
he noted, viewing the city from a boat leaving for France
in 1934, "like a magnificent body, supple-hipped and full-
breasted. ... A body which could be revealed in all its mag-
nificence, through the judicious influence of form and the
bold use of mathematics to harmonize natural topography
and human geometry."8s The cover sketch for Poe'sie sur Alger
depicts a unicorn-headed (?), winged female body - supple-
hipped and full-breasted - (the city/poem?) caressed gently

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 assemblage 17

18. Le Corbusier, sketch of

Turkish women, Istanbul

by a hand (the architect's hand?) against the skyline of new treasures in burgundy, ebony silk . .. just as exquisite as Per-
Algiers. This type of analogy, which claims mastery over the sian cats," "charming in their mysterious black veils, their dis-
feminized body of the colonized territory (in this case, quieting anonymity of identical silks, their hidden treasures
claiming that its beauty can be reincarnated through the all alike.""4
architect's intervention), is not unprecedented in the French
The Muslim women of Algiers rekindled Corbu's memories
discourse on Algeria. One author, writing at the turn of the
of his youth, with all the associations. He now used the veil
century, called Algeria "a wise and dangerous mistress," but as a shorthand to denote the local culture. He included veiled
one who "exudes a climate of caresses and torpor," suggesting
women in his sketches to highlight the poetry and the duality
that control over her mind and body was essential.81 Although
of the city. But more, he also consistently represented the
the feminization of the "Orient" is a common theme in Eu-
casbah as a veil in his diagrams, thus visually feminizing the
ropean descriptions and representations of Islam, the blatant
colonized Muslim society. He was, of course, neither the first
use of the word maftresse is specific to the colonies.
nor the last to do so; in 1933 Lucienne Favre, a French
Le Corbusier was immersed in the discourse that attributed woman writer, had, for example, described the casbah as
a lascivious sexuality to Islamic culture. This was one of the "the vamp of North Africa," bearing a "capricious feminine
attractions that had drawn him to Istanbul in his youth. Re- charm" and a great "sex appeal."81
enacting the scenes he had read of in books and had seen in
Le Corbusier's experience with the women of the casbah con-
paintings and repeating another favorite association between
trasted with the impenetrable distance he had encountered
prison and palace, he fantasized about the life in the seraglio,
in Istanbul. Now as an older and more self-confident man,
which would be filled with "divine, thrilling odalisques ...
and one bearing the psychology of being French in a colony,
[wearing] around their naked ankles and arms ... solid gold
he visited the brothels, sketched women in the nude, and
rings ... like serpents. Loaded with gold and their nails
claimed to have discovered here "the nobility of the nude
painted in vermilion, they suffocated from waiting so long in
thanks to the plastic structure of certain females of the
their magnificent cages.""82 The houses on the quiet streets of
casbah under the intense but nuanced light of Algiers."86
Istanbul were "perhaps... prisons of odalisques," evoking in
Jean de Maisonseul, who later became the curator of the
young Corbu feelings of "a lightly painful, melancholic, be-
Museum of Modern Art in Algiers and who had accompa-
neficent poem.'83
nied Le Corbusier on his sight-seeing trips, witnessed to his
The women of Istanbul, inaccessible to Le Corbusier, in- astonishment the architect's purchase of popular postcards,
trigued his sense of mystery further with their veils. He could "horrible ... in raw colors, pinks and greens, representing
barely make out their eyes through the pieces of cloth that indigenes nues in an oriental decor."87 Such postcards, depict-
enhanced their beauty: "innocent eyes of gazelles," he ex- ing women in the public realm, in prison settings that were
claimed, "delicious." He was more ambivalent about the long homes, involved in "typical" rituals and poses - all loaded
robes. At times he described the women in chadors as "im- with sexual innuendos - have been studied by postcolonial
pressive bats, with the folds of their capes framing their heads critic Malek Alloula as expressions of the Frenchman's fanta-
and then fading away from their hips," reminiscent of "those sies about the Algerian woman."8 In light of the previous dis-
fiends at the towers of Notre Dame"; at others, as "hidden cussion, Le Corbusier's appropriation of these public images

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 (elik

~I

19. Le Corbusier, sketch of the 20. Le Corbusier, sketch of the

waterfront, Algiers casbah, Algiers

21, 22. Le Corbusier, sketches of

Algerian women

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 assemblage 17

bears some connection to his private life; nevertheless, he Notes 4. William Curtis, for example,
also relied on them for models, in addition to his own in mentions the "blatant colonialism"
I am grateful to the director and the
staff of Fondation Le Corbusier for of the project, but does not ar-
situ sketches, in several paintings. One such painting from
their assistance and to the National ticulate it. See William Curtis,
1939, Fathma, displays two dominant themes of colonial Modern Architecture since 1900
Endowment for the Humanities
representations of women in popular and "high" art. Here, for a travel grant to Paris. Earlier ver- (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice
Fathma, the generic Algerian woman, sits on a roof terrace sions of this paper were presented at Hall, 1990), 209. Mary McLeod pro-
among a clutter of objects with an Islamic allure, revealing the Fine Arts Department, Harvard vides a background to the "assimila-
University (March 1989), Society of tion" debate without situating Le
her double image: the veiled (the hidden, the mysterious)
Architectural Historians Annual Corbusier's projects within the
and the nude (the prostitute, the conquered). context of colonial urbanism. See
Meeting in Montreal (April 1989),
and the School of Architecture, Mary McLeod, "Le Corbusier and
Another painting by Le Corbusier, Femmes d'Alger, is the Cornell University (April 1990). I Algiers," Oppositions 16-17 (1980):
product of a similar process.89 The story of Femmes d'Alger, would like to thank Howard Burns, 55-85. It is particularly striking that
neo-Marxist historian Manfredo
which took its final form in 1938, has been told before, al- Oleg Grabar, Michael Hays, Alicia
Tafuri does not once refer to
Kennedy, Neil Levine, Mary McLeod,
though little has been made of its colonialist implications. It colonialism in his analysis of the
Giilru Necipoglu-Kafadar, and Perry
is thus worthwhile to note again the close relationship of this Winston for their comments and projects, which he calls "still un-
work to the architect's Algiers projects and the appropriation suggestions at various stages. The surpassed from the point of view
of the Muslim woman as a metaphor. With Femmes d'Alger, idea for the topic originated during of both ideology and form." See
Le Corbusier returns to the centennial celebrations of the a conversation with the late Spiro Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and
Kostof. I remember him with deep Utopia: Design and Capitalist Devel-
French occupation one more time: he refers directly to
gratitude and affection. opment, trans. Barbara Luigia La
Delacroix's Femmes d'Alger of 1833, a painting that had Penta (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
come to be regarded as a symbol of the conquest of Algeria. 1. See Le Corbusier, Journey to Press, 1976), 125-36.
the East, trans. Ivan Zakni6 with
Nicole Pertuiset (Cambridge, Mass.: 5. I owe this interpretation to Said's
I have tried to show here that Le Corbusier's Algiers projects critique of Albert Camus's critics.
MIT Press, 1987). For an annotated
were expressions of the French "colonial consensus," which edition in Italian, see Giuliano See Edward Said, "Narrative, Geog-
developed from the common French experience based on a Gresleri, Le Corbusier: Viaggio in raphy, and Interpretation," New Left

shared perception of France's role in contemporary history, Oriente (Venice: Marsilio; Paris: Review 180 (1990): 88.
Fondation Le Corbusier, 1984).
and which protected the French "economic, moral, and stra- 6. Giuliano Gresleri and Sibel
The original notebooks have been
tegic" interests in Algeria.90 As such, they must be situated Bozdogan have written about Le
printed in facsimile as Le Voyage
in a broad time frame. They do not belong solely to the Corbusier's dialogue with the East.
d'Orient (Paris: Fondation Le
Gresleri focuses on the impact of
1930s and to modernism's response to colonialism; they also Corbusier, 1988).
Corbu's journey on his professional
"speak" the idiom of other periods - nineteenth-century
2. For a discussion of the impact of growth. See Giuliano Gresleri,
Orientalism as well as the colonial discourse of the first de- "Home-Ties - Adrift Abroad: The
the Turkish house on Le Corbusier's
cades of the twentieth century. Furthermore, these projects work, see Pierre Pinon, "La Maison Oriental Journey of CH. Jeanneret,"
epitomize a culmination of the long history of French inter- turque," in Le Corbusier: Le Passe Daidalos 15 (March 1986): 102-11,
ventions "to represent, to inhabit, and to possess" a terri- a reaction poetique, exhibition cata- and idem, "Les Leqons du voyage
logue (Paris: H6tel de Sully, 1988), d'Orient," in Le Corbusier et la
tory.91 Had Le Corbusier's scheme been realized, it would Mediterrande (Marseilles: Editions
165-73.
have marked an appropriation of Algiers such as no colonial Parentheses, Mus&e de Marseille,
planner had elsewhere ever achieved. The comprehensive 3. In his notes from 1915 for a book 1987), 37-49. Bozdogan studies
scale of the proposal and its aggressive seizure of the city's on city building, Le Corbusier cited Corbu's sketches against the back-
the urban form of Istanbul to ex- ground of Orientalism: abstracting
geography from the coastline to the mountains would have
plain his concept of "unity." See Le Le Corbusier from his cultural in-
transformed the urban image radically - the now minia- Corbusier Sketchbooks, vol. 1, 1914- heritance, she frees him from the
turized casbah a symbol of the controlled existence of the 1948 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press; legacy of Orientalism. See Sibel
colonized people and their "different" culture, a constant New York: Architectural History Bozdogan, "Journey to the East,"
reminder of the power of colonialism. Foundation, 1981), 6-7. Journal of Architectural Education

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 (elik

41, no. 4 (1988): 38-45. Her position 20. Le Corbusier, Journey to the setting are the eleventh-century El- 36. Le Corbusier, Journey to the
has been challenged by Richard East, 103. Kebir and the seventeenth-century East, 90.
Ingersoll, Journal of Architectural 21. Le Corbusier Sketchbooks 1:6. In El-Djedid. It is noteworthy that Le
Corbusier did not even mention 37. Thdophile Gautier,
Education 42, no. 4 (1989): 61.
1915, to illustrate the concept of Constantinople (New York, 1873),
them by name; nor was he intrigued 87.
7. Daniel's third realm is power. See unity in city form, Le Corbusier
by their architecture.
Norman Daniel, Islam, Europe, and mentioned one other city, Isfahan.
His other references were to build- 38. Le Corbusier, Journey to the
Empire (Edinburgh, 1966), xvi. 30. For a discussion of ethnographic East, 167.
ings - to the interior of the Cathe- surrealism, see James Clifford, The
8. Charles Brouty illustrated many
dral of Notre Dame in Paris, to other Predicament of Culture: Twentieth- 39. Ibid., 100-103.
popular books on Algeria, among
Gothic cathedrals and to the Egyp- Century Ethnography, Literature,
them Lucienne Favre's Tout 40. Le Corbusier, The Decorative Art
tian temples (the latter two unspeci- and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: ftarvard
l'inconnu de la casbah d'Alger of Today, trans. James I. Dunnett
fied), to the exterior of the Greek University Press, 1988), 117-51.
(Algiers, 1933). According to a letter (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
temples, and to the mosque com-
from Jean de Maisonseul to Samir 31. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti, 1987), 190.
plexes.
Rafem [sic], dated 5 January 1968, which took place between 1931
Brouty, a "very well-known" figure 22. Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse 41. Le Corbusier, Poesie sur Alger,
and 1933, was the first large-scale 17.
in the casbah, took Le Corbusier (Paris: Vincent, Freal, 1933; English
expedition. For the link between
around the quarter (Algiers Files, Le trans., New York: Grossman Pub- ethnography and colonialism, see 42. Ibid., 11-13.
Corbusier Archives, Fondation Le lishers and Faber & Faber, 1967), Michel Leiris's important article
Corbusier, Paris, hereafter FLC). 230. 43. Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse,
"L'Ethnographie devant le colonial-
233.
23. Le Corbusier Sketchbooks 1:6-7. isme," Les Temps modernes 6, no. 58
9. Le Corbusier, Journey to the East,
88. The association of Islamic monu- (August 1950): 357-74. Among eth- 44. Le Corbusier, Quand les
ments with nomadic tents has been nographic studies of Algeria, see M. cathe'drales etaient blanches (Paris:
10. Le Corbusier wrote in a letter
made before. Consider, for example, Goichon, La Vie feminine du Mzab: Editions Plon, 1937), 46-47.
to Karl Osthaus on 28 July 1911,
Viollet-le-Duc's argument that for Etude de sociologie musulmane
"J'avais tant rev6 de Constanti- (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste, Paul 45. Le Corbusier, Poesie sur Alger,
Arabs "monuments were nothing
nople" (quoted in Le Corbusier: 38, 44.
but tents." See Eugene-Emmanuel Gauthier, 1927); Mathea Gaudry, La
Le Passe a reaction poetique, 162). Femme chaouia de l'Aurks (Paris:
Viollet-le-Duc, preface to Jules 46. Cotereau quoted in J. J. Deluz,
11. Le Corbusier, Journey to the Bourgoin, Les Arts arabes (Paris, Librairie Orientaliste, Paul
L'Urbanisme et l'architecture d'Alger
East, 85. 1873). Gauthier, 1928); and the work of (Algiers: Office des Publications
Therese Riviere in Fanny Colonna, Universitaires, 1988), 12.
12. Ibid., 88. 24. Le Corbusier, Journey to the
Aurks/Algerie, 1935-36: Photo-
East, 104.
13. Ibid., 90. graphies de Therdse Rivibre (Paris: 47. Raoul Girardet, L'Idde coloniale
25. Ibid., 100. Editions de la Maison des Sciences en France (Paris: Pluirel, 1972),
14. Theophile Gautier, Voyage 176-99.
pittoresque en Algirie, ed. Madeleine 26. Ibid., 95. de l'Homme, 1987). A small group
Cottin (1845; reprint, Geneva: of French women ethnographers 48. Quoted in ibid., 185. There was,
27. Ibid., 143.
Librairie Droz, 1973), 179-80. focused their studies on Algerian nevertheless, a vocal opposition
28. For example, he referred to the women.
to these policies by the French
15. Le Corbusier, letter to the Gov- builders of the casbah as "terrible
Communist
32. Le Corbusier, La Ville Party and a group of Pa-
radieuse,
ernor of Algeria, 16 May 1942, FLC.
warriors," who, paradoxically, en- risian intellectuals. Surrealist artists,
230.
16. Le Corbusier, Poesie sur Alger joyed a joie de vivre and knew how writers, and poets - among them
(1950; facsimile reprint, Paris: to relax. See Le Corbusier, "Le Folk- 33. Le Corbusier, "Le Folklore est Paul Eluard, Louis
Andre Breton,
Fondation Le Corbusier, 1989), 16. lore est l'expression fleurie des tradi- I'expression fleurie des traditions,"
Aragon, and Yves Tanguy - named
tions," 32. 31.
17. Le Corbusier, "Le Folklore est the concept of la grande France
l'expression fleurie des traditions," 29. Le Corbusier, "Proposition d'un "intolerable" and, condemning the
34. Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse,
Voici la France de ce mois 16 (June Plan Directeur d'Alger et de sa standpoint of the socialist party in
230, 233 (Le Corbusier's emphasis).
1941): 31. r6gion pour aider aux travaux de la its acceptance of colonialism, ex-
Commission du Plan de la Region 35. On nineteenth-century trans- plained their version of the real goals
18. Le Corbusier, Journey to the of the exposition in May 1931 as
d'Alger et comme suite ai la seance formations in Istanbul, see Zeynep
East, 149.
du 16 Juillet 1941," FLC. The Qelik, The Remaking of Istanbul "nothing other than to give the citi-
19. Le Corbusier, Poesie sur Alger, two mosques that Le Corbusier (Seattle: University of Washington zens of the metropole the conscious-
16. proposed to return to their original Press, 1986). ness of proprietors, which they will

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 assemblage 17

need in order to hear without flinch- Le Corbusier was a strong critic of 60. M. Pasquier-Bronde, "Alger," in of Le Corbusier," trans. Stephen
ing the echo of distant gunfires." Prost's urbanism. Previously, he ibid., 39, and Charles Montaland, Sartarelli, in The Le Corbusier
See "Ne visitez pas l'Exposition had fluctuated in his evaluation of "L'Urbanisme en Algerie," in ibid., Archive, ed. H. Allen Brooks, 32 vols.
Coloniale," in Tracts surrealistes et Prost's work. As seen in his state- 51-52. (New York: Garland, 1982-84),
ddclarations collectives, 1922-1939, ment, quoted above, from Quand 10:xxxviii-xxxix.
61. Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse,
vol. 1 (Paris: Le Terrain Vague, les cathedrales etaient blanches, he 229. 72. Le Corbusier, "Le Folklore est
1980), 194-95. In response to the praised Prost (if indirectly) on the
success of colonial urbanism in Mo- 62. Le Corbusier, letter to the Pre- 1'expression fleurie des traditions,"
exposition, the surrealist artists or-
32.
ganized an anticolonial exposition. rocco; however, in 1931, during his fect of Algiers, 18 May 1942, FLC.
See the forthcoming book by visit to Fez, he noted that "Prost's 63. Le Corbusier, Questionnaire C, 73. In the light of this discussion, I
Herman Lebovics, True France city planning is nothing but confu- 1931-35, FLC; idem, note for M. must refer once again to Tafuri's
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, sion" ("Sketchbook: Espagne// Sabatier, 6 May 1941, FLC; and analysis that sees in Le Corbusier's
1992), chap. 2. Route 3 lb//B7," in Le Corbusier idem, La Ville radieuse, 244. megastructures into which residents
Sketchbooks 1:440). could insert their choice of buildings
49. While in Istanbul, Le Corbusier, 64. Le Corbusier, "Le Folklore est
too, had carefully studied Hagia "the greatest liberty" allowed to the
50. Quoted in Jean-Claude Vigato, l'expression fleurie des traditions,"
Sophia. Yet he did not share Prost's "The Architecture of the Colonial 30. public (Tafuri, Architecture and Uto-
enthusiasm for the Byzantine his- Exhibitions in France," Daidalos 15 pia, 131). While this observation is
65. Le Corbusier, note for M. valid as far as the European public
tory of the city, which he considered (March 1986): 28-29.
Sabatier, and idem, "Proposition in Algiers is concerned, it is disturb-
"imperially corrupt" and which he
51. On Lyautey in Morocco, see d'un Plan Directeur." ing that Tafuri dismisses the city's
believed "could not be brought to
Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Muslim population as a nonentity.
life" because "its spirit [had] de- 66. The conservation of the upper
Norms and Forms of the Social Envi-
parted from the very few stones that casbah and the transformation of
ronment (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT 74. Prost, "Rapport general," 22.
remain [ed]" (Le Corbusier, Journey the lower casbah into a "museum
Press, 1989), 277-319; Janet Abu- 75. Le Corbusier, "Note financiere
to the East, 89). Henri Prost re- quarter" were matters decided by
Lughod, Rabat: Urban Apartheid in annexe au Projet C de l'urbanisation
turned to Istanbul in 1934, when then. See Rene Lespes, "Les Villes,"
Morocco (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
the Turkish government commis- in Les Arts et la technique moderne du Quartier de la Marine Ai Alger,"
versity Press, 1980), 131-73; and 1934, FLC.
sioned him with the master plan for en Algerie 1937 (Algiers, 1937),
Gwendolyn Wright, The Politics of 25-26.
the city. He worked there from 1937
Urban Design in French Colonial 76. Le Corbusier, Questionnaire B,
to 1951 and his plan was largely 1931-35, FLC.
Urbanism (Chicago: University of 67. See Montaland, "L'Urbanisme
implemented. On Prost, see
Chicago Press, 1991), 85-160. en Algerie," 51, and Pour le paysan
L'Oeuvre d'Henri Prost: Architecte et 77. Joseph Sintes, "Le Quartier de la
et l'artisan indiganes (Algiers:
urbaniste (Paris: Academie d'archi- 52. Rabinow, French Modern, 288. Marine et la Casbah," Les Travaux
Gouvernement Ge6nral de l'Algerie, nord-africains, 31 December 1932.
tecture, 1960), and Jean Royer, Direction General des Affaires
53. See Abu-Lughod, Rabat.
"Henri Prost: L'Urbanisation,"
Indiganes et des Territoires du Sud, 78. Lespis, "Les Villes," 10-11.
Urbanisme 88 (1965): 3-31. During 54. Quoted in ibid., 141.
Service de l'Economie Sociale
approximately the same years, from 79. One of the most memorable, if
55. Quoted in Daniel, Islam, Eu- Indigane, 1939), 140-41. To hasten
1939 to 1949, Le Corbusier was in- sentimental, essays on the topic was
rope, and Empire, 489. the pace and increase production
volved on and off in a rocky process written by Frantz Fanon, who traced
and to provide more "precision"
of developing a master plan for the 56. Quoted in Abu-Lughod, Rabat, the origins of this policy to the early
143. to the work, these schools and work-
city of Izmir, which he completed 1930s. See Frantz Fanon, "Algeria
shops promoted the use of modern
in 1949, but which remained 57. Ibid., 142. Unveiled," in A Dying Colonialism,
machinery.
unimplemented. Originally, in trans. Haakon Chevalier (New York:
1928, Prost had designed a plan for 58. Henri Prost, "Le D6veloppement 68. Le Corbusier, "Proposition d'un Grove Press, 1965), 35-67 (first pub-
de l'urbanisme dans le protectorat Plan Directeur."
Izmir, but Corbu was able to per- lished in 1959 as L'An cinq de la
suade the authorities to substitute du Maroc, de 1914 A 1923," in Jean
69. Prost, "Rapport general," 22. revolution algerienne).
Prost's plan with his own. See the Royer, ed., L'Urbanisme aux colonies
Also see Abu-Lughod, Rabat, 145. 80. Le Corbusier, La Ville radieuse,
correspondence between Le Cor- et dans les pays tropicaux, vol. 1 (La
70. Le Corbusier, "Proposition d'un 260.
busier and the French Ambassador Charit&-sur-Loire: Delayance, 1932),
60, 68. Plan Directeur."
to Ankara, 14 February 1939, 23 81. J. Lorrain, Heures d'Afrique
February 1939, 9 March 1939, and 59. Henri Prost, "Rapport general," 71. Manfredo Tafuri, "'Machine et (1899), quoted in Yvonne
30 January 1940, FLC. By this time, in ibid., 21-22. memoire': The City in the Work Knibiehler and Regine Goutalier, La

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 (elik

Femme au temps des colonies (Paris: Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: Uni-

Editions Stock, 1985), 40. versity of Minnesota Press, 1986).

82. Le Corbusier, Journey to the 89. Von Moos, "Le Corbusier as

East, 83. Painter," 92-93.

83. Ibid., 94. 90. Tony Smith develops the no-

tion of "colonial consensus" in The
84. Ibid., 125, 128-30.
French Stake in Algeria, 1945-1962
85. Favre, Tout l'inconnu de la (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
casbah d'Alger, 10 ("sex appeal" is 1978), 28-29.
English in the original). 91. I have borrowed these terms

86. Quoted in Samir Rafi, "Le from Said's analysis of the appro-
Corbusier et 'Les Femmes d'Alger,"' priation of the geography of Algeria
Revue d'histoire et de civilisation in Albert Camus's fiction. See

du Maghreb (January 1968): 52. Said, "Narrative, Geography, and

Prostitution was rampant in the Interpretation," 88-90.
casbah, a phenomenon attributed to
French encouragement. See David
Gordon, Women of Algeria: An Essay Figure Credits
on Change (Cambridge, Mass.: 1. Le Corbusier peintre, exhibition
tHarvard University Press, 1968), 42. catalogue (Basel: Galerie Beyeler,
According to Favre, in the early 1971).
1930s there were five to six hundred
2, 3, 6,7, 9, 11, 14-16. Le
"girls ... permanently active" in Corbusier, La Ville radieuse (Paris:
the casbah, especially in the lower Vincent, Freal, 1933).
casbah (Favre, Tout l'inconnu de la
4, 5, 8, 10, 18. Le Corbusier,
casbah d'Alger, 103). The presence
Journey to the East, trans. Ivan
of the brothels was so overwhelming
ZakniC with Nicole Pertuiset
that, not to be confused with them,
many families residing in the quar-
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1987).
ter posted signs declaring "honest
home" [maison honnete]; others 12, 13, 17, 20. Le Corbusier, Poesie
dressed their daughters a la sur Alger (1950; facsimile reprint,
frangaise so that they would not Paris: Fondation Le Corbusier,
be bothered on the streets of the 1989).
casbah. See Sintes, "Le Quartier
19. Le Corbusier Sketchbooks, vol.
de la Marine et la Casbah."
1, 1914-1948 (Cambridge, Mass.:
87. De Maisonseul, letter to Rafem, MIT Press; New York: Architec-
5 January 1968. This document was tural History Foundation, 1981).
first discussed by Rafi himself in "Le 21, 22. Fondation Le Corbusier.
Corbusier et 'Les Femmes d'Alger,"'
51-52, and then by Stanislaus von
Moos, "Le Corbusier as Painter,"
trans. Jane O. Newman and John H.
Smith, Oppositions 19-20 (Winter-
Spring 1980): 89-91. The postcard
collection is at the Fondation Le
Corbusier.

88. See Malek Aloulla, The Colonial.

Harem, trans. Myrna Godzich and

77

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