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Standing in isolation in the lower Casbah due to widespread demolitions during the French colonial administration, the
16th-century Palais des Ra!s vvas a rare success of restoration (above), reopening in 1994 after eight years of work undoing
decades of slow decline (below)
policy of relocating families from t he Casbah
to n ewly built government housing, t hese
squatters would 1nove into un safe buildings
hoping to attain a new apartment. The
conditions of publicly owned land are no
better: 60 per cent of t h e Casbah's property
belongs to its cultural patrimony and an
I slamic law directing t hat it should b e
managed to b enefit everyone requires more
public financing than that available.
Wit h limited progress on public projects,
a fe·w private residences have renovated t heir
homes to uphold the value of t he Casbah's history. The restored
family-owned home of 84-year-old Djamila Bouhired offers a glimpse
into its potent heritage and the attraction of an expansion of the
Casbah renovation programm e being contemplated by the
government. The home preserves t he hideout of Bouhired, a her o of
the Algerian revolution, depicted in T he B attle of Algiers, who was
imprisoned for a cafe bombing that killed 11 in 1957. Inside, her
cousins prepare traditional meals for guests and offer tours of the
restored structure, its light -filled courtyard supported by arches
held up by thick carved wooden columns, its
walls covered in tiles, and a central staircase
leading up to a rooftop with views of t he
restored Ininaret of Ketchaoua Mosque.
Lifelong r esident and local authority Ami
Zoubir guides visitors t hrough a formal
entran ce hall with a fountain and an internal
courtyard. H e demonstrates an underground
well inside the walls, dropping a stone that
takes an eternity to hit t he bottom, and leads
a gr oup through salons outfitted with built-in
DEAGOSTINI/GETTYIMAGEs b enches up to the rooftop, which opens to
a jagged landscape of rooftops above the bay. Down on the street,
Zoubir points out the exposed wooden buttresses holding up
improvised oriels, extending rooms above the narrow alleyway to fit
growing falnilies vvithin t he confines of t he old city. He complains to
the group of visiting architects about t he lack of effort on t he part of
architecture schools and their graduates to restore historic
buildings: 'in t he end, it's a problem of a lack of political will'.
I n 2016, the Algerian government shifted authority from the
cultural ministry to the Waliya of Algiers in an effort to more