B3225 - Documentation and Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage

Learning outcomes

The module aims to provide useful tools for the knowledge of an architectural organism in relation to its origins, transformations and the context to which it belongs. Through a direct and indirect survey work, the student will learn to document the heritage, recognising in it the cultural value from the safeguarding perspective. The intervention on the pre-existence will be understood as a new phase in the process of transformation of a building known through history and through the analysis and study of how this architecture was built.

Course contents

The aim of the module, which is part of the degree laboratory Villes Minières du Maroc, is to provide students with the tools to know and document twentieth-century architectural settlements, from the perspective of safeguarding this heritage.

In particular, within the course, the model neighbourhood in the city of Khouribga will be analysed, starting from the study of the consolidated city of Islamic matrix and some projects implemented in Morocco since the 1920s. The Khouribga region is one of the first to have been the subject of OCP - Office Chérifien des Phosphates' interests, as well as one of the largest and most productive. Surrounding the Ouled Abdoun deposit, discovered in 1920, are the mining centres and towns of Boujniba, Boulanouare, Hattane, Khouribga and Oued Zem.

Conceived as autonomous and independent centres, these settlements were designed according to a recurring scheme that included: the installation of water and electricity networks; the construction of infrastructures for the transport of phosphates; basic services for daily life (schools, hospitals, churches, mosques, leisure and sports facilities); residential neighbourhoods for executives and office workers (cottages and terraced houses), for workers.

While for the urban design of the employees' houses, OCP's architects and technicians drew inspiration from the model of European garden cities, the workers' neighbourhoods are organised according to a scheme of patio houses juxtaposed to form a compact settlement surrounded by a wall, in which the only collective space is located in a barycentric position and houses the market, the entrances to the mosque, the hammam and the communal bakery.

The documentation and study of certain Villes Minières are intended to respond to two fundamental issues: the need to make this unknown and generally disowned heritage known, with the aim of raising stakeholders' awareness of its architectural, urban, historical and cultural value, which should hopefully generate virtuous actions for its preservation; and the recovery of certain design themes, adapted to today's needs, for projects to extend the mining settlements themselves or to build new towns.

Readings/Bibliography

Michel Ecochard, Casablanca: le roman d'une ville, Edition de Paris, 1955;

Jean-Luis Cohen, Monique Eleb, Casablanca: colonial myths and architectural ventures, The Monacelli Press, New York 2002;

Tom Avermaete, Serhat Karakayali, Marion von Osten, Colonial Modern: Aesthetics of the Past, Rebellions for the Future, black dog publishing, 2010;

Tom Avermaete, À la recherche des villes patronales: les petites villes minières marocaines dans les archives européennes, inConstruire au-delà de la Méditerranée. L’apport des archives d’entreprises européennes (1860- 1970), a cura di Claudine Piaton, Ezio Godoli David Peyceré, Publications de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Arles 2012;

Maristella Casciato, Tom Avermaete, Casablanca Chandigarh: A Report on Modernization, CCA, Park Book, 2014;

Thomas Niederberger, Tobias Haller et al., The Open Cut: Mining, Transnational Corporations and Local Populations, Action Anthropology/Aktionsethnologie, 2016;

Sascha Roesler, Habitat Marocain Documents. Dynamics Between Formal and Informal Housing, Park Book, 2017.

Teaching methods

The course is organised through lectures, seminars, workshop activities with application/design exercises of the acquired notions.

An initial analytical phase defined as 'knowledge phase' will be developed, after which, having identified a study area, a project will be developed at the urban and architectural scale, starting from the documentation of the architecture of the settlement.

Assessment methods

The examination of the teaching module will be taken in a joint manner with the modules of the Villes Minières du Maroc degree workshop, the assessment for the eligibility will take into account the results achieved in the various laboratory activities. The proficiency will combine the assessment of the exercises developed within the individual teaching modules and an oral discussion on the content of the activities carried out during the course.

The assessment in the examination will depend on the quality of the exercises and the discussion of their presentation, with references to the course bibliography. In addition to drawing and representation techniques, particular importance will be attached to the ability to use appropriate and correct disciplinary terminology.

The examination will be preceded by a seminar, which all course participants are compulsorily required to attend. At the end of the seminar, the student who has completed the required assignments (details of the assignments will be provided at the beginning of the course) may sit the examination. The examination will consist of the exposition and presentation of the analysis and project work. The quality of the presentation, the knowledge acquired, the theoretical depth, the correctness of the project and the quality of the papers will be considered.

Further specifications will be provided as the laboratory progresses.

Teaching tools

Each student needs to be provided with tools for the development of analog and digital representations aimed at the heritage documentation and the project. All the drawings will be developed on a layout that will be provided at the beginning of the course. The development of architecture models is planned.

The related teaching materials will be available to the student in digital format on UNIBO's VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT platform (https://virtuale.unibo.it/).

Office hours

See the website of Giulia Favaretto