Bidonvilles (can towns) built by their inhabitants out of canisters, arose on the outskirts of North African cities under French colonialism from the 1930s onwards. On one hand, these hut settlements were viewed by the colonial authorities as a reservoir of cheap labor. On the other, they were feared as a source of social unrest – just as in France, where hundreds of thousands of people had been living in such Bidonvilles since the Second World War.In the 1950s, anthropologists, sociologists, city planners, and modern architects became increasingly interested in the Bidonvilles of Africa and Europe. Studying the Bidonvilles in North Africa as a self-organized form of dwelling had a lasting effect on the global debate about architecture and urban planning. Nonetheless, these studies of residents’ everyday practices often led to grave misinterpretations. Architects not only approached pre-modern construction forms out of context but also ignored the colonial conditions under which they had been created. After all, the Bidonvilles are both an effect of colonial city planning, industrialization, and migration and an expression of a new urban form of spontaneous construction, which is also influenced by North African building practices in the old medina quarters.However, the Bidonvilles remained first and foremost important centers of the anti-colonial movement. The Bidonvilles of Casablanca brought forth both those who took to the streets to protest against the Protectorate and those who demonstrated against the government of independent Morocco. It was also in the Bidonvilles of the Parisian suburbs that the major demonstrations against the Algerian War were mobilized.(MvO)



Sources:

Çelik, Zeynep (1997): Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations. Algiers under French Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hervo, Monique/ Charras, Marie-Ange (1971): Bidonvilles, l'enlisement.