{"id":10285,"date":"2021-02-26T08:35:38","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T13:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jazairhope.org\/?p=10285"},"modified":"2021-02-26T08:35:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T13:35:38","slug":"oscar-niemeyers-algerian-architecture-uncovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jazairhope.org\/en\/oscar-niemeyers-algerian-architecture-uncovered\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Niemeyer\u2019s Algerian architecture uncovered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: www.wallpaper.com le 08 nevembre 2019<\/p>\n

One afternoon in the British Library, Jason Oddy, photographer, artist and writer, stumbled across some Oscar Niemeyer buildings he was unfamiliar with. The sweeping curves, the volume and the story telling felt familiar, but the location \u2013 in Algeria \u2013 did not. After further research he discovered that the buildings, two universities and an Olympic-sized sports hall, were largely undocumented.<\/p>\n

\u2018When Niemeyer left Brazil in 1966, after the 1964 military coup, he ended up in Paris, and then in 1968 he travelled to Algiers for the first time. He was there for six years. It\u2019s a long time for an incredibly famous architect to be somewhere, but not that many people are aware of it,\u2019 he tells Wallpaper*.<\/p>\n

It was in June 1968, that Houari Boum\u00e9di\u00e8ne, chairman of Algeria\u2019s Council of Revolution, socialist and hero of the recent War of Independence against France, invited Niemeyer, starchitect of Brasilia (and communist), to \u2018project a new vision of Algeria to the outside world, and promote a new generation of engineers and academics.\u2019<\/p>\n

Niemeyer got started, designing the University of Constantine, with a sweeping concrete rendition of an open book supported by pilotis for the auditorium, completed in 1975. Then came the University of Science and Technology Houari Boum\u00e9di\u00e8ne and the Salle Omnisports known as \u2018La Coupole\u2019 for the 1975 Meditteranean Games in Algier\u2019s Olympic Park. Each piece of architecture with their colossal open spaces and grand concrete gestures were designed to reflect Boumedienne\u2019s socialist and militarist principles, and represent an \u2018upending of the age-old order\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"The

The Village\u2019 VI, University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene, Bab Ezzouar, Algeria, 2013, by Jason Oddy<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018He was commissioned to design a whole new downtown Algiers, in the manner of Brasilia, to create a huge municipal area with a new city for residential housing for Algerians, instead of the French. He also designed, in a moment of inspiration, a new mosque, that would float off shore into the Mediterranean.\u2019<\/p>\n

It was an exchange between architect and commissioner that summarized the politics of this place for Oddy: \u2018Your mosque is beautiful, but it is quite revolutionary,\u2019 said Boum\u00e9di\u00e8ne of the design. To which Niemeyer replied, \u2018It is revolutionary, but the revolution cannot be stopped halfway.\u2019<\/p>\n

In his essay Oddy ponders on what \u2018revolution\u2019 meant to these two revolutionaries in this exchange, and whether they were talking about architecture or politics \u2013 it is possible\u00a0that neither were on the same page of this open book. Nevertheless, when Boum\u00e9di\u00e8ne died in 1978, all of the projects got cancelled. Hence the title of Oddy\u2019s book:\u00a0The revolution will be stopped halfway<\/em>.<\/p>\n

After spending a week in Algiers in 2010, Oddy left the country with a better understanding of\u00a0why the architecture had gone so undocumented. During his visit he came up against many bureaucratic barriers to photographing the government-owned buildings, and learnt more about the political history of the country, and its approach to tourism today. Unperturbed \u2013 Oddy has documented \u2018the politics of place\u2019 in some of the world\u2019s most restricted spaces including the Pentagon, Guantanamo and a Nazi holiday resort \u2013 he spent three years pursuing permits to photograph the buildings.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

On his return to Algiers, Oddy spent three weeks at the three venues, carefully documenting everything. His photographic technique, using a 5×4 inch plate camera, requires time and consideration that has become central to his style: \u2018Unwieldy and slow-moving it obliges me to explore places in a measured, almost meditative way.\u2019 And his results are therefore \u2018traces of a deliberate engagement with space\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"

La Coupole I, Algiers, Algeria, 2013, by Jason Oddy<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: www.wallpaper.com le 08 nevembre 2019 One afternoon in the British Library, Jason Oddy, photographer, artist and writer, stumbled across some Oscar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":10292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-science"],"yoast_head":"\nOscar Niemeyer\u2019s Algerian architecture uncovered - AAH.JZR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jazairhope.org\/en\/oscar-niemeyers-algerian-architecture-uncovered\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oscar Niemeyer\u2019s Algerian architecture uncovered - 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