$UFKLWHFWXUDO Crane, S. 2019.

Algerian Socialism and the Architecture

of Autogestion. Architectural Histories, 7(1): 20, pp. 1–19.
+LVWRULHV DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ah.345

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion

Sheila Crane

In a series of essays published in 1966 as L’arceau qui chante [The Arch That Sings], the architect
Abderrahman Bouchama outlined a new path for a post-revolutionary Algerian architecture. Bouchama’s
text responded to ambitious efforts to construct a revolutionary socialist state immediately following
Algeria’s independence in 1962. Significantly, President Ahmed Ben Bella’s policies of autogestion, or self-
management, aimed to fuel the reallocation of property, the redistribution of resources, the restructuring
of labor, and the redefinition of national culture, efforts that encouraged a radical rethinking of architec-
ture and the construction industry. While Bouchama was certainly the most prolific architectural theorist
at the time, his writings and built projects might be productively set in dialogue with contemporaneous
efforts by Anatole Kopp, Pierre Chazanoff, and Georgette Cottin-Euziol to articulate what I argue was a
provocative architecture of autogestion.
Algeria’s brief experiment with autogestion imagined a path towards socialism rooted in the new
nation’s revolutionary origins, even as it repositioned the Maghrib as a defining center for Afro-Asian and
pan-Islamic solidarity, an impulse that was articulated powerfully in Bouchama’s writings. Attending to
this episode suggests the critical importance of provincializing Marxist architectural theory and practice,
a project that requires paying closer attention to important strands of anti-imperialist struggle within
Marxist theory and praxis that operated outside of its familiar centers.

In a series of essays published in 1966 as L’arceau qui Algeria in 1830 and continued with an aggressive poli-
chante [The Arch that Sings], the architect Abderrahman tics of settler colonialism, along with related large-scale
Bouchama1 elaborated his new vision for a post-revolu- territorial transformations, including the redefinition of
tionary Algerian architecture rooted in and inspired by areas along the coastline as administrative départments
the independence struggle: ‘In the midst of the national- of France rather than overseas colonies. On November 1,
ist struggle, the lines of a specific architecture thus began 1954, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN; National
to take shape, for which the primary motivation was the Liberation Front) proclaimed armed resistance to the
struggle itself and its principal foundation, the culture colonial state, effectively launching what would become
and patrimony characteristic of our people’ (1966: 10). an eight-year war, although it was not acknowledged as
Bouchama’s call to arms emphasized the revolutionary such by the French government until 1999. By the end
potential of architecture in the recently established Peo- of the war, hundreds of thousands of Muslim Algerians2
ple’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, founded in a reas- had been displaced thanks to accelerated waves of migra-
sessment of past architecture and conjoined with new tion from rural areas, where the fighting was initially
efforts to ‘launch a resolute assault from an authenti- focused, as well as the forced resettlement of residents
cally avant-garde position’ (11). Bouchama’s call for an undertaken by the French military. The official collapse
avant-garde Algerian architecture was more than merely of French Algeria in July 1962 was also accompanied by
rhetorical insofar as the successful revolution that was the mass exodus of European Algerian residents. The
understood to have inaugurated the new nation provided sudden departure of 90 percent of the ‘pieds-noirs’ — as
the very terms for articulating its future. Indeed, the archi- residents of European origin in French Algeria came to be
tect was not alone in claiming independent Algeria as the known — had momentous effects, including the virtual
vanguard and epicenter of an ongoing global, anti-impe- gutting of the construction industry and the departure of
rial struggle, a political and historical position that neces- the vast majority of practicing architects.
sitated a radical rethinking of architecture and aesthetics. Even after independence was officially certified, violent
Bouchama offered this call to arms in the wake of the pro- reprisals continued, whether in continuing attacks by the
tracted battle for Algeria’s independence, which unfolded Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS), the far-right para-
in response to the slow violence of colonialism (Nixon, military group still intent on reinstating French hegem-
2011), which began with France’s military conquest of ony, or in violence directed towards the so-called harkis,
Muslim Algerians who were targeted as collaborators with
the French. As the FLN transitioned from an organization
School of Architecture, University of Virginia, US of militarized resistance into the sole governing party and
scrane@virginia.edu state institution, internal struggles for power accompanied
Art. 20, page 2 of 19 Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion

the myriad challenges of nation-building. Given this tumul- for Algerian socialism. The focus of a concerted publicity
tuous situation, it is perhaps not surprising that few major campaign by Ben Bella’s government, autogestion aimed
construction projects were realized during Ahmed Ben to fuel radical, but incremental, transformations, both
Bella’s three-year rule, from September 1962 until June economic and cultural. As had been the case in the USSR
1965, when Houari Boumediene abruptly seized power and Maoist China, Marxism was a potent source harnessed
in a military coup. Indeed, architectural production under by politicians and intellectuals to authenticate the revolu-
Ben Bella has long been overshadowed by the monumental tionary founding of Algeria and consolidate an emergent
landmarks Boumediene commissioned in the late 1960s state ideology. Far from simply parroting existing models,
and early 1970s from leading international architects, however, Algerian socialism took shape in response to par-
including a series of hotels undertaken by Fernand Pouillon ticular historical contingencies and investments.
as well as designs by Kenzo Tange and Oscar Niemeyer for While Abderrahman Bouchama was certainly the most
new universities and sports facilities (Figure 1). prolific architectural theorist at the time, his writings
Ambitious efforts to construct a revolutionary socialist and built projects might be productively set in dialogue
state immediately following independence nevertheless with contemporaneous efforts by Anatole Kopp, Pierre
had far-reaching political, institutional, and architec- Chazanoff, and Georgette Cottin-Euziol to articulate
tural implications, even if they were never fully realized what I argue was a provocative architecture of autoges-
as planned. Inspired by Yugoslavia’s third-way socialism tion. While Kopp is certainly the most well known of these
and its system of self-management, Ben Bella formalized figures, his work with Chazanoff in Algeria has received
Algeria’s own system of autogestion in a series of decrees little sustained analysis, and the efforts of Cottin-Euziol
issued in March 1963 that were understood to provide the have only begun to be recovered in a short biographical
foundational, institutional, and ideological framework essay by Assia Samai Bouadjadja (2008). Bouchama has

Figure 1: Oscar Niemeyer, Salle omnisports at the Parc Olympique du 5 Juillet 1962, Algiers, 1975, featured in an
advertisement for Algeria cigarettes, 1976. From Révolution africaine, 670 (22–28 December 1976).
Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion Art. 20, page 3 of 19

garnered more attention, thanks to his success in landing distinguished Algeria’s self-management system from its
high-profile commissions, especially after the 1965 coup. Yugoslavian counterpart. The workers’ assembly would
For the most part, however, his built work has been dis- elect representatives for a three-year term to a smaller
missed either as ‘a personal interpretation of neo-Moorish comité des travailleurs (workers’ council), which in turn
style’ (Kanoun and Taleb-Kanoun 2003: 255) or as deriva- would elect a comité de gestion (management commit-
tive historicism devoid of serious engagement with con- tee), one of whose members would serve as president.
temporary realities (Deluz 2001: 187). It is certainly the Depending on the size of the enterprise, the comité de ges-
case that theoretical reflections and small-scale interven- tion would include as few as three or as many as eleven
tions were privileged over monumental gestures in the workers. As a mid-size body situated above the full work-
immediate post-independence moment. However, the ers’ assembly, the workers’ council aimed to provide an
significant essais launched in these years encompassed a active counterweight to and check upon the relatively
remarkably expanded field, including radical attempts to small comité de gestion. In addition to these representative
restructure the training and practice of architects and the groups, the state would appoint a director to serve as a
construction industry as well as the sustained articulation liaison between the comité de gestion and the central gov-
of a post-revolutionary architectural aesthetics. ernment. Even given the director’s role, the organizational
structure of autogestion established a relatively decentral-
Materializing Self-Management ized system, with new rights and responsibilities vested in
At independence, Algeria faced considerable challenges, the hands of the workers and their elected representatives.
including the virtual collapse of the economy, which had Algeria’s system of autogestion was elaborated through
profound ramifications on architectural practice and the close dialogue between Ben Bella and members of his
building industry. In addition to widespread damage to first presidential council, especially Mohammed Harbi,
buildings and infrastructure caused by wartime violence, editor of the FLN journal Révolution Africaine, and Michel
the vast majority of practicing architects had fled the Raptis, a founding member of the Trotskyist Fourth
country, innumerable construction projects had ground International. As Raptis himself explained, ‘the firms
to a halt or were cancelled outright, and tens of thousands under self-management would be “nationalized,” that is
were left unemployed. By the end of 1962, 70 percent of to say they would belong to the entire national commu-
firms active in the construction industry were no longer nity, but they would be “socialised,” not “state-controlled”’
operating and unemployment had surged to record levels (1964; reprinted in 1980: 68). Although the emphasis on
(Humbaraci 1966: 123; Bennoune 1988: 90). local, democratic decision-making at the level of the indi-
One of the most pressing issues facing the new govern- vidual firm or factory was critical, these reforms applied
ment was how it should adjudicate the myriad properties only to entities and properties that had been previously
whose owners had fled the country. As early as August owned by European Algerians. As a result, the new system
1962, provisions were put in place to allow the state to of autogestion coexisted with a persistent private sector
take temporary control of all properties vacated by resi- in many arenas, including numerous companies owned
dents of European origin whose inactivity threatened the by French and other foreign entities that were still oper-
national economy. Shortly thereafter, abandoned agricul- ating after independence. Although the March decrees
tural, industrial, and mining installations with more than were limited in scope, they attempted to provide a robust
ten workers were required to establish their own manage- mechanism for encouraging the new nation’s transition
ment committees. At the same time, the state ordered to socialism, an incremental process that aimed to galva-
a (temporary) ban on any new real estate transactions. nize momentum from the ground up. At the same time,
From the outset, resolving the status of vacant properties autogestion was repeatedly framed as a means of translat-
(biens vacants) was understood to be a first step in the ing revolutionary action into new institutions that would
broader project of reconstruction and a concrete means of ensure the direct participation of the people, an impulse
jumpstarting the nation’s desired path towards socialism. that likewise informed attempts to restructure architec-
Abandoned agricultural estates could thus be harnessed tural training and practice.
toward the goal of creating a collectivized sector, while At independence, Abderrahman Bouchama was poised
simultaneously recognizing the centrality of rural popula- to play a leading role in such efforts, as one of only two
tions to the new nation and its fledgling government, not Muslim Algerians — along with Ali Ben Smaïa — who was
only as the dominant majority but also as the symbolic a member of the Ordre des architectes, the official profes-
heart of the Algerian revolution. sional organization that had long been active in French
In March 1963, Ben Bella issued a series of proclama- Algeria. French colonial policy had enforced profound
tions allowing vacant agricultural estates and factories to disparities in educational access, and although a hand-
be nationalized in more permanent terms under the ban- ful of Muslim Algerians had been trained at the École des
ner of autogestion, or self-management. Designated farms beaux-arts in Algiers by 1962, none had received a degree
and factories would be overseen by a series of new insti- in architecture (Colonna 1975; Mahammed-Orfali 2009).
tutional bodies that would encourage direct involvement Bouchama’s appointment after independence as presi-
of the workers in decision-making processes. All workers dent of the Conseil provisoire des architectes d’Algérie
actively employed in a given enterprise would constitute (Provisional Council of Algerian Architects), created to
an assemblée des travailleurs (workers’ assembly), which replace the Ordre des architectes, signaled a radical reori-
was instructed to meet three times a year. This provision entation of the profession. However, Bouchama’s con-
for direct participation by individual workers most clearly certed efforts to reimagine architecture’s institutional
Art. 20, page 4 of 19 Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion

framework in the early 1960s drew upon his sustained revendicative 1936). Although Bouchama joined the Parti
architectural and political engagements that took shape communiste français (PCF; French Communist Party) in
decades earlier. 1930 while he was studying in France, his political invest-
The son of a qadi (a judge in the Islamic legal system), ments had solidified well before then. Young, well-edu-
Bouchama was born in Blida (now El-Afroun) in 1910. cated members of the Algerian elite like Bouchama were
In 1933 he received a degree in mathematics from the instrumental in the initial stages of Communist organiz-
University of Rennes, and he subsequently took classes ing in Algeria, especially in Blida and Tlemcen, both cities
in engineering at the Institut polytechnique in Nantes with well-established populations of Muslim merchants,
(Université de Rennes 1933: 5; Benamrouche and Gallissot property owners, and professionals (Sivan 1975; 1976;
1998).3 When he returned to Algeria in the mid-1930s, he Drew 2014). Like other leading Communists in Algeria in
pursued private projects in collaboration with Ali Ben the mid-1930s, Bouchama was sympathetic to the ulamas’
Smaïa, including several houses and a public bathhouse embrace of Arab-Islamic culture and education as a pro-
in Tlemcen that reportedly featured both ‘Moorish and ductive foundation for Algerian nationalism.
French baths’ (La construction à Tlemcen 1936; Les per- When the Madrasa Dar el-Hadith opened in 1937
mis de bâtir 1937). The most prominent of these early (Figure 3), newsreel footage praised the project as testa-
commissions was the Madrasa Dar el-Hadith (Figure 2), ment to France’s respect for Islam, ignoring the reformist
also in Tlemcen, which was initiated by Bachir al-Ibrahimi, and overtly political aims shared by al-Ibrahimi and his
a leading reformist ulama, in order to provide an intellec- architects (L’inauguration de Dar el-Hadith 1937). In its
tual home for the Association des ulama musulmans algé- program and its aesthetics, Dar el-Hadith was intended
riens (AUMA; Association of ulama). Founded in 1931, the to simultaneously enact and symbolize, in concrete archi-
AUMA aimed, as James McDougall (2006) has shown, to tectural form, the ulamas’ project of Arab-Islamic cultural
‘resurrect’ an authentic Algerian Muslim society through revival. Prominently located in Tlemcen, a city renowned
religious, educational, and moral reform.4 for its historic monuments, Dar el-Hadith took full advan-
Significantly, the construction of Dar el-Hadith unfolded tage of its corner location, opening onto the street in a
at a fleeting moment of unity between competing series of repeated bays featuring paired horseshoe arches
nationalist organizations — including the AUMA and the surmounted by zellij tilework mosaics and inset with
Communist Party — that joined together, following the distinctively patterned wooden moucharabieh. While
Popular Front’s electoral victory in France in May 1936, the building included a lecture hall, theatre, library, and
to form the Congrès musulman algérien (Algerian Muslim offices on its upper floors, the ground floor featured a
Congress). Two months later, Bouchama was one of three prayer hall that employed broad arches and the strategic
Communist delegates who traveled to Paris, with other use of light to create a sense of expansiveness within the
representatives of the Congrès, to present President Léon building’s relatively constrained volume (Figure 4).
Blum with their formal demands, in which they called, Dar el-Hadith provided a resonant and overtly politi-
unsuccessfully, for the elimination of separate administra- cized platform from which to challenge colonial structures
tive and legal strictures for Muslim Algerians as well as the of education, in and beyond the realm of architecture.5
extension of full rights of French citizenship for all (Charte The building itself was a product of Bouchama’s travels

Figure 2: Abderrahman Bouchama and Ali Ben Smaïa, Dar el-Hadith Madrasa, Tlemcen; postcard, c. 1937. Collection
of the author.
Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion Art. 20, page 5 of 19

Figure 3: Inauguration of Dar el-Hadith Madrasa, Tlemcen, photograph, 27 September 1937. Collections of
Dar el-Hadith.

Figure 4: Prayer hall, Dar el-Hadith, Tlemcen, 2013. Photograph from Dar el-Hadith, 2013; https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=x279JV1Wf9Y.
to Morocco and his discussions with masons and craft- 2009). His 1948 portrait of an artisan from Tlemcen bears
workers there, as the architect later recounted in his essay, witness to largely overlooked architectural practices in
‘L’arceau qui chante’ (1960). At the same time, it served as French Algeria that were fueled in part by the emergent
a prominent demonstration of architectural expertise that nationalist movement (Figure 5).
persisted alongside and at moments in direct dialogue Bouchama’s experience at Dar el-Hadith directly
with varied strains of modern architectural production in informed both his writings, to which I will return, and
French Algeria during this period. Not only did the con- his professional activities after independence. Within the
struction site provide work for artisans and builders, but it framework of the new socialist state, institution building
also functioned as a training ground, perhaps most nota- was conceived as a distinctly revolutionary project, one
bly for Bachir Yellès, who would later study painting at the that extended to state-sponsored cultural institutions,
École des beaux-arts in Algiers before being appointed including the École des beaux-arts in Algiers. In February
the school’s director at independence. In particular, 1963, shortly before Ben Bella formalized the new poli-
Yellès assisted with the elaborate stuccowork framing the cies of autogestion, Bouchama outlined a plan, in collabo-
mihrab in Dar el-Hadith’s prayer hall (Mohammed-Orfali ration with an architect from Uruguay, whose surname
Art. 20, page 6 of 19 Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion

in droves, keen to aid in building a post-revolutionary

society (Simon 2011). Architects, educators, and profes-
sionals of varied stripes figured prominently amongst
them. Some, like Georgette Cottin-Euziol, were European
Algerian in origin but nonetheless adamantly commit-
ted to Algeria’s autonomy. Born, like Bouchama, in Blida
(El-Afroun), Cottin-Euziol earned a diploma in architec-
ture at the École des beaux-arts in Paris in 1956. Upon her
return to French Algeria, she launched an active practice,
notably designing a housing complex and several medical
clinics in Algiers and its suburbs. In 1961, as the conflict
grew increasingly violent, Cottin-Euziol fled to Geneva,
where she remained in exile until her return to Algeria
in 1963 (Samai Bouadjadja 2008). In addition to design-
ing several hotels for the Ministry of Tourism under Ben
Bella, Cottin-Euziol was responsible for the reconstruction
of the University of Algiers Library, which had been the
target of firebombs by the OAS weeks before Algeria offi-
cially claimed its independence (Figures 6 and 7).
As it was conceived in the decrees of March 1963,
autogestion seemed to offer new possibilities for archi-
tects. In a letter written the following month to the edi-
tor of Al Chaab (The People), an official organ of the
FLN, Cottin-Euziol suggested that Ben Bella’s new poli-
Figure 5: Bachir Yellès, Portrait d’un artisan de Tlemcen, cies should be extended to architecture. She argued that
1948. Musée National des Beaux-Arts, Algiers. if medicine was to be nationalized, architects charged
with designing medical facilities should be as well. The
was Chifflet, that aimed to facilitate the rapid training sure means of guaranteeing that the new nation’s build-
of Algerian architects. In addition to loosening entrance ings would ‘be made for the good of the people’ was to
requirements, Bouchama and Chifflet proposed a con- institute a new cadre of state architects, an effort Cottin-
densed curriculum that would shift the focus from theory Euziol offered to lead (ADBdR 138 J 507a). Although she
and composition to practical training, first on the construc- was unsuccessful in her appeal, she did become a core
tion site and finally in a year-long apprenticeship with a instructor at the École des beaux-arts in Algiers during the
practicing architect. What they described as a ‘speculative academic years 1963–64 and 1964–65 (Chebahi 2013:
curriculum’ was intended to create a new cadre of home- 303–4). In this context, Cottin-Euziol would have been
grown architects committed to the ‘promotion of inde- aware of Bouchama’s proposals for the school and his
pendance’ (Bouchama and Chifflet in Chebahi 2013: 293). broader architectural activities. However, the courses she
Bouchama and Chifflet’s proposals aimed to initiate an offered did not take up Bouchama and Chifflet’s call to
active process of decolonizing the leading colonial insti- arms directly, cleaving as they did to a familiar pedagogi-
tution for architectural training, from which Bouchama cal emphasis on theory, composition, and concours.6
himself had previously been excluded. Notably, their Well beyond the more delimited spheres of architec-
‘speculative curriculum’ anticipated criticisms and peda- tural training and professional practice, autogestion aimed
gogical reforms that would later be embraced in response to ensure the revolutionary transformation of structures
to the events of May 1968 at the École des beaux-arts in of ownership, distribution of resources, and organiza-
Paris. While aiming to accelerate the training of indig- tion of labor. While the effects of these changes were
enous architects and encourage the rapid expansion of most immediately evident in large agricultural estates,
the available pool of professionals, the new emphasis targeted efforts were undertaken to restructure the con-
on practical training raised broader questions about the struction industry and housing production along similar
very definition of professional architectural practice. lines (Laks 1970).7 The first high-profile experiment in
Bouchama and Chifflet’s proposals did not precisely echo this vein was undertaken at Oued Ouchaya, a sprawling
Frantz Fanon’s insistence that technical experts, including bidonville, or shantytown, on the outskirts of Algiers. In
architects, directly engage citizens in a shared project of November 1962, Ben Bella’s new minister of social ser-
nation-building (Fanon 1963: 201). Nevertheless, they did vices invited Anatole Kopp and Pierre Chazanoff, two
productively challenge the hard and fast lines separating architects attached to the Bureau d’études et de réalisa-
design from construction, architecture from building, and tions urbaines (BERU) based in Paris, to lead the effort in
the professional architect from the construction worker. restructuring the existing community at Oued Ouchaya,
Algeria’s singular status on the global stage as a revo- using funds allocated to reduce unemployment.
lutionary exemplar also inspired a wave of in-migration. Kopp figured prominently among the revolutionary
International Marxists and fellow travelers — often supporters who flocked to Algeria shortly after independ-
referred to in disparaging terms as ‘pieds-rouges’ — arrived ence. Born into a Jewish family in the Soviet Union, Kopp
Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion Art. 20, page 7 of 19

Figure 6: Photograph of the University of Algiers Library in the midst of rebuilding, Algiers, 1963. Archives départe-
mentales des Bouches-du-Rhône, Marseille.

Figure 7: Georgette Cottin-Euziol, Reconstruction of University of Algiers Library, Algiers, 1963. Archives départemen-
tales des Bouches-du-Rhône, Marseille.
Art. 20, page 8 of 19 Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion

immigrated to France at a young age, where he studied In this way, the Oued Ouchaya project attempted to pro-
briefly at the École des beaux-arts in Paris before shifting vide employment opportunities for residents that would
to the École spéciale d’architecture in 1935 and later MIT. simultaneously serve as professional training with the
In 1936, Kopp joined the PCF, and his political engage- goal of improving their long-term employment prospects
ment in the following decades led to him being barred (CAA XXe, 225 IFA 03; Medam 1974: 103). Significantly, in
from the Ordre des architectes (Prévot 2015; Falbel 2008).8 at least one instance, residents pushed the architects to
Chazanoff had also passed through the École des beaux- revise their initial proposals, successfully convincing them
arts in Paris, where he was attached to André Lurçat’s stu- that the adjacent polluted stream (oued), long used as an
dio in the mid-1930s. He first crossed paths with Kopp open sewer, should be canalized.
while they were both working with Paul Nelson, Charles At Oued Ouchaya, Kopp and Chazanoff (1968a)
Sébillotte, and Roger Gilbert on a postwar rebuilding attempted to materialize autogestion not only by includ-
project in Noisy-le-Sec. Although Kopp and Chazanoff’s ing future residents in the construction process, but also
work in Algeria was made possible by their affiliation by strategically setting aside spaces that could be altered
with BERU, Kopp had reportedly engaged in FLN actions later in response to the community’s changing needs.
in France during the war for independence (Cohen 1990). Reportedly, over a thousand local residents were hired
His subsequent engagement in Algeria unfolded along- to undertake all aspects of construction (Figure 9), from
side his sustained exploration of post-revolutionary Soviet the extensive terracing of the sloping site to the erection
architecture that would culminate in the publication in of new buildings (Djebar 1963). Recognizing that they
1967 of Ville et révolution. would be relying heavily on untrained workers, Kopp
At Oued Ouchaya, Kopp and Chazanoff’s project privi- and Chazanoff took care to ensure their designs could be
leged the renovation of existing housing, the provision of realized primarily by using manual labor and, as much
collective amenities, and the construction of coordinated as possible, materials that were available locally. Nearby
infrastructure (Figure 8), in stark contrast to colonial abandoned manufacturing plants, recently restructured
planning policies that had focused almost exclusively on as self-managed entities, became major suppliers of con-
demolishing bidonvilles and displacing their residents into struction materials for the Oued Ouchaya project. At the
new housing estates located elsewhere (Crane 2017). Early same time, Ben Bella’s policies of autogestion facilitated
on, the decision was made to recruit local inhabitants who the acquisition of land and the loosening of regulations
were organized into a de facto construction collaborative. that had previously controlled the construction process

Figure 8: Anatole Kopp and Pierre Chazanoff, photograph of Oued Ouchaya, Algeria, construction photograph,
1963–64. Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine/Archives d’architecture du XXe siècle, Paris.
Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion Art. 20, page 9 of 19

Figure 9: Workers on the construction site at Oued Ouchaya, Algeria, c. 1964. Cité de l’architecture et du
patrimoine/Archives d’architecture du XXe siècle, Paris.

Figure 10: Anatole Kopp and Pierre Chazanoff, Oued Ouchaya, Algeria, 1962–64. Cité de l’architecture et du
patrimoine/Archives d’architecture du XXe siècle, Paris.

under the colonial regime. Over the course of two years, this regard. In the Kabylia region, they designed a series
around five hundred existing dwellings were renovated, of standard school types at different scales as well as
largely by way of providing access to new water lines and model teacher dwellings that could be adjusted to fit the
sewer systems, and close to a thousand new dwelling needs of an individual community (Figure 11). Concerted
units were constructed (Figure 10). In December 1964, efforts ensured that the new schools would not rely on
Ben Bella inaugurated Oued Ouchaya, which he described foreign companies for their production. As much as possi-
as an exemplary ‘chantier socialiste’, with grand ceremony ble, workers were recruited locally, and the responsibility
(Djebar 1963). for manufacturing key building components was distrib-
Kopp and Chazanoff also played an important role in uted across seven abandoned factories in the region that
Ben Bella’s nation-wide campaign to expand educational had been reconstituted as self-managed cooperatives. One
access, especially in rural areas, in order to redress the of these was responsible for producing concrete structural
willful failures of the French colonial administration in members, another for all carpentry work, and a third for
Art. 20, page 10 of 19 Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion

Figure 11: Anatole Kopp and Pierre Chazanoff, model schools in Kabylia, 1964. From Kopp and Chazanoff (1968b).

other interior furnishings (Kopp and Chazanoff 1968b). ven with the rewriting of history and the revalorization
Kopp and Chazanoff thus used their architectural experi- of the Algerian people, particularly industrial and agri-
ment in autogestion to restructure the industrial produc- cultural workers (CNRA 1962; see also Carlier 1997). The
tion of building materials on a territorial scale. potential for self-management to produce a new society
The policies of autogestion initiated by Ben Bella was initially embraced with much enthusiasm by many
inspired attempts to envision the radical restructuring artists and intellectuals. The artist Denis Martinez report-
of architecture, from the provision and manufacturing of edly composed a collage that featured ‘representative tools
building material to the reorganization of labor and struc- and products of autogestion’, which was prominently dis-
tures of training. From the outset, however, no clear con- played at an industrial fair in Algiers with the label, ‘100%
sensus emerged regarding the best path forward. Rather Algerian’ (Blair 1969: 84). In 1963, the European Algerian
than relying upon systems of industrial production and poet Jean Sénac wrote ‘Citoyens de beauté’ [‘Citizens of
prefabrication that frequently had the unintended con- Beauty’], an ode to Che Guevara inspired by his visit to
sequences of making jobs obsolete, which would have Algiers. His poem offers a poignant vision of the libera-
dire consequences in post-independence Algeria where tory potentials, both political and sexual, of autogestion,
unemployment and underemployment were widespread especially in this often-cited passage:
problems, Kopp and Chazanoff insisted on using local
materials as much as possible and adjusting their designs Oh, you are beautiful like a comité de gestion.
to facilitate construction by unskilled workers (1968a: Like an agricultural cooperative
22). Cottin-Euziol would later question these strategies, Like a nationalized mine. (1999: 403)
given the fact that industrialized construction processes
were not new to Algeria, even if they were direct lega- Although the particular inflection of homosexual desire
cies of the colonial regime and the systemic inequalities and revolutionary transformation articulated in Sénac’s
it enforced (ADBdR, 138 J 507b). Although Bouchama’s poem was distinctive, it nonetheless captured the opti-
proposed ‘speculative curriculum’ was never fully imple- mism and sense of promise that Algeria’s experiment with
mented at the École des beaux-arts in Algiers, its emphasis autogestion inspired.
on apprenticeship and on-site training had an important Bouchama’s writings from this period expressed similar
echo in experimental projects like the renovation of Oued enthusiasm. Indeed, in ‘L’arceau qui chante’, an essay that
Ouchaya, where some residents gained not only improved was presumably written while he was imprisoned during
dwellings but also new skills in construction. the war for independence, he articulated what is likely
the first sustained attempt to theorize a path forward for
Theorizing a Post-Revolutionary Architectural an explicitly decolonial Algerian architecture. This text
Aesthetics would provide the initial kernel for his 1966 book of the
The program of autogestion was adopted as an eco- same title, which included the original essay along with
nomic and institutional framework intended to bring the a new preface and three additional chapters. By the time
Algerian revolution to fruition by accelerating the new the book was published, Ben Bella’s policies of autoges-
nation’s path to socialism. From the outset, questions of tion had already begun to be dismantled by his succes-
culture and history were understood to be central to the sor, Houari Boumediene. The book, however, was clearly
project of nation-building, one that was deeply interwo- a product of an earlier moment, not least given its fervent
Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion Art. 20, page 11 of 19

reference to the March decrees of 1963, which Bouchama Denounce, unmask, and isolate the colonists, the
credited for providing new fuel for rethinking national authors of war and oppression. Force them to dis-
culture and a future path for architecture: ‘from today for- arm and to retreat, and we will contribute to this
ward, it is for the workers, these authentic producers, that effort with all our might. Algerians realize that they
we must build’ (1966: 59). have precious allies around the world: oppressed
Three decades earlier, in the mid-1930s, the architect peoples, anti-imperialist forces, and proponents of
had actively participated in efforts to unite divergent Peace. (1950: 10)10
strands within the nationalist movement, at a moment
when the investments of the ulamas in cultural reform While offering an impassioned defense of Algeria’s strug-
seemed to resonate readily with those of the nascent gle for autonomy and self-determination, Bouchama
communist movement in French Algeria. After World framed Algerian nationalism as an integral component of
War II, Bouchama had redirected his activism to the inter- broader global struggles. The architect’s serious engage-
national peace movement while serving as a member of ment with the Communist Party and the peace movement
the central committee for the Parti communiste algérien gave his nationalist commitments a decidedly interna-
(PCA; Algerian Communist Party), founded in October tional orientation at this juncture, one that also pushed
1936 in the wake of the Congrès musulman algérien.9 In him to consider, in a preface to a book published in 1951,
1950, Bouchama led the Algerian delegation to the sec- the connections between Algeria’s situation and the his-
ond Congrès Mondial des Partisans de la Paix in Warsaw, tory of the Russian tsars’ domination of Islamic culture in
where he delivered a speech entitled, ‘Le Colonialisme Uzbekistan (Bouchama 1951).
est un germe de guerre’ [‘Colonialism is a seed of war’] Shortly after the FLN declared armed opposition to the
(Figure 12). Arguing that colonialism should be under- colonial state in November 1954, the PCA was declared
stood as war in an institutionalized guise, Bouchama illegal and effectively dissolved. In 1956, when Bouchama
encouraged a new solidarity between the global peace was preparing to travel to Stockholm to participate in
movement and anti-imperialist struggles around the another meeting of the Conseil mondial de la paix, he
world in the following call to arms: was arrested and interned for the rest of the war (Rahal
2010: 172; Hadjères 2014). In January 1960, ‘L’arceau qui
chante’ was published in La nouvelle critique, the PCF’s
cultural review, in a special issue dedicated to Algerian
culture. Like many other contributors — notably fellow
Communist activist Sadek Hadjères, as well as literary
figures such as Kateb Yacine, Mohammed Dib, Mouloud
Ferouan, and Assia Djebar — Bouchama was deeply
engaged in rethinking the cultural legacies of Algeria and
the Maghrib as well as their future potentials.
In his essay, Bouchama reflected on his experiences
designing Dar el-Hadith in Tlemcen and the building’s
indebtedness to lessons gleaned in Morocco. He described
his visit as a revelation, one that recast the surviving mina-
ret of the 14th-century Mansourah Mosque near Tlemcen
and its distinctive arches as the precolonial source for
an architectural tradition rooted in Algeria by way of al-
Andalusia. In his narration, the palm trees of the Saharan
oasis inspired the design of arcades so beautiful they
seemed to sing (1960). While the Alhambra served as a
defining touchstone and exemplar throughout the essay,
Bouchama insisted on the Maghrebi roots of its aesthetic:
‘In the heart of el-Andalus, [the Arabs] managed to rec-
reate this symphony of palm groves without which they
wouldn’t have been the same. The arch that sings is truly
Arabic’ (1960: 143).
Bouchama’s investments in the Alhambra were likely
fueled not only by his trip to Morocco in the mid-1930s
but also by the extended experiences of his friend Bachir
Yellès in Spain, where he was the first Algerian artist in
residence at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid, from 1952
to 1953 (Mahammed-Orfali 2009). As Eric Calderwood
has recently argued, ‘al-Andalus’ became the focus of con-
Figure 12: Photograph of Abderrahman Bouchama deliv- certed attention and strategic reinvention in the 1930s,
ering a speech at the Congrès Mondial des Partisans de when ‘a Spanish way of talking about Morocco’, notably
la Paix, Warsaw, Poland, 1950. From Bouchama (1950). inaugurated by key figures affiliated with Franco’s regime,
Collection of the author. ‘became a Moroccan way of talking about Morocco’,
Art. 20, page 12 of 19 Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion

thanks to the efforts of leading members of the national- (1968: 5), as Bouchama poignantly notes in the prefa-
ist movement in Morocco who were increasingly invested tory dedication he penned to his son from the Camp de
in its Andalusian heritage (2018: 9).11 In this context, archi- Bousset in 1958.
tecture provided key evidence of such long-term historical Although the lack of clear references makes it diffi-
continuities. In ‘L’arceau qui chante’, however, Bouchama cult to identify the architect’s key interlocutors, he was
strategically displaced the defining lines of influence from deeply engaged in materialist philosophy and the implica-
‘al-Andalus’ and Morocco to Tlemcen and the Saharan tions of relativity and physics for dialectical materialism.14
oases of Algeria. Bouchama was likely attuned to the debates then surging
In addition to shifting the established narrative of influ- in France, in response to those that had emerged earlier
ence and affiliation between Spain and the Maghrib, in the Soviet Union, regarding the relationship between
Bouchama’s essay began with a pointed critique of the quantum physics and dialectical materialism (Cross 1991).
conventional understanding of Islamic architecture as pri- While the architect likely had access to this discussion as it
marily decorative: unfolded in the pages of La nouvelle critique, his writings
cleaved closely to the Leninist articulation of dialectical
Many imagine that Moorish art is limited to materialism: ‘Matter in movement, or, as they say, “energy,”
the interlace of its arabesques, the coloring of is the common substance of everything’. Continuing this
its mosaics, the delicacy of its carvings or the line of thought, Bouchama asserted that, ‘subject to an
meticulousness and variety of its paintings. Some- incessant struggle … at any moment, things will find their
times they go as far as considering the coolness of equilibrium in the same universal and coherent system’
patios, the magnificence of arcades, the pleasant (11). The architect’s insistence that the most aesthetically
greenery of interior gardens, or the gentle murmur refined arches would sing underscored the potential of
of fountains. But, in their eyes, it always remains an even stone and brick to reveal their internal vibrations
art of decoration and of superstructure. All of this and to give voice to the ceaseless flux of energetic mat-
leads to serious errors. (1960: 141) ter.15 At the same time, the emphasis placed on the arch
posed a strategic challenge to the assertion that Islamic
The extensive writings by Georges Marçais, a preeminent architecture was merely decorative, insofar as the arch, as
scholar of North African architecture in the early 20th it was framed by Bouchama, resisted any absolute bifur-
century, provide a prime example of such an approach cation between the tectonic and the decorative, between
and one with which Bouchama would have certainly been structure and superstructure. Understood in relation to
familiar.12 In influential publications like Les Monuments the architect’s extended reflections on dialectical mate-
arabes de Tlemcen (1903), co-authored with his brother rialism, ‘L’arceau qui chante’ explicitly rejected reductive
William Marçais, and L’architecture musulmane d’Occident: readings of ‘l’art mauresque’ that were well established in
Tunisie, Algérie, Maroc, Espagne et Sicile (1954), Georges French colonial discourse while asserting a tacitly Marxist
Marçais had been instrumental in excavating artistic affili- rereading of Islamic architecture.
ations between the Maghrib and Islamic Spain and in artic- The themes outlined in Bouchama’s essay from 1960
ulating a new and influential understanding of the shared formed the point of departure for the expanded book-
inheritance of ‘hispano-mauresque’ architecture (Oulebsir length version, although the architect’s argument shifted
2004).13 As Marçais observed at the very outset of his essay substantially in response to the radical rupture of inde-
on the aesthetics of Islamic art, ‘whether the material pendence. The original essay was republished with a fresh
employed is stone, stucco, wood, ceramic, or metal, Mus- ending, in which Bouchama placed new emphasis on ‘our
lim decoration … is conceived as a veneer and, above all Arab-Islamic people who, from Agra to Cordoba, still find
else, it meets the definition we have given to decoration: these artistic treasures and a serendipitous sensibility
a superficial embellishment of form’ (1945–46: 31–32). profoundly rooted and latent in themselves’ (1966: 21).
Bouchama’s extended ode to the arch that sings offered This expanded frame opened the memory of al-Andalus
a pointed rejoinder to such reductive frameworks. The full and the Maghrib onto a broader geography of affiliation
import of this argument emerges even more forcefully, I extending to South Asia. While Bouchama’s sustained
would suggest, when read in dialogue with the architect’s activism in the Communist Party and the peace move-
contemporaneous reflections, in Mouvements pensants ment had long encouraged his understanding of Algeria’s
et matières (1968), on the fundamental effects of matter nationalist project in relation to broader internationalist
and movement on the shaping of space and especially struggles, L’arceau qui chante spoke even more directly
the dynamics of thought. Published in 1968, the book to calls for Afro-Asian and pan-Islamic solidarity articu-
brought together a series of related reflections, the earli- lated in response to the non-aligned movement. In the
est of which was written in Tlemcen in 1942, although the early 1950s, Bouchama had worked closely with Malek
majority dated from the author’s extended imprisonment Bennabi on another short-lived attempt to unite compet-
during the war for independence. The poetic language of ing nationalist parties into the Front national démocra-
the text enacts the very thought processes it aims to ana- tique algérien (Sivan 1976; Drew 2014).16 In 1956, Bennabi
lyze in a flow of interwoven observations written almost published his reflections on the Bandung conference, in
as if by stream of consciousness. In this sense, the text which he argued that Islam was ideally situated ‘to be the
vividly demonstrates not only its arguments, but also the bridge between races and cultures, a crystallizing force,
ability of thought to transcend ‘barriers and barbed wire’ an essential catalyst for the synthesis of an Afro-Asia
Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion Art. 20, page 13 of 19

civilization today, and for a universal civilization tomor- its deep cultural past, to rediscover in its history and cus-
row’ (1956: 282). Bouchama would articulate a similar toms lessons for the problems of today’. However, rather
proposition in L’arceau qui chante, where he envisioned than turning to history, new architecture in Algeria should
a future Algiers transformed into a radiating center of articulate a path towards socialism through material and
the ‘Maghrib, of Africa, and of the entire Arab world’ programmatic strategies rather than symbolic forms
(1966: 72). While a sprawling new university would serve (1965: 11). By implication, such an approach would have
as an important point of orientation, the city would cul- universal application.
minate in a monumental ‘Allée du Paix’, dedicated not to In his 1966 book, Bouchama would insist, in terms
an empire or a ruler, but to the ‘only hero that exists in this markedly similar to those used by Kopp and Chazanoff,
country, the People’ (70). that ‘the architect must certainly always think in terms of
Whereas Bouchama’s original 1960 essay is focused stone and brick, iron and concrete, material possibilities
on the recuperation of past heritage, the 1966 book pro- and technical possibilities, immediate needs and func-
vides a detailed denunciation of the destructive legacies of tional necessities’ (1966: 74). Indeed, questions of mate-
French colonial capitalism in Algeria and an impassioned riality registered, as I have suggested, on multiple levels.
articulation of a new path for post-revolutionary architec- Whereas Bouchama addressed questions of form and the
ture in and beyond the nation. The architect called for a legacies of history head-on in his extensive writings, Kopp
definitively socialist architecture as the logical outcome and Chazanoff failed to acknowledge the degree to which
of successful revolutionary struggle and a critical means their designs for Oued Ouchaya revealed their own indebt-
of redressing the vast economic and social disparities that edness to historical models. In particular, the vaulted
were the defining outcomes of French colonialism, vividly roofs and abbreviated brises-soleils that defined the new
embodied in the dramatic contrasts between luxury vil- housing units at Oued Ouchaya echoed a well-established
las and ubiquitous bidonvilles like Oued Ouchaya (1966: architectural vocabulary employed by Le Corbusier in
50). In Bouchama’s view, however, the March decrees cre- projects like the Roq et Rob housing studies from 1949,
ated an entirely new potential for architecture by ensur- or by his self-professed acolytes in French Algeria, like
ing that ‘no one may speculate on land or buildings, nor Roland Simounet, who used similar forms in his designs
influence the state machine in favor of his own sordid cal- for emergency housing at Djenan el-Hassan and the Cité
culations’ (58). Bouchama certainly overstates the extent Montagne (Figure 13), the latter of which was located not
to which the self-management system transformed prop- far from Oued Ouchaya. As much as Kopp and Chazanoff
erty ownership, given the limited scope of its application. read — or misread — Bouchama’s call to arms as merely the
Nevertheless, here he begins to theorize an architecture superficial replication of past forms, their vision of social-
of autogestion, informed by a dynamic Arab-Islamic archi- ist architecture for Algeria unwittingly revealed its own
tectural inheritance, while simultaneously addressing the provincialism, insofar as it was squarely rooted in a more
needs of workers, the emancipation of women, and the recent French colonial architectural past.
education of children (59–60). Housing, in particular, As these early attempts to theorize a post-revolution-
would no longer be merely a profit-generating mechanism, ary socialist architecture for Algeria suggest, the lines
but a product firmly in the hands of the laborers who con- between national culture, international solidarity, and
structed and occupied it (58) — a possibility that Kopp and universalizing aspirations were difficult to parse. In Kopp
Chazanoff’s project at Oued Ouchaya attempted to realize. and Chazanoff’s view, Marxism could be seamlessly trans-
In fact, in their essay, ‘Pour une architecture’, pub- lated to the Algerian situation, aside from minor conces-
lished in Révolution africaine in February 1965, Kopp sions that would need to be made for its relative lack of
and Chazanoff responded directly to Bouchama’s earlier industrial capacity. Indeed, the international aspirations
attempt to theorize a path for Algeria’s post-revolution- of Marxism readily projected an unquestioned universal-
ary and post-colonial architecture while discussing their ism. Although Kopp and Chazanoff’s essay began with a
experiences at Oued Ouchaya. Here they argued that passing reference to the ravages of war, neither the colo-
architects should play an instrumental role in construct- nial roots of this struggle nor Algeria’s specifically post-
ing Algeria’s new socialist society, particularly by balanc- colonial situation were addressed directly. In his political
ing the necessity to provide employment opportunities activism and his writings, Bouchama took a distinctly dif-
with the possibilities of industrial techniques of construc- ferent tack, one predicated on sustained engagement with
tion. Kopp and Chazanoff referenced Bouchama’s 1960 the possibilities Marxism might offer for a systematic cri-
version of ‘L’arceau qui chante’, praising his critique of tique of imperialism and its entanglements with modern
French colonial architecture. At the same time, however, capitalism. In the process, Marxism’s universalizing pre-
they launched a blistering denunciation of his proposed sumptions were subject to challenge and an even more
new designs: ‘The palaces of Grenada or Samarkand, the pointed unmooring.
Great Mosque of Tlemcen bear witness to the artistry of In contrast to Kopp and Chazanoff’s assertions,
Arab builders of the past, but it is not in copying their Bouchama’s recurrent references to pan-Islamism and
formal qualities, or in using this or that detail detached pan-Arabism seemed to assert a narrow nationalism,
from its context, that one can create contemporary Arab albeit one defined by religious, linguistic, and cultural
architecture’. Kopp and Chazanoff acknowledged that affinities rather than a bounded nation-state. Particularly
they could not deny the existence of ‘a national tradition’ in his writings after his original 1960 essay, Bouchama
and ‘the legitimate desire of a people to reconnect with reframed Algeria’s architecture and national patrimony as
Art. 20, page 14 of 19 Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion

Figure 13: Roland Simounet, with Alexis Daure and Henri Béri, Study for Cité de la Montagne, Maison Carrée, Algeria,
1955–57.
part of a worldly inheritance, one described primarily in direct supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture, a move
terms of a shared Arab-Islamic civilization. Cemil Aydin’s that signaled the Boumediene administration’s broader
rethinking of the idea of the Muslim world as global his- unraveling of the key institutions of autogestion as well
tory might be useful in understanding the full import of as its attendant embrace of centralized state planning.
Bouchama’s argument. While it is clear that the architect Under Boumediene, Algerian socialism moved closer to
was adopting Marxism to his own ends, particularly in his the Soviet model, particularly in its embrace of state inter-
critique of conventional accounts of Islamic architecture, vention and centralized control. The new administration
the resulting theorization of architecture was not simply a decried Ben Bella’s policies of autogestion as an overtly
reiteration of received ideas in a slightly different accent. secular and Eurocentric version of socialism. At the same
Following Aydin, we might understand Bouchama instead time, a narrower conception of Arab-Islamic culture was
to have adopted pan-Islamic discourse as a means of artic- pushed aggressively to the fore as the defining essence of
ulating ‘global ideas and values … that did not originate the Algerian state. Indeed, the poet Jean Sénac’s forced
in Europe’ (2013: 160), perhaps most notably in relation resignation from the Union des écrivains algériens (Union
to broad aspirations for anti-imperial internationalism. of Algerian Writers), which he had helped to found, and
At the same time, Bouchama’s insistent repositioning his assassination in 1973 are sobering demonstrations of
of Algeria as the radiating center of Arab-Islamic soli- the rigidly paternalistic and authoritarian vision of Alge-
darity asserted a further move of strategic de-centering, rian socialism that emerged under Boumediene.
by dislodging imagined political and cultural identities Georgette Cottin-Euziol continued to practice architec-
from their habitual anchors in Egypt and the Masriq. In ture in Algeria until 1978, although she was effectively
this sense, Bouchama posed an important challenge to denied further commissions from Boumediene’s minis-
Marxism’s universalizing presumptions by theorizing a ter of tourism, who turned instead to French architect
socialist architecture defined by pan-Islamic globalism Fernand Pouillon to design a series of high-profile resorts
self-consciously articulated from the Maghrib. along the Mediterranean coast. It is worth noting that
Cottin-Euziol’s work during this period was received with
The Ends of Autogestion? more enthusiasm in the architectural press in Poland
In June 1965, Algeria’s brief experiment with autogestion than it was in France or Algeria (Cottin-Euziol 1968, 1970,
was brought to an abrupt end when Houari Boumediene 1974). Shortly after Boumediene seized power, Anatole
ousted Ben Bella from power in a bloodless military Kopp taught briefly at the École des beaux-arts in Algiers
coup. Ben Bella’s policies quickly came under fire by in the fall of 1965 (Chebahi 2013: 304). He later had
Boumediene and members of his administration, who the opportunity to revisit his experiences in Algeria in
claimed that the self-management system had encour- the context of work undertaken by his students in Paris.
aged corruption across managerial ranks even as it had In collaboration with Patrice Rauszer (1975), who had
failed to dismantle capitalist structures. Two years later, coordinated the provision of building materials at Oued
in 1967, management committees were placed under the Ouchaya and for the schools in Kabylia, Kopp contributed
Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion Art. 20, page 15 of 19

to a new urban plan for the city of Batna, developed Despite its evident contradictions and limitations, the
between 1969 and 1973, although Kopp’s role was con- architecture of autogestion, as it took shape in the brief
fined to consulting from a distance. In the preface he period immediately following Algeria’s independence,
wrote for the published version of his student Djaffar adopted strategies set in motion by Ben Bella’s March
Lesbet’s thesis on Boumediene’s ambitious socialist vil- decrees by focusing primarily on incremental interven-
lage program launched in 1972, Kopp admitted that his tions that aimed to galvanize active participation from the
knowledge of the situation in Algeria was, in fact, quite ground up and to assert a definitive break with architec-
limited (1983: 11). tural practices and aesthetics from the French colonial era.
In early 1980, Techniques et architecture published a In projects like Cottin-Euziol’s rebuilding of the University
special issue on architecture in Algeria, which featured an of Algiers Library as well as Kopp and Chazanoff’s Oued
essay by Abderrahman Bouchama, ‘Sur l’architecture algé- Ouchaya, renovation and repair were privileged over
rienne’. Bouchama began by highlighting Algeria’s long monumental gestures. According to Jean-Jacques Deluz,
architectural history and its extraordinary monuments, Bouchama also followed this path by leading an extensive
while acknowledging that the debate had shifted consid- ‘repair operation’ for the numerous elementary schools in
erably from the immediate post-independence moment, Algiers that had been summarily torched during the final
particularly given the current pressures of globalization in stages of the war (1988: 123).17 While economic scarcity
a nuclear age. Nevertheless, he asserted that abstraction and insecurity certainly were important factors, the desire
derived from ‘Arab-Islamic art’ could provide new inspira- to leverage new construction for the ‘promotion of inde-
tion, as exemplified in his own designs for the recently pendance’ was also critical. Concerted efforts were made
completed Institut des sciences islamiques on the out- to encourage the new nation’s autonomy by reducing its
skirts of Algiers (Figure 14). Vague references in his brief reliance on international investment and overseas manu-
essay to ‘social, agrarian, and cultural revolutions’ echoed facturing, or by expanding opportunities for its citizens to
the language and ideology of the Boumediene era, devoid gain employment and professional training.
of the urgency and trenchant critique that marked the The self-management system in Yugoslavia, which
author’s earlier writings (116). The rigid monumentality of inspired the initial articulation of Ben Bella’s system of
the Institut des sciences islamiques, positioned as a domi- autogestion, had quite different effects on architecture,
neering fortification along a major highway, offered up an which might help to bring the situation in Algeria into
almost caricatural set of references, from the minaret-like clearer relief. As Maroje Mrduljaš (2018) has shown, the
towers flanking its main entrance to the endless rows of reforms adopted in Yugoslavia, beginning in the 1950s,
arched windows mutely marching in locked step. In shift- encouraged the development of new architectural typolo-
ing from architectural outsider to a favored architect of gies, perhaps most notably in the form of experimental
the Boumediene regime, Bouchama also seemed to turn schools and kindergartens as well as the proliferation of
away from the challenges he had posed earlier to conven- innovative cultural centers. Over time, the architect assumed
tional architectural expertise, even as his calls for interna- an important position in mediating between the ideology
tional solidarity subsided. of self-management and the construction of new social

Figure 14: Abderrahman Bouchama, Institut des Sciences Islamiques d’Alger [Islamic Institute of Algiers], Caroubier,
Algeria, 1972–77.
Art. 20, page 16 of 19 Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion

infrastructures, as well as ‘between the pragmatic means 2

Despite their limitations, I use the terms ‘Muslim
and the ethical goals of socialist modernization’ (2018: 41). Algerian’ and ‘European Algerian’, adapted from Todd
Above all, Mrduljaš emphasizes the expanded agency of Shepard’s work (2006), to describe the population of
architects and urban planners, as well as the burgeoning of French Algeria, to underscore the claims of Algerian
integrated design and a wide range of professional organi- affiliation made by both groups, while acknowledg-
zations, which together gave the architect unusual latitude ing the important distinctions enforced by the French
and influence. By contrast, not only was the architecture of state, particularly in relation to rights of citizenship.
autogestion in Algeria a more fragmentary, ephemeral, and 3
Neither Ben Smaïa nor Bouchama received degrees in
decidedly non-monumental undertaking, but it also tended architecture, although Bouchama later claimed to be
less to successfully consolidate expertise than to question the sole Muslim Algerian architect at independence.
its agency by challenging prevailing conventions separat- His son, Elias Bouchama, joined Leon Claro’s atelier
ing architecture and building, as well as the professional attached to the École des beaux-arts in Algiers and
architect from the construction worker. later became the first Algerian to receive a diploma in
Certainly, however, the disparities in Algeria between architecture from the École des beaux-arts in Paris in
aspiration and reality, theory and practice, were con- 1964 (Chebahi 2013: 190).
siderable, as was especially evident at Oued Ouchaya. 4
The Association of ulama (AUMA) was founded in
Significantly, the limited employment opportunities Algiers in 1931, by a group of ulama associated with
these early ‘chantiers socialistes’ provided fell far short of shaykh Abd al-Hamid Ben Badis. Bachir al-Ibrahimi
ensuring the desired shift of the means of production into would later become the de facto leader of the Associa-
the hands of the workers, at the same time that calls to tion of ulama in 1942 and the organization’s elected
radically reconceive the architect’s role were never fully president in 1946.
realized. At Oued Ouchaya, residents were employed to 5
In an interview published in 1938 in the weekly
rebuild their community, but they remained merely wage newspaper, Oranie populaire, Bouchama met the
laborers, rather than active participants in the owner- journalist on the steps of Dar el-Hadith, strategically
ship or management of the resulting development. While positioning his building as an appropriate setting
inroads were made in restructuring factories serving the from which to launch an impassioned critique of the
construction industry under the umbrella of autogestion, colonial administration’s failure to provide school-
deeper conflicts emerged over the precise stakes and ing for Muslim Algerian children (Guitard 1938). In
terms of a post-revolutionary architectural aesthetics in this interview Bouchama echoed his earlier, force-
and beyond Algeria. ful call to expand educational opportunities ‘to the
Nevertheless, the experiments and debates that emerged oppressed masses and especially to girls’ (Le congrès
during this brief period have broader significance for a musulman algérien 1936).
global history of socialism and its relationship to architec- 6
Several of the concours projects that Cottin-Euziol
tural theory and practice. The history of post-independ- offered her students did diverge from conventional
ence Algeria certainly echoes the broader, defining shift architectural typologies, as they included a housing
from radical African socialism to Leninist-Marxism that has project, a post office for a mid-sized town, and a center
been observed across the continent in the decades follow- for maternal and infant care (Chebahi 2013: 303–4).
ing independence (Glaser 2007). Although it was rife with 7
Building material production facilities were
contradictions and failures, Algeria’s brief experiment with amongst the sectors most rapidly brought under the
autogestion imagined a path towards socialism rooted in autogestion system, especially in and around Algiers
the new nation’s revolutionary origins, at the same time (Porter 2011, 515).
that it repositioned the Maghrib as a defining center for 8
Kopp left the PCF in 1968, in response to the Soviet
Afro-Asian and pan-Islamic solidarity, an impulse that Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia.
was articulated most powerfully in Bouchama’s writings. 9
On the broader links between the Parti communiste
Attending to this episode suggests the critical impor- algérien and the international peace movement, see
tance of provincializing Marxist architectural theory and CAPP (1950) and Sivan (1976: 184–85).
practice, a project that also requires paying closer atten- 10
A portion of Bouchama’s speech also appeared in both
tion to important strands of anti-imperialist struggle French and Arabic in CAPP (1950: 4–5).
within Marxist theory and praxis that operated outside of 11
I am grateful to María González Pendás for pointing
its familiar centers. While providing a new vantage point me to Eric Calderwood’s work.
onto the myriad ways in which Marxism was translated 12
Georges Marçais taught archaeology, with a focus
into new geographies, attempts to theorize and concretize on Islamic material from the medieval period, at the
an architecture of autogestion aimed first and foremost to Université d’Alger. He was particularly invested, like
articulate a Marxist universalism from elsewhere. Bouchama, in the monuments of Tlemcen, where his
brother, William Marçais, who had trained at the École
Notes des langues orientales in Paris, had briefly served as
1
Although the architect’s first name often appears, the director of the madrasa beginning in 1898.
especially in French language publications, as 13
L’Architecture musulmane d’Occident drew on earlier
‘Abderrahmane,’ I use ‘Abderrahman’ throughout this work by Henri Terrasse (1932), focused on similar con-
essay as the spelling most frequently adopted by the cerns, although Marçais notably narrowed his focus
architect himself. specifically to architecture.
Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion Art. 20, page 17 of 19

14
The architect later returned to similar concerns in biographique du mouvement ouvrier: Maghreb. Paris:
Bouchama (1976). Éditions de l’Atelier. pp. 148–49.
15
The following observations in Mouvements pensants et Bennabi, M. 1956. L’Afro-Asiatisme: Conclusions sur la
matières resonate closely with the underlying assump- conférence de Bandoeng. Cairo: Imprimerie MISR.
tions advanced in ‘L’arceau qui chante’: ‘Dans les lignes, Bennoune, M. 1988. The Making of Contemporary Algeria,
les surfaces et les espaces les plus parfaits, règnent les 1830–1987: Colonial Upheavals and Post-Independence
matières les plus denses et les plus différenciées et les Developments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
mouvements les plus internes et les plus variés. Toute Blair, TL. 1969. ‘The Land to Those Who Work It’: Algeria’s
géométrie qui négligerait de tels aspects ou les passe- Experiment in Workers’ Management. Garden City:
rait sous silence, prétextant on ne sait quelle idéalisa- Doubleday & Co.
tion nécessaire, ne serait qu’une géométrie désossée, Bouchama, A. 1950. Le colonialisme est un germe de
abstraite’ (1968: 254–55). [‘In the most perfect lines, guerre. La revue mondiale de la Paix, 5–11.
surfaces, and spaces reign the most intense and the Bouchama, A. 1951. Preface. In: Tubert, P. L’Ouzbékistan,
most individuated materials as well as the most innate république soviétique. Paris: Éditions du Pavillon.
and varied movements. All geometry that neglects pp. 13–15.
such effects or passes over them in silence, claiming Bouchama, A. 1960. L’arceau qui chante. La nouvelle
who knows what essential idealization, would only critique, 112: 140–43.
ever be an ossified, abstract geometry’]. Bouchama, A. 1966. L’arceau qui chante. Algiers: Éditions
16
In 1963, Ben Bella appointed Bennabi his minister of nationales algériennes.
higher education after his return from Cairo, where he Bouchama, A. 1968. Mouvements pensants et matières.
fled during the war. Algiers: Société nationale d’édition et de diffusion.
17
I have yet to uncover documentation of Bouchama’s Bouchama, A. 1976. La grandeur de l’unité. Algiers:
efforts in this regard, but they would certainly be a Société nationale d’édition et de diffusion.
fruitful focus for further research. Bouchama, A. 1980. Sur l’architecture algérienne.
Techniques et architecture, 329: 116.
Acknowledgements Calderwood, E. 2018. Colonial al-Andalus: Spain and
I am grateful to Hilde Heynen, Sebastiaan Loosen, and the Making of Modern Moroccan Culture. Cambridge,
the anonymous reader for their thoughtful and engaged Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
comments on an earlier version of this text. Thanks are DOI: https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674985810
also due to Barry Bergdoll for providing me the oppor- Carlier, O. 1997. Scholars and Politicians: An Examination
tunity to present this material at the Collins/Kauffmann of the Algerian View of Algerian Nationalism. In: Le
Forum on Modern Architecture at Columbia University. Gall, M and Perkins, K (eds.), The Maghrib in Question.
The lively discussion that ensued also pushed me in new Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 136–69.
directions, although any shortcomings in this regard are Charte revendicative du peuple algérien musulman.
entirely my own. 1936. L’écho de la presse musulmane, 2(33): 2. 4 July.
Chebahi, M. 2013. L’enseignement de l’architecture à
Competing Interests l’École des beaux-arts d’Alger et le modèle métropoli-
The author has no competing interests to declare. tain: Réceptions et appropriations, 1909–1962. Doc-
torat en architecture, Université de Paris-Est, École
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Crane: Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion Art. 20, page 19 of 19

How to cite this article: Crane, S. 2019. Algerian Socialism and the Architecture of Autogestion. Architectural Histories,
7(1): 20, pp. 1–19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ah.345

Published: 15 October 2019

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