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Tag Archives: North Africa

Symposium: architecture and urban planning in post-independence Morocco

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July 14, 2023
Africa, Conferences, MENA, North Africa
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Call for participation
Journée d’étude sur l’architecture et l’urbanisme au Maroc après l’indépendance (1956-1986)
20th February 2024, Centre Jacques Berque, Rabat
Deadline (french or english): 30th September 2023

The newly established Réseau de recherche sur l’histoire de l’architecture au Maroc – RHAM (rham.hypotheses.org) launches a call for participation to the Symposium: ‘L’architecture et l’urbanisme au Maroc après l’indépendance (1956-1986). Trajectoires d’acteurs et circulations de savoirs’.

“Cette journée d’étude se concentre sur une période spécifique de l’histoire du Maroc : les trois décennies qui ont suivi l’indépendance du Maroc, de 1956 à 1986. Cette période, qui demeure encore largement sous-explorée au regard de la littérature produite sur la période coloniale, suscite désormais un intérêt croissant. Fort de ce constat, la première journée d’étude du RHAM vise à faire se croiser et se rencontrer ces différentes manières d’aborder l’histoire de l’architecture, du paysage, de l’urbanisme et de l’aménagement du territoire au lendemain de l’indépendance, en mettant en évidence des matériaux de recherche inédits“

For more info, see the call for participation here.

New Research in Planning Perspectives: Gyoji Banshoya (1930–1998): a Japanese planner devoted to historic cities in the Middle East and North Africa

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October 21, 2015
Africa, Global Architecture
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New Research: Gyoji Banshoya (1930–1998): a Japanese planner devoted to historic cities in the Middle East and North Africa, published in Planning Perspectives by Kosuke Matsubara

Gyoji Banshoya (1930–1998) was a Japanese urban planner whose life-work was urban planning in the Middle East and North Africa. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of his work, which still remains unknown. His early masterpiece, the ‘Square House’, shows how he was influenced by Kiyoshi Seike to apply historic spatial composition to realize width and convertibility in low-cost housing.

Gyoji Banshoya
K. Shinohara, M. Yamada, K. Seike, G. Banshoya, and S. Miyasaka. Source: Hayashi, “Seike Kiyoshi to Gendai no Jukyo Design,” 6

Following this, Banshoya studied under the supervision of Gerald Hanning and George Candilis at Ateliers de Baˆtisseurs in Paris, and went to Algiers to engage in the study of ‘evolutionary habitat’. As a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) expert, he began working with Michel Ecochard in 1962 in Beirut, Damascus, and Aleppo. They were responsible for the elaboration of master plans for these three cities, and that of Damascus still remains as a legally active master plan today. Coupled with the Syrian political struggle since the 1980s, there has been some reaction against their modernist policies. However, the case is made for a detailed examination of Banshoya’s work, and re-evaluation of its legacy for the urban planning history of the Middle East and North Africa.

You may read the full article here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02665433.2015.1073610