Forced Design.

Algiers, Algeria.

An article recently appeared in the Failed Architecture blog which covered the open letter written to Jean Nouvel to try and stop him from “revitalizing” the Algiers Casbah neighborhood. Said letter was written by the Funambulist, a Paris-based magazine, and you can read it here.

Despite the purity and elegance of the language of visuals promising an inclusive and affordable future, and narratives that they transmit about a better life, all put together by a studio so renowned as Jean Nouvel´s, the disconnection with reality is clear and stubborn: the term “revitalization” itself refers to a different objective, is pointing the action in a different direction than the one promoted by higher forces, it has lost its semantic value, easily disguised being a big word that Architects usually appeal to when trying to make a case.

“Revitalization” is the clean word for “Replacement” in the wrong hands.

Life is happening in Casbah as it is. Life develops and evolves in cities in many different ways, spread out in layers that overlaps or cantilever above each other, and that generates the mosaic of identities that our cities are becoming in this century, that is where heritage come from and from where the future should come, there's not a single or correct way of being a citizen and, therefore, there's not a single way to create interior space.

Rich, diverse, inclusive, technological, boiling pots of opportunities and happenings are situations easily find in Casbah, with, most surely, more than one of its inhabitants preoccupied, curious and interested in Architecture and Urbanism, yet, their opinion is not considered nor kindly requested.

What happened to understanding the site, the location and the synergies of a site? How come the majority of Architects will wait anxiously for the renderings and visuals of this new and exciting project, but are not anxious about the gentrification and massive displacement of people that this will signify? What about the Architectural heritage that is being left behind and qualified as worthless? And what about the living conditions of the current inhabitants? Isn´t Architecture and design about solving problems?

The war on slums, replacing them for the common and overused adjectives of the western architect´s productions such as “modern” “luxury” “quality” and all its variables, is the greatest expression of the branded architecture era in which we live in.

#architecture #design #urbanism #revitalization #algiers #casbah #nouvel #city