Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations 9783031146978, 3031146972

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Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology

Monika Baumanova

Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations

Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology Series Editors Kathryn Sampeck, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Illinois State University, Normal, USA Luis Symanski, Dept of Anthropology and Archaeology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil Editorial Board Members Márcia Bezerra de Almeida, Federal University of Para, Belém, Brazil Heather Burke, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia Tania Manuel Casimiro, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal Alfredo Gonzales-Ruibal, Institute of Heritage Studies of the Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain Ellen Hsieh, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan Laura Ng, Grinnell College, Grinnell, USA Innocent Pikirayi, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Maria Ximena Senatore, University of Buenos Aires, Viamonte, Argentina Tsim Schneider, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA

Historical archaeologists conduct research in every region of the globe, in Latin America, Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and Europe. Historical archaeology is one of the most rapidly expanding archaeological fields, offering a breathtaking range of settings and problems as well as substantial new insights in archaeological methods and theory. In light of this burgeoning interest, this book series is designed as a venue for works that focus on historical archaeology throughout the world. Historical archaeology is defined here as the archaeology of the post-1415 (or modern) era rather than as a methodology. This global reach emphasizes crucial themes in anthropology and history of the modern era, such as slavery, gender, race, industrialization, consumerism, and urbanism. The contemporary relevance of historical archaeology is shown in its longstanding focus on dynamics of repression, oppression, violence, and authoritarianism as well as heritage, memory, and the political uses of the past. Historical archaeological studies thus offer powerful perspectives for understanding pivotal of the past and today. The series aims for original scholarship ranging from local to global contexts, intersectional issues, and theoretical-methodological contributions. Book proposals and complete manuscripts of 200 or more pages are welcome. Original monographs will be peer reviewed. Edited volumes and conference proceedings will be considered provided that the chapters are individually refereed. Initial proposals can be sent to the Publishing Editor. Proposals should include: • • • •

A short synopsis of the work or the introduction chapter The proposed Table of Contents The CV of the lead author(s) If available: one sample chapter

We aim to make a first decision within 1 month of submission. In case of a positive first decision the work will be provisionally contracted: the final decision about publication will depend upon the result of the anonymous peer review of the complete manuscript. We aim to have the complete work peer-reviewed within 3 months of submission. For more information, please contact the Publishing Editor.

Monika Baumanova

Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations With Contributions by Jan Pěchota and Daniel Křížek

Monika Baumanova Department of Middle Eastern Studies Center for African Studies University of West Bohemia Pilsen, Czech Republic With Contributions by Jan Pěchota Department of Middle Eastern Studies University of West Bohemia Pilsen, Czech Republic

Daniel Křížek Department of Middle Eastern Studies University of West Bohemia Pilsen, Czech Republic

This work was supported by Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (Czech Science Foundation) (20-02725Y). ISSN 1574-0439 Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology ISBN 978-3-031-14696-1    ISBN 978-3-031-14697-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022, corrected publication 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

…to GLP and the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, where it all started…

Preface and Acknowledgements

The work on this project was made possible by a research grant awarded to Monika Baumanova, titled Comparing urban morphological transformation in precolonial to colonial urban traditions, number 20-02725Y, awarded by the Czech Science Foundation (Grant Agency of the Czech Republic) and realised at the Centre for African Studies, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of West Bohemia, Pilsen, Czech Republic. First and foremost, I would like to thank the co-authors, Jan Pěchota and Daniel Křížek, who contributed to this book with their insightful perspectives and expertise. Their input was invaluable in making this volume truly interdisciplinary and in facilitating the challenging cross-regional comparisons. Many people outside academia supported me and the co-authors during the work on this project, especially our partners and spouses. I am grateful to my partner Jiří Kodl and my dear friend Kate Chan for their endless faith in me. On my travels, I have much appreciated the hospitality of my friend Khamisi Karisa Mtengo and his family. In the process of writing this volume, numerous colleagues have provided me with invaluable advice and reflection, or with fruitful discussions over public space and urban society as well as co-organisation of several conference sessions including Ben Jervis, Benjamin V. Vis, Ladislav Šmejda and Rosanna Tramutoli. The editors of the Springer series titled Global Historical Archaeologies, Luis Symanski and Katherine Sampeck, helped me and the contributing authors to steer the course during the preparation of this book  – I am grateful to them, to the anonymous reviewers and to Springer for their help in improving this volume and seeing it through to completion. I am immensely grateful to Professor em. Heinz Ruther, Bruce Macdonald, Roshan Bhurtha and Ralph Schroeder of the Zamani Project team, Division of Geomatics, University of Cape Town, with whose expertise the survey on the East African sites of Jumba la Mtwana and Mnarani was realised. The survey and scanning took place under an agreement with the National Museums of Kenya and was much aided by the wonderful staff and keepers of the sites. The National Museum in Prague kindly agreed to providing access to the archive of photographs from the first half of the twentieth century taken in Kenya and vii

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Preface and Acknowledgements

Tanzania, and to their reproduction in this volume. Part of the archive resources and images from North Africa were kindly provided by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the University of Texas Libraries. My interest in Africa and the built environment was sparked during my student years at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. I remain guided by the inspirational instruction I received from Andrew Reid, Kevin MacDonald and other staff of the Institute, as well as by Paul Lane, who supervised most of my postdoctoral research. The work on this volume was inspired by my past research projects, which identified the need to enhance the understanding of public experience with the built environment by looking beyond individual buildings and towns. The presented study aims to bridge multiple regional and disciplinary discussions on configurations of the built environment, as well as the precolonial and the colonial period. This thematic stream in the book represents a continuation of research on the Marie Curie Global Individual Fellowship realised at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and at Uppsala University, Sweden, between 2015 and 2018. This volume also reflects on the need to understand the effects of the colonial experience in different times and geographical contexts, bringing to the debate the case of Iberia. This topic stems from a visiting fellowship realised at the University of Augsburg, Germany, between 2018 and 2019. Without some results of the research undertaken on these projects the completion of this book would not have been possible. Pilsen, Czech Republic 25 May 2022

Monika Baumanova

Funding Information

The work on this project was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (Grant Agency of the Czech Republic) under a project awarded to Monika Baumanova, titled Comparing urban morphological transformation in precolonial to colonial urban traditions, number 20-02725Y.

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Contents

Part I Introduction 1

Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    3 1.1 The Aims of the Book ����������������������������������������������������������������������    6 1.2 The Spatial Dimension of Colonialism��������������������������������������������    7 1.3 Theoretical Foundations for Analyses of Urban Public Space ��������   10 1.4 Review of Literature on the Theme��������������������������������������������������   14 1.5 Structure of the Book������������������������������������������������������������������������   16 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   19

Part II The East African Coast 2

 Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast����������   25 2.1 The Historical Context of Precolonial Urbanism on the Swahili Coast ������������������������������������������������������������������������   26 2.2 The Urban Built Environment on the Precolonial East African Coast����������������������������������������������������������������������������   29 2.3 The Structure of Urban Life��������������������������������������������������������������   31 2.4 Public Buildings��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   34 2.5 Public Spaces������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   39 2.6 Urban Power and Identity in Context of Public Space ��������������������   40 2.7 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   42 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   43

3

 Public Aspects of Colonial Urbanism on the East African Coast��������   47 3.1 Colonial Urbanisms on the Swahili Coast����������������������������������������   51 3.2 New Types and New Roles of Public Buildings in the Colonial Towns ����������������������������������������������������������������������   54 3.3 Changes in Swahili Public Space������������������������������������������������������   56 3.3.1 Architectural Features and Building Style����������������������������   59

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3.4 Urban Layout and Structure��������������������������������������������������������������   60 3.5 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   65 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   66 Part III North-West Africa 4

 Precolonial Public Spaces of Urban North-­West Africa����������������������   71 4.1 Government in Pre-protectorate Morocco: A Territory of Governance and Territory of Dissidence��������������������������������������   74 4.2 Resources������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   76 4.2.1 Morphology of Settlements in the Urban and Rural Areas of Morocco ������������������������������������������������   78 4.3 Structure of Cities: Typical Traits and Varieties��������������������������������   81 4.4 Public Buildings��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   83 4.5 Public Spaces������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   94 4.6 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   99 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  101

5

 Public Spaces in Context with Colonial Urbanism in Morocco����������  103 5.1 The Advent of Colonialism��������������������������������������������������������������  103 5.2 Sources����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  106 5.3 Marshal Lyautey: Building the Protectorate by Building Cities������  107 5.4 Presentation of Old and New Space��������������������������������������������������  110 5.5 Spatial Layout ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  111 5.6 New Buildings����������������������������������������������������������������������������������  114 5.7 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  121 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  123

Part IV The Iberian Peninsula 6

 Public Spaces in ‘Colonized’ Urban Iberia ������������������������������������������  127 6.1 The History of Urban Centres in Iberia��������������������������������������������  129 6.2 Urbanization Processes ��������������������������������������������������������������������  133 6.2.1 Architectural Style and Form������������������������������������������������  133 6.2.2 Urban Layout������������������������������������������������������������������������  135 6.3 Public Buildings and Spaces������������������������������������������������������������  137 6.3.1 Religious Buildings��������������������������������������������������������������  138 6.3.2 Military Buildings����������������������������������������������������������������  139 6.3.3 Public Space in Residential Buildings����������������������������������  140 6.3.4 Other Types of Buildings with Public Roles������������������������  142 6.3.5 Open Spaces and Buildings��������������������������������������������������  144 6.4 The Role of Urban Public Spaces in Managing Social Diversity��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  144 6.5 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  147 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  148

Contents

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Part V Comparative Discussion 7

Comparative Perspectives on (Pre)Colonial Urban Transformations ��������������������������������������������������������������������������  153 7.1 Public Features in Urban Space and the Impact of Colonialism������  156 7.2 Models of Urbanism ������������������������������������������������������������������������  162 7.3 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  165 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  166

Correction to: Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations . . . . . . .   C1

About the Authors

Lead Author Monika Baumanova  is an Assistant Professor at the University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic. She is a historical archaeologist who specialises on spatial analyses and sensory perception of the built environment. She has held fellowships at the Universities of Basel, Uppsala and Augsburg, and is currently a Principal Investigator of a research project financed by the Czech Science Foundation. Her main area of expertise is the East African coast, having also published on urbanism of the West African Sahel, medieval Europe, colonial towns and on comparative approaches in analyses of space and the built environment.

Contributors Jan Pěchota  is a PhD student at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, undertaking research on the modern history of northwest Africa, Berber identity, and relationships between Europe and North Africa in the precolonial and colonial period. He completed his Master’s studies at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, where he also currently works as a research assistant and project manager. Daniel  Křížek  is a Lecturer at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic. He is a cultural anthropologist with a specialisation on Islam, Islamic material culture, and Muslim societies. His current research focuses on history of the Iberian Peninsula and relations between Europe, Middle East and the region of North Africa.

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List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 A map showing the geographical location of the regions discussed throughout the volume������������������������������������������������������    5 Fig. 2.1 A map of the Swahili coast showing the location of some of the important sites mentioned in the text��������������������������������������   27 Fig. 2.2 The ceilings of Swahili rooms in precolonial coral-rag buildings. On the left: mangrove pole ceiling (reconstruction from the site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania); on the right: vaulted coral-­rag ceiling preserved on the site of Mtwapa, Kenya. Photos by the author�������������������������������������������������������������   30 Fig. 2.3 A 3D scan of a tomb with engraved inscription and niches at the site of Jumba la Mtwana, Kenya���������������������������������������������   31 Fig. 2.4 Layout plan of a part of the site of Gede, Kenya. The palace complex is outlined in red on the right, the block of houses in purple in the centre and two mosques in blue and yellow. The plan has been adjusted on the basis of a map kindly provided by the Zamani project team���������������������   32 Fig. 2.5 The plan of the precolonial town of Jumba la Mtwana, Kenya, showing the distribution of known stone public buildings and spaces (indicated by the yellow circles). Analysis by the author on the basis of a survey conducted with the Zamani team in 2021����������������������������������������������������������   33 Fig. 2.6 Photo of the Great Mosque of Kilwa. Photo by the author���������������   35 Fig. 2.7 A view of one side of a stepped open court at the site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania. Photo by the author�������������������������������   37 Fig. 2.8 Visibility through doorways demonstrated on an example of the most common type of a stone house on the site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania, with a schematic plan on the left and a photo of the configuration on the right�������������������   38 Fig. 2.9 Photos of streets on sites mentioned in the text. On the left: passageway in Gede; a fragment of a street network at Jumba la Mtwana. Photos by the author���������������������������������������   40 xvii

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List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 A map showing the location of the towns mentioned in the text������   50 Fig. 3.2 Fort Jesus in Mombasa, Kenya, as photographed between 1927 and 1935 by a Czech traveller Bedřich Machulka. (Photo courtesy of the National Museum in Prague, Náprstek Musem, ethnographic photo collection, no. Af I 5847 a, reproduced with permission)����������������������������������   54 Fig. 3.3 A German boma in Bagamoyo, Tanzania�����������������������������������������   56 Fig. 3.4 A Google Earth image of Pangani, Tanzania spread out on both sides of the river����������������������������������������������������������������������� 62 Fig. 3.5 The layout of Bagamoyo, Tanzania, highlighted on a Google Earth image. The plan shows the triangular layout of the main streets – a heritage of the colonial era. The labels signify the distribution of the quarters. The red dots signify the distribution of the mosques. The blue dots show the location of public buildings, many of which are concentrated to the waterfront�������������������������������� 63 Fig. 4.1 Plan of Ouezzane medina demonstrating the irregularity of the street network, which gave an impression of randomness, as it was recorded in 1942. (Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241 Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 114811, 3-43, 1943; Copied from: French Morocco Map G24.0, 1942; Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)���������������������������������   84 Fig. 4.2 Plan of Chefchaouen medina with an irregular street network, which gave an impression of randomness, as it was documented in 1943. (Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241 Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 103500, 3-43, 1943; Copied from a Spanish Map, 1:2200, Xauen; Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   85 Fig. 4.3 Le cimetière de Salé by Mathilde Arbey, 1934: Painting of tombs located in the cemetery outside the city walls of Salé. (From Mauclair, 1934: 181; Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-O3J-717)�������������������������������������������������������������������   89 Fig. 4.4 Jardins de Chella by Mathilde Arbey, 1934: Painting of a tomb located in Chellah, a medieval necropolis on the outskirts of Rabat. (From Mauclair, 1934: 127; Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-O3J-717)�����������������������������������������������������   89 Fig. 4.5 Photo of a tomb located in Chellah, a medieval necropolis on the outskirts of Rabat. (Source: author’s archive, 2018)��������������   90 Fig. 4.6 Photo of a tomb located in the Skoura oasis, Ouarzazate Province. (Source: author’s archive, 2018)���������������������������������������   91

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Fig. 4.7 Fes in the seventeenth century (According to an old engraving; from La Renaissance du Maroc: Dix Ans de Protectorat: 11; Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-O3J-431)������������������   95 Fig. 4.8 Fes city plan showing the irregularity of street network and the density of the built environment in the medina, which is located in a valley, as it was captured in 1933. (2/42/G.S.G.S. Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 110448, 12–42, 1942; Copied from a French map dated 1933 G24.0, 1942; Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)���������������������������������   96 Fig. 5.1 Map of Morocco with marked divisions to the French zone (red) and the Spanish zones (yellow) and the Tangier international zone (blue). (Maroc: carte administrative (1937); Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE C-4689 (13)�������������������������������������������������������  104 Fig. 5.2 Plan of Tetouan as it was documented in 1939 showing contrast between the precolonial medina (north-east) and the colonial quarters (south-west) with a highlighted location of the church (red). The so-called “Spanish layout” of the latter is clearly apparent, i.e. a central round/oval square (in front of the church) with wide streets extending out in a star pattern. (Town plan of Tetouan, G.S.G.S. 4241 Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 115937, 2–43, 1943; Copied from Guide Michelin Maroc 1939; Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-­Castañeda Library Map Collection)�������������������������������������������������������������������  107 Fig. 5.3 Plan of development for Rabat emphasizing the contrast between the colonial and precolonial quarters of the town as it was documented in 1922. The plan is showing respective orientation of the precolonial parts (medina-white, Muslim cemeteries-purple, Jewish cemetery–dark blue, palace area and Chellah and Hassan tower historic landmarks-grey), colonial residential and administration quarters (red), parks (green) and European cemetery (orange). (Rabat: Plan d’aménagement de l’agglomération européenne: Rive gauche du Bou-Regreg; Section technique des plans de villes; Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE A-1380 (4)�������������������  109 Fig. 5.4 The main post office in Casablanca (Taillis, Jean (Agence Rol)). Le bâtiment de la Poste, avenue d’Amade à Casablanca. (1921), Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, EI4-13 (boîte 42)�������������������������������������������������������������������������������  114

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List of Figures

Fig. 5.5 Location of the main post office (blue arrow) and the building of the national bank (green arrow) in Marrakech in relation to the marked medina (including the mellah and the palace area). (Plan de Marrakech, Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241, Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 109832, 9–42, 1943, Copied from French Map dated 1935, Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)�������������������������������������������������������������������  116 Fig. 5.6 Location of the main post office (blue), the national bank (green) and St. Peter’s Cathedral (red) in Rabat in relation to the marked medina (including the mellah). (City plan of Rabat-Salé, Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241, Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 103033, 2–43, 1942, Copied from French map dated 1933, Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)�������������������������������������������������������������������  117 Fig. 5.7 Location of the main post office (blue), the building of the national bank (green) and the Church of the Sacred Heart (red) in Casablanca in relation to the marked medina (including the mellah). (Town plan of Casablanca, Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241, Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 103026, 1942, Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)���������������������������������  118 Fig. 5.8 St. Peter’s Cathedral, Rabat – front (2021). (Source: author’s archive)�����������������������������������������������������������������  119 Fig. 5.9 St. Peter’s Cathedral, Rabat – back (2021). (Source: author’s archive)�����������������������������������������������������������������  120 Fig. 5.10 Entrance to the Municipal Market, Casablanca (2011). (Source: author’s archive)�����������������������������������������������������������������  121 Fig. 5.11 Clock tower, Casablanca. (Agence de presse Meurisse. Casablanca: vue de la ville et du quartier arabe. (1922); Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, EI-13 (2710)������������������������������������������  122 Fig. 6.1 A map of Iberian Peninsula showing the location of the towns and sites mentioned in the text. (Map by the authors)����������������������  130 Fig. 6.2 A plan of the excavated extent of the palatial town of Madinat al-Zahra. The arrow shows the access direction to the town with a mosque positioned out of the gates to the south. The highlighted (ochre) outlines show the placement and multitude of public courtyards and reception halls. (The plan is produced by the authors and is based on Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992 and Bloom, 2020)������  132

List of Figures

xxi

Fig. 6.3 Present-day aerial view of the centre of Granada with the approximate distribution of urban quarters discussed in the paper (labels in white). Notice the rectangular street grid of El Centro and the winding streets of the old town of Albaicín apparent both on the satellite image and the inset historical map. The distribution of historical public buildings preserved from the transition period (fifteenth to seventeenth century) is highlighted by the symbols in black – crosses stand for Christian public buildings and crescents for Islamic public buildings. (Plan by the authors with the use of Google Earth Pro and Instituto Geográfico Nacional open source imagery)�����������������  136 Fig. 6.4 Photos of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, showing the outside (on the left) and inside (on the right) of the building. Photos by the authors����������������������������������������������  138 Fig. 6.5 A view of Santa Cruz (encircled in grey), the old Jewish quarter in Seville. The dots show the relatively dense distribution of open spaces that preserves in the present-day town. (Plan by the authors with the use of Google Earth Pro open source imagery)������������������������������������������������������������������������  147 Fig. 7.1 The layout of the house block at Siyasa on the Iberian Peninsula (on the left) where ‘C’ demarcates courtyards,  and the space syntax graphs (on the right) showing the configuration of the rooms in the typical/average and the largest house represented in this block. The white nodes show the position of the courtyards inside the houses respective to the rooms. (Layout plan redrawn by the author and adapted following Navarro Palazón & Jiménez Castillo, 2007)�����������������������������������������������������������������  159 Fig. 7.2 The layout of the Gede House Block (shown in bold outlines on the left) and the space syntax graphs (on the right) showing the configuration of the rooms in the typical/average and the largest house represented in this block. The white node shows the position of the courtyard inside the house respective to the rooms. (Layout plan redrawn by the author on the basis of data kindly provided by the Zamani Project team)�������������������������������������������������������������  160

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract  This introduction summarises the aims of the volume in presenting analyses of the public buildings and spaces in the urban built environment, when considering them as material reflections of communal urban life. The purpose is to broaden the established boundaries of urban historical archaeology by reflecting on the roles of public urban features in social life, in shaping the urban sensory environments, as well as in economic and political agendas, with their material properties and spatial configurations. The public buildings and spaces are presented as a lens through which the transformation from precolonial to colonial urban layouts and morphologies may be accessed and interpreted. This chapter highlights some of the major theoretical streams that influenced the approaches applied throughout the book, stemming from disciplines of archaeology, history, architecture and anthropology. There are three study regions: coastal East Africa, North-West Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, which are briefly introduced in terms of contextualising their (pre)colonial urban experience, which was to some extent framed by the shared importance of Islam and trade as key factors in the local historical trajectories. The literature relevant to the theme is reviewed as well as a summary of the chapters included in this volume. Keywords  Colonialism · Precolonial · Public space · Spatial analyses · Urbanism The built environment is in many ways central to human experience, all the more in urban settlements where it is usually dense and complex. In the process of (re)shaping urban space, people also influence their social life, and conversely, the customs of their social life serve as an impetus for acting on the built environment. As with other types of material culture, buildings and open spaces are widely recognised as components of urban life, active in power negotiations, framing social rules, or representing and shaping identity, with all the associated symbolic manifestations (e.g. Ingold, 2000; Low, 2016). The complexity of the built environment, which has been characterised by a broad variety of forms in the urban context worldwide over

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Baumanova, Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_1

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4

1 Introduction

the course of history, offers many clues on how the social life in the towns may be intertwined with the built features, their perception, and on patterns in this ongoing dialogue. This book focuses on the features of the built environment that perhaps participate in communal urban life the most, because they represent its public aspects. For the purposes of this volume, the ‘public’ built environment is defined as having a social function, and is relatively accessible to a wider variety of individuals and social groups. It represents the reverse of what may be termed private, i.e. residential, in an architectural context. The analyses provided in this book strive to highlight that within the overarching term ‘public space’ we must look at both public buildings, their typology and distribution, and also at the intangible open spaces, including streets and squares, which are all constructed, maintained and altered to serve public interaction, meeting, movement or congregation. Archaeological studies are usually most concerned with buildings in terms of their physical characteristics, function or symbolic role, determining what was constructed in the past, where and for what purpose, and the ‘empty’ spaces between buildings complement the picture in terms of use and associated practices. This volume strives to venture in a territory less explored in archaeology, considering both buildings and open spaces as tangible and intangible components in the urban public space. This way, the whole extent of the urban built environment with social use, at least for which there are spatial data, may be considered. Inevitably, for this goal archaeological perspectives need to engage with architectural, historical and anthropological considerations. Historical archaeology specifically has an immense potential to contribute to the global debate on the roles of architecture and use of space because of its integrated interdisciplinarity, analytical perspectives on material culture, and its connectedness to the present-day world. The motivations behind construction activities may sometimes be glimpsed through the study of historical records or through anthropological parallels, but they can hardly be determined solely on the basis of archaeological evidence. Architectural construction and decision-making are undoubtedly multi-­ layered and may be influenced by both planned and subconscious processes, group as well as individual strategies. Yet, like any other type of material culture, it is an important resource for the study of patterns. For that goal, detailed studies of individual sites and regions are just as important as larger cross-regional and cross-­ cultural comparative analyses. In this volume, public spatial features are studied in the temporal context of colonialism, where the importance of the built environment for social life is highlighted by the efforts of colonizers to add to, shape or export features of the built environment to new territories, where this might be met both with resistance or lead to their assimilation, but it is invariably a driver of change. The public components of the urban built environment and their transformations are compared on the basis of case studies from three regions. The case study regions selected for discussion in this book are deliberately geographically diverse and represented by different architectural and social vocabulary. This way, the presented studies aim to escape inherent disciplinary preconceptions and facilitate comparisons of regions, which have never

1 Introduction

5

been considered in context. The case studies also share some similar features. The regions of coastal East Africa in what is today Kenya and Tanzania, Morocco in North-West Africa and the Iberian Peninsula of southern Europe represent areas with at least a thousand years long traditions of urbanism (Fig. 1.1). Their urban histories were strongly influenced by the long-term importance of trade for the most of the discussed time periods. In all of the three regions, Islam was a dominant religion either in the precolonial period or it became dominant in the colonial era. They all experienced a period of colonial rule, preceded or followed by a period of strong foreign influence. However, in each of the regions, colonialism dates to a different temporal context. While archaeological research has been an integrated part of study of al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula, in Morocco the colonial period is

Fig. 1.1  A map showing the geographical location of the regions discussed throughout the volume

6

1 Introduction

almost exclusively studied by historians. In East Africa, colonial heritage is studied to some degree by architectural historians, but the political connotations of colonial heritage have contributed to its very hesitant recognition as worthy of archaeological research. However, the study of former colonial cities that have a farther-reaching precolonial history is all the more important today as about two thirds of the largest and important world cities belong to this category (Home & King, 2016: 56). Although sometimes disregarded and certainly still little analysed, the legacy of both precolonial and colonial development leaves a mark in the present postcolonial world. This mark may be intangible, because its relevance extends beyond the mere collection of preserved architectural features, but it is no less real, and it represents a part of cultural heritage that cannot be divorced from the associated social connotations. This is where there is room for archaeology (with an interdisciplinary reach to other historical sciences), which can provide perspectives on the ways in which the built environment as material culture intertwines with the social worlds.

1.1 The Aims of the Book The studies presented in this book address the urban public buildings and spaces in order to highlight them as if a layer on a mental map, with the goal to understand how urban change in context with colonialism altered the socio-spatial dialogue of the precolonial era. This is undertaken through the analysis of the distribution of public features, considering their changing roles in the sensory environment of the towns as well as their social roles in their respective regions. Set in the context of (pre)colonial architecture, this book does not aspire to making leaps in critical thinking on colonialism, but rather to get an understanding of the underlying connotations of spatial organisation, and specifically the role of public buildings and spaces in the urban social dynamics over time. Urbanism in the regions of East and North-West Africa and the Iberian Peninsula are compared here for the first time in order to provide new data on issues like the long-term impact of colonial development on pre-existing towns, the socio-spatial role of trade in merchant cities or analysing the multiple facets of Islamic urbanism in the local contexts. The case studies discussed encompass cultural and geographical regions, which are characterised on the basis of the represented towns. A certain level of generalisation about each region is therefore inevitable, but on the other hand it allows comparisons, which would not be possible when considering selected isolated towns. Hence, this book demonstrates that the current state of knowledge is perhaps ready for wider cross-regional comparisons, that move beyond the themes defined as European urbanism, urbanism in the Global South or tropical urbanism (e.g. Baumanova & Vis, 2020; Clark, 2009; Smith, 2003). This volume aims to contribute to the studies of colonialism, archaeology of urbanism and also to urban studies with a historical dimension. It provides a review of data and observations that may be of interest to researchers on Islamic urbanism

1.2  The Spatial Dimension of Colonialism

7

outside the regions of Near and Middle East, and to Africanists, as two of the case study regions are in Africa. This book is situated within historical archaeology, which is, globally, a field informed by historical and other sources from among the social and historical sciences. For the regions discussed, there is a varied amount of written, oral and/or ethnographic information available about their precolonial and colonial pasts. But for all, there is archaeological evidence represented by standing buildings and constructed spaces, either as deserted towns or preserved in the cores of living cities today. The main author of this book is an archaeologist, incorporating some anthropological concepts on lived space, while other authors contribute to the present volume with their historical and sociological perspectives. The approaches and views represented by the various disciplines are brought together in the final comparative chapter of this book. Following the example of earlier studies, the purpose of this book is to advance the understanding of the roles of material culture in general (e.g. Boone et al., 1990; De Meulemeester, 2005; Reid & Lane, 2004; Rhodes, 2010). The goal of the papers in this book is to provide an analyses and interpretations on urban public features in the built environment, i.e. buildings as well as open spaces. The buildings discussed include seats of institutions, religious structures, commemorative features, or utilitarian buildings, and open spaces are represented by squares, streets, cemeteries and other exterior urban spaces. It needs to be mentioned, that the majority of town buildings anywhere are usually residential, owing by definition to the fact that towns need to house a number of people, and that these represent private space. However, in this book residential buildings are demonstrated to have social functions or features, which are discussed in the text where relevant, especially considering rooms fulfilling social roles and external façades seen by the public. Some new data from surveys are presented, but the argument mainly hinges on published data viewed through a new lens, in order to develop comparative perspectives. The built environment is understood as a type of material culture, used and adopted by multiple generations, allowing us to assess its potential connotations for long-term public life. The analyses provided are discussed in context with power and identity that both have a spatial dimension, reflecting on the theoretical debates discussed below. Transformations of the built environment, including those induced by colonialism but also those preceding it, are interpreted considering their long-term and omnipresent influence on the urban society.

1.2 The Spatial Dimension of Colonialism Colonialism may be defined as an economic, political and cultural control (Said, 1993), which includes spatial dominance (AlSayyad, 1992). It is a phenomenon, which various facets may be highlighted depending on the disciplinary perspective. Although often associated with modern European colonialisms from which period the term also originates, archaeologists have successfully established that some form of colonialism have been practiced for millennia across continents, from

8

1 Introduction

Mesopotamia to the Americas (Gosden, 2004). Studying the spatial dimension of colonialism allows us to get a better understanding of how complex systems such as urban settlements change, adapt over the long term or resist imposed interventions into the urban space. It also offers unique opportunities to cross the disciplinary boundaries and combine the approaches of archaeology with history, ethnography, and anthropology, which all study socio-spatial interplay from different perspectives. The colonial past has been part of research in historical archaeology for several decades. As for the impact and roles of the built environment, research has focused on the underlying agendas, from the perspective of both colonizers and, increasingly in the recent decades, the colonized. These include, for example, the discussions of ethnic segregation inbuilt to colonial urban planning and based on various political arguments from health to cultural dependence of the indigenous peoples (Home & King, 2016: 74). A significant amount of studies has also concentrated on the motivations and goals of the colonizing powers. Architecture has been repeatedly identified as an integrated part of colonial policies and strategies (e.g. Demissie, 2012; Njoh, 2008; Wright, 1991). What colonialism is in architectural terms, however, was defined largely on the basis of analyses focused on British India (Bremner, 2016). In Africa, this accent on Indian case-studies and on Edward Said’s thesis (1978) developed on Near and Middle Eastern examples led to an initial disregard for the local context and to a strong emphasis on binary ‘black-and-white’ understanding of analytical categories (e.g. MacKenzie, 1995). As a result, researchers gained a sound understanding of certain phenomena, such as that the colonial efforts to control the local population were reflected in the manipulation of space and produced segregated neighbourhoods (AlSayyad, 1992; Bissell, 2011; Demissie, 2012). Nevertheless, in Africa, the extent to which the spatial transformations were realised and how this could have changed the social use of space in the local context remain understudied. The relevant chapters in this book explore how different types of colonial control left accordingly varied traces in the built environment of the towns that experienced colonial influence or direct rule. For example, in the British colonial sphere, control over trade and resources was apparent in the distribution of customs houses, railways, or seats of important institutions (Bremner, 2016). Portuguese influence was identified especially with military forts (Osei-Tutu, 2018) and French colonialism stressed control through proliferation of urban space with colonial buildings (Njoh, 2008). The effect of colonial influence on urban development has been explained with the use of various models, that were however developed before the understanding of precolonial periods in the concerned regions gained a sufficient depth. Among the prominent approaches was the world systems theory, which explained the working of colonial centres as ranked below the first world cities (King, 1990), or on the basis of Edward Said’s concept of Europe and the Oriental world and on theories of modernity (Cooper, 1987; Said, 1993).

1.2  The Spatial Dimension of Colonialism

9

It was the findings of archaeological research, especially from the 1980s and 1990s, that motivated the revision of theories on the use of urban space and impact of colonial development, because they brought a greater understanding of the precolonial urban heritage. This has brought several concepts to the attention of urban studies concerned with socio-spatial mechanisms, such as the phenomenon of towns with dual centres or nucleated urbanism in West Africa (e.g. Baumanova et  al., 2019; McIntosh & McIntosh, 1981). In terms of settlement patterns, research in historical archaeology has shown that the system of cores and peripheries may not have the same foundations around the globe, but rather it has variations dependent on the local basis of power (Monroe, 2014). Archaeology and architectural research also inspired inquiries into the side effects of colonial influence on the urban built environment, including changing social stratification and power symbolism expressed through architecture (Clarke, 2006). Some of these themes are also reflected throughout this volume. Urban layout or its change may always be understood differently by colonizers and the colonized population (Stahl, 2002), as research in history shows for example on monumental buildings (Demissie, 2012). With the dawn of one era, the associated material culture, architecture included, continues to be used and hence plays a role in urban life. Similarly, with the advance of colonialism, the precolonial urban lifestyle did not and could not end abruptly, but extended to the colonial era with the continued use of material culture. The urbanites in historical cities today are still living with the built heritage of the colonial era and sometimes dating to the precolonial era. As Parker argued for Accra, nowhere the colonialists managed to transform the towns to their image or to remake them completely (Parker, 2000). Although colonialism as a concept has all too often been represented by modern European colonialism in the overseas regions, in the recent decades it began to be recognised that colonialism was also reflected in the homelands of the colonizers, such as in Britain of the nineteenth century (Bremner, 2016: 7). This book also explores some examples of European colonialism, but also looks to Arab colonialism in East Africa and African colonialism in Europe on the medieval Iberian Peninsula. In some cases, there are even several periods of different colonial influences, such as in Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula. In association with colonialism, some contexts remain little discussed and even less compared, and among these comparisons of precolonial and colonial eras may be counted, with research divided by disciplinary interests rather than factual obstacles. For example, colonialism in Africa is typically understood as referring to the period of seventeenth to twentieth century and studied mostly by historians, while archaeologists concentrate on the precolonial period (Rhodes, 2014; Sinclair, 2013). This book strives to widen in the discussion to case-studies from different temporal contexts and fill the gap by comparing regions, which experienced different types of colonialism. It hopes to demonstrate that if we analyse the workings of society and space in the precolonial era, the better we can evaluate the potential impact of colonial development, and that both have contributed to the longevity, resilience as well as problems of present-day cities. The presented papers hence target the neglected

10

1 Introduction

element in studies of historical cities, where the theme of colonial urbanism and evaluations of its relative impact have been based almost exclusively on analyses of buildings constructed by the colonists. All case studies described in this book hence focus on discussing how colonialism affected some pre-existent socio-spatial principles, which of these survived and how they altered over time.

1.3 Theoretical Foundations for Analyses of Urban Public Space There is a wide range of theoretical approaches associated with analyses of the urban built environment, especially with regard to all the disciplines contributing to this research field. Considering them all is hence beyond the scope of this introduction. Here I focus on discussing the context of the theoretical foundations that are directly relevant for or have inspired the discussion of cases and data presented in this volume. Since the ‘spatial turn’ in the humanities, there has been a steadily growing scope of spatial and architectural factors, which are recognised to influence human perception as well as social interaction (for an overview see e.g. Gieseking et al., 2014). This branch of research was revolutionized especially with the research of Michel Foucalt and Henri Lefebvre in the 1970s and 1980s, who highlighted that space is not inert or incidental, and plays an active role in continually (re)setting the conditions for social phenomena and relations. Especially the work of Lefebvre has been relevant for analysing the colonial city, as it discussed power relationships and social justice in relation to space (Kofman & Lebas, 1996). Power became to be understood as having a spatial component, stemming from the fact that space is constructed by those holding power as well as those in the lower tiers of the society (Myers, 2003). This recognition is as relevant for urban studies of present-day cities as it is for opening new themes in research on cities known on the basis of historical and archaeological data. Another aspect of power is that the built environment may act on people’s perception and actions. Seminal studies in this field were presented by Amos Rapoport who argued that the built-environment may be understood as a type of non-verbal communication (Rapoport, 1990), or Tim Ingold, who introduced the concept of ‘taskscapes’, arguing that people remember and understand places as associated with habitual activities (Ingold, 2000). For accepting that architecture may have meanings that are consciously and subconsciously interpreted, it needs to admitted that constructed space is continually reproduced. As such, it has a fluid social meaning (Gustafson, 2001). Some aspects of past spatial associations, status or connotations may therefore be irretrievable from the preserved data. Yet, it may be expected that with changing meaning of the built features, their physical properties get adapted over time too to fit the changing social environment. Therefore, with some delay, the built environment relatively well reflects and shapes the society, just like any other type of material culture. This correlates well with the theory of affordances, which states that the physical

1.3  Theoretical Foundations for Analyses of Urban Public Space

11

properties of material culture delimit its potential scale of uses (Gibson, 1979). This may be extended to space, allowing for analyses of tangible architecture and the intangible open spaces in the built environment (Baumanova & Smejda, 2018). It may be presumed that public features in the built environment need to have physical properties and be situated in a certain spatial context in order to fulfil and conform to their expected social use, for example to be visible, recognizable, monumental, have certain acoustic properties, familiar décor or facilitate ‘proper’ behaviour and interaction. Public spaces differ from residential/private space in theories of space, because on an urban scale, public spaces may be both terminal/end spaces in the urban network representing potential destinations of people’s routes, as well as transitory spaces, while private spaces are always destinations (Hanson, 1998). Public space is universally important, although in different societies it may have different dominant social functions, such as ceremonial, liberal, performative, or carry notions of exclusivity (Iveson, 1998). Just like power, group and individual identity has a pronounced spatial dimension. Architecture may serve as collective cultural representation (Vale, 1992) as well as a collective mind expressing people’s culture (Hendrix, 2012). For example, on the Swahili coast, which is one of the case study regions discussed in this book, people identified with a particular town; this had a greater validity than the concept of ‘Swahiliness’, which was recognised but lacked a place-attachment (Fabian, 2019: 120). Identity associated with space is spurred on by diversity as it serves to achieve social cohesion towards the outside world, but needs to maintain some level of potential for change. This is the reason why even enslaved people in African societies could advance in social hierarchy once they were accepted as having established ties to a place of residence (Deutsch, 2006). Apart from social interaction, the properties of the built environment act on individual sensory perception. Studies in historical archaeology have firmly established that the physical properties of the built environment have measurable effects on people’s perception and hence on the interpretation of their surroundings (Betts, 2017). The importance of perception may be demonstrated by the power of maps or artistic depictions of cities. This way places may gain ideal characteristics, such as the admired squares in Christian cities of southern Europe or Islamic cities described in text as if human personifications (Burke, 2013: 440, 447). Similarly, it has been confirmed by ethnographic and anthropological studies that the sensorium plays a part in interpreting the proper use and meaning of certain places (Howes & Classen, 2014; Ingold, 2000). While firmly established in archaeological studies of some urban contexts such as the ancient Roman world (Betts, 2017; Platts, 2019), it is only beginning to be incorporated in studies of the colonial, Islamic or African setting. The recognition that a spatial dimension is an active component of practices and social dynamics brought a need for analytical approaches, which would allow reflections on the symbolic connotations of architecture as well as derive an understanding of its long-term social impact. Analytical approaches to space highlight patterns, symmetries and alignments, which meaning may be interpreted on the basis of an advanced theoretical understanding. An early study of the practical

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1 Introduction

implications of human cognition in context with an urban layout focused on the example of Paris, where Kevin Lynch analysed how people navigate and remember space based on landmarks, paths, boundaries, open spaces and coherent units such as districts (Lynch, 1960). Although this study has been criticised for somewhat deterministic and generalising approach, its contribution was significant, bringing important issues to the fore on where decisions may be made in navigating urban spaces and contributing to the discussion with foundational revelations on the mechanics of human perception. Applied spatial analyses were further revolutionized in the 1980s with structuralism, which strived to explain material phenomena such as architectural traditions through an understanding of their setting or set of links in which they  are documented (Giddens, 1984). This was associated with advances in the field of social geography, psychology and cognition, which further stressed the importance of networks, where the links (relationships) represent a context for the nodes (objects or places). This is best exemplified by space syntax, a very influential approach in urban archaeology and equally a theoretical and methodological concept (Hillier & Hanson, 1984). Space syntax created a counterbalance to the approaches that explained form as following function. It is based on understanding space through opposing principles, such as inside and outside, or open and closed. A great advantage of space syntax is its capacity to present complex architectural layouts graphically, and quantify their configurational characteristics. Each building or town may be analysed as a structure organised in tiers of permeability, which represent movement, for example from the entrance through individual rooms to the core of a building. A greater discussion of sensory perception developed further with the advance of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, with which it became possible to analyse people’s sense of place, using tools like visibility analysis. In addition, network analysis has developed greatly over the last two decades highlighting the dynamics of complex urban layouts, and creating an alternative to earlier theories of central place, which presumed influence of specific places (Brughmans et al., 2016). Similarly to the capacity of space syntax to analyse relative privacy, network analyses can provide information on the relative capacity of spaces to be well-connected or positioned centrally on movement crossroads, and hence to influence social interaction. All these approaches continue to enrich and inform research in spatial studies concerned with the past. The shortcomings of these analyses stem from the fact that space syntax, GIS or network analysis cannot incorporate contextual cultural information. Nevertheless, this may be added with further interpretive analyses. In this vein, poststructuralism built on structuralist approaches in humanities, while revising their deterministic nature and bringing accent on context in order to avoid reliance on simplistic presumptive categories. In disciplines focusing on the past it has been recognised that understanding centrality of links in each temporal and regional context does not represent the complete picture (Hodder, 1989), stressing the importance of further complementary types of evidence, such as written sources or ethnographic parallels.

1.3  Theoretical Foundations for Analyses of Urban Public Space

13

Multiple analytical approaches originated in architectural studies. In architectural history, the built environment is mostly studied as a discourse, with an accent on individual buildings and the work of specific architects or political regimes (Silva, 2015). As an example from African colonies, the work of an architect Herbert Baker in South Africa and Zimbabwe has been studied for its references to Classical Greece and Rome and an effort to fulfil the political goals of Cecil Rhodes, later the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Architectural analyses assimilated some theoretical advances from anthropology, working with the perspectives that people build what they believe and in some ways represent their social order (Bianca, 2000; Psarra, 2009). On the other hand, the construction of open spaces has been interpreted rather simplistically as negation of construction (e.g. Bissell, 2011), which claim would be criticised both in anthropology and archaeology (Smith, 2003). Architectural approaches, however, have engaged with social geography, network analyses and studies of communication in complex social systems to a much greater degree than it has been the case in archaeology. For example, analyses of urbanism in Islamic regions led to (re)definitions of Islamic architecture, which facilitated studies of mosques and markets as the centre of urban social life (Insoll, 1999) and research into social reasoning behind the organisation of many Islamic houses (Bianca, 2000: 77–79). On the other hand, this also led to disregarding some specifics of ‘Islamic urbanism’ and downplayed the regional variations in Islamic house layout, such as in Africa or the Iberian Peninsula. As discussed in the final chapter, no two regions exemplified in this book have the same use of public space or distribution of typically Islamic buildings, although all have experienced Islamic urbanism for extended centuries. The limits of architectural analyses are also encountered when structures originally not intended to have a public function strongly impact on social life, such as house blocks or communication routes. An example of such impact may be the Uganda railway, which was argued to have destroyed the social order in Mombasa (Berg, 1968). Historical studies have mostly concentrated on a particular period. They bring a detailed understanding of past people’s perceptions, including (pre)colonial periods where majority of documents only illuminate the accounts of the colonizers. Even written accounts of outsiders are valuable for presenting the scope of potential perspectives on the built environment. Encompassing historical studies contributed to understanding cities as complex systems of communication (Thompson, 2013) and aided in disentangling the intentions of the builders from possible interpretations of the users and viewers. Research in oral histories have also been of great importance in many regions with colonial experience (Reid & Lane, 2004). With contextual differences, oral histories and comparative studies show that people claim spaces through feelings, actions, visual involvement and attachment of values, and that the importance of public space often stems from their association with movement and events (Francis, 1989: 148). In East Africa, the politics of building material and architectural features demonstrated how various aspects of public space may represent the urban community’s shared vocabulary even in colonial and post-colonial context (Meier, 2016).

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1 Introduction

In archaeology and anthropology, architecture has been discussed as material culture, which significantly widens the interdisciplinary theoretical inquiry in the theme. In this mode, the built environment may be seen as a system of markers that represent traces of movement and repeated practices (Wise, 2000). In an urban context it may be said that habitual movement tends to produce material evidence and conversely, if people want to influence movement they may do so by acting on the built environment. On the basis of these arguments it has been established that buildings are not just functional, they bind people together and define separation (Rhodes et al., 2015), just like cities as a whole. Most archaeological research concentrates on the precolonial era, where applications of GIS and space syntax proliferated, but these virtually avoid the built heritage of the colonial periods. While GIS was pioneered in context with the open landscape, space syntax has been applied in analysis of individual building layout (Baumanova & Smejda, 2018). These tools became popular on archaeological sites, because they allow researchers to study the ground layouts where standing walls are collapsed or have not preserved. However, the focus on material culture sometimes led to exclusion of open space from the built environment analyses, albeit with notable exceptions (Fleisher, 2013). As it has been argued above, urban space consists of intangible as well as tangible components. This gap is filled with sensory research on archaeological sites, perhaps the most used are analyses of the visual and aural environment (Skeates & Day, 2019), which study the perception of the urban landscape as a whole. However, sensory archaeology is still mostly focused outside the colonial context. This volume aims to bring together the relevant theoretical and methodological approaches in order to tease out the meaning of change from the constructed context. It follows Rapoport in that with the built environment, “meaning is possibly the most important function” (1990: 225), even if all papers in this book stay within the bounds of highlighting the affordances for meaning and do not claim to interpret the specific meaning of public space in each context. The case study regions are analysed in turn and compared to reflect on the fact that for each there are different kind of data available. The work presented in this book is a mosaic not only of methodological approaches and disciplinary perspectives, but also inevitably of results. What is presented here is limited by the scope of available data and perspectives that may be employed to achieve a comparison of the transformations of public space from the precolonial to the colonial eras.

1.4 Review of Literature on the Theme Urban and architectural studies are fields that are currently experiencing renewed interest and a dynamic development, but they less frequently turn to the context of the past. Conversely, archaeological and historical studies of precolonial and colonial urbanism often treat these periods separately as if unrelated, especially in the case of Africa. However, there have been some important studies that inspired the work on this book and pioneered the analyses on colonial built environment.

1.4  Review of Literature on the Theme

15

In architecture, the study of colonial influence on precolonial towns has been dominated by focus on building style and urban design. This brought important contributions to the understanding of symbolism of the colonial influence on urbanism. The role of architecture in colonial politics for both colonial dominance and indigenous resistance began to be studied with the end of the colonial era in the 1960s. It has been established that neoclassicism proliferated in colonial design from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean world in the British colonies, which was typical with white-painted finishes, features like columns or porticos and a strict symmetry stemming from the post-Renaissance Europe, recognizable everywhere from gentlemen’s buildings to vernacular architecture (Arciszewska & McKellar, 2004). British colonial architecture has been studied in the greatest depth in context with India. Sir Bannister Fletcher’s A History of architecture, an authoritative volume first published in 1896, gradually incorporated the most thorough early comparative analysis of Islamic architecture, although until the latest editions of this acclaimed book, it largely disregarded sub-Saharan Africa (Fletcher & Cruickshank, 2021). A recent review of Islamic architectural heritage in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula provides an innovative scope of analysis on the interconnected influences in these regions (Bloom, 2020). Urban planning, on the other hand, has begun to be increasingly focused on sub-­ Saharan Africa in order to define and explain the heritage of the colonial cities (Silva, 2015; Wright, 1991). The colonial experience led to the development of the so-called ‘tropical architecture’, based on abstract principles for building safe stations and institutional seats as well as housing for the local population (Chang, 2016). In all the case study regions discussed in this volume, colonial development affected pre-existing towns and was mostly aimed to control trade (Njoh, 2007). It uncovered how master plans and segregation were intended to have specific social impact and aid colonial powers to remain in control (Home & King, 2016). Important architectural studies have looked at the urban layout and modern development of some African towns, such as Zanzibar (Bissell, 2011). Recent studies have explored interdisciplinary perspectives such as architectural and anthropological research. These have explored especially the symbolic meaning of colonial buildings, as motivations of the colonizers and the perception of the indigenous population which often differed from the intended impact (Demissie, 2012). Important contribution have been  brought by  studies on the role building material for expressing status, identity or group affiliations (Morris & Blier, 2004). Anthropology and ethnography also widely informed archaeological research, particularly in Africa (Donley, 1982; Horton & Middleton, 2000), with the focus still firmly resting on the precolonial period. In Africa and many other parts of the world, it is almost exclusively archaeological data, which allow the advancement of knowledge on this period. They contributed to recognising the importance of space in social transactions in the precolonial urban houses (Wynne-Jones, 2013) and at broader regional levels (Haour, 2013; Monroe, 2014), often utilising a range of ethnoarchaeological data,. Discussions on the social role of space in context with power negotiations brought novel themes to the theoretical debate on the principles of urbanisation, such as Central Cattle Pattern as a concept of spatially enacted

16

1 Introduction

power in South Africa (Huffman, 2001), the moving capitals of the African interior (Reid, 2013) or nucleated urbanism in West Africa (McIntosh & McIntosh, 2003). Beyond Africa, studies on the influence of the colonial development on modern cities were pioneered for example in the context of the Americas (Clarke, 2006). In South America, Moore’s research on the Incas of the Andes, incorporated innovative analyses of trade exchange, sensory environment and public architecture (Moore, 2005). The archaeological research of Annapolis in North America uncovered the underlying symbolism of spatial structure and social logic behind the urban layout (Leone, 2005). The archaeological studies so added another layer of understanding to the regular street grid, distribution of circular squares, and monumentality of American colonial centres, interpreted architecturally as reminiscent of London and specifically its rebuilding after the Great Fire (Home & King, 2016). Earlier and rather normative Eurocentric perspectives have been repeatedly challenged in recent studies, with archaeological analyses of the colonial context in Africa significantly adding to the theme. For example, the ground-breaking work of Rhodes in East Africa provided a review of important colonial heritage, which long remained overlooked (Rhodes, 2014). The role of spatial configuration and analyses such as space syntax was explored in coastal West Africa for the state of Dahomey (Monroe, 2014) or Benin city (Nevadomsky et al., 2014). The present author have also engaged in analyses of precolonial configurations of urban space on the coast of East Africa and in  the West African Sahel (Baumanova et  al., 2019). As for archaeological studies dealing with Islamic contexts, the most influential have perhaps been the research of Timothy Insoll, which included considerations of mosques, palaces and markets as active components of material culture of Islamic cities (Insoll, 1999, 2003).

1.5 Structure of the Book The book is organised in chapters which in turn discuss the three case-study regions, aiming to capture their specifics, and provide some comparative perspectives on the particular roles that public space played. The chapters are ordered geographically proceeding from the south to the north, i.e. from Africa to Europe. Given the different nature of data and state of research conducted to date, each chapter utilises somewhat different approaches, while still reflecting the ideas outlined in this introduction. For the East African coast and North-West Africa there is always a pair of chapters discussing the precolonial and colonial period in turn. On the Iberian Peninsula, however, a single chapter reflects the intertwined histories of what may be termed multiple periods of ‘colonisation’. The second part of this book following this Introduction concentrates on the Swahili coast of East Africa. The first chapter of this section is focused on the precolonial past, which has been renowned for towns featuring monumental buildings built of coral rag. In this region, archaeological research has established that the urban settlements of the Swahili preceded the presence of the colonizing forces

1.5  Structure of the Book

17

from Europe and the Arabian Peninsula of the sixteenth century by at least six centuries. As it is discussed in the chapter, research on the precolonial period has been informed by Swahili ethnography and more recent written history that both suggest the significance of the organisation of space, the distinctive role of defined neighbourhoods/quarters and public display of specific architectural features. All these have been described as active in social communication, expressions of identity and attestations of power. Because precolonial towns frequently preserve as standing remains of collapsed architectural features, it is possible to study of the layout of sites, distribution of public features and sometimes the individual buildings. Chapter 2 hence aims to analyse how the public features contributed to defining the precolonial Swahili urban lifestyle, which buildings afforded opportunities for public congregation, how these buildings were distributed and specifically focuses on the role of individual urban quarters. The analyses provided in this chapter hinge on identifying the features in the built environment that could have fulfilled a public role. It focuses on visual alignment, configuration of public buildings and streets for movement and perception dynamics of the towns on the basis of layout data and 3D laser scanning conducted recently on some precolonial sites. The examples provided serve to show that the larger and longer occupation of each town, it did not lead to centralization and enlargement of public buildings but rather to their growing number and increasing complexity of features, which served to control and monitor movement such as doorways, walls, gates and passageways. The following chapter turns to the colonial period, which on the East African coast may be dated to the end of the sixteenth to the twentieth century, with specific focus on the coasts of what is today Kenya and Tanzania. There is ample evidence for towns that had been living settlements before the onset of colonialism on the coast. The archaeological evidence on colonialism is complemented with historical, ethnographic as well as architectural data. However, most of the living cities remain unexcavated, so it is mainly the preserved buildings and historic urban layouts that may be interpreted using archaeological perspectives. In the colonial period, the well-established precolonial urban environments were influenced by the British, Omani and German development. This chapter highlights that although different colonial strategies were employed by each of the imperialist countries involved, the underlying practical impact on the built environment of Swahili towns had some shared characteristics. The colonists as well as the indigenous population had an interest in acting on and controlling the public urban features. The chapter discusses new types of buildings and spaces that were introduced to the towns in the colonial period, and so affected the established precolonial setting in terms of distribution, purpose and capacity of public space within the coastal towns. And conversely, the introduced colonial buildings assimilated some features known from the indigenous towns of the precolonial period, which had clear impact on visual properties of buildings or on continuing the tradition of public meetings on streets. It is derived that the symbolic imposing role and the impact of individual colonial buildings on visual perception of the colonized cities has been minor compared to a specific impact on urban layout, even though virtually none of the grand masterplans for colonial rebuilding of Swahili towns was ever realised. Rather, the analyses show

18

1 Introduction

the impact in disturbing the balance between individual quarters in terms of configuration of public buildings and accentuating the waterfront as separate and the most important. However, the inability of the colonizers to change the established roles of urban quarters in most towns, as attested by the persistent indigenous efforts to maintain or even rebuilt the street network and quarter systems, carries relevant observations for future urban development on the East African coast. The third part of this book discusses North-West Africa, and specifically what is today Morocco. Chapter 4 deals with the precolonial period, dated from the seventh to the nineteenth century. With few exceptional sites like Sijilmasa and the ancient Roman towns, there is still a lack of archaeological research on the urban precolonial past in this region, and it usually does not refer to locations where the later colonial transformation could be followed. Morocco represents a case study comparable to the East African coast as a region of very cosmopolitan and trade-oriented urbanism. This chapter explores a different nature of evidence consisting of abundant historical documents, which is scarce in coastal East Africa. This provides an interesting context, allowing considerations like the mechanics of governance in relation to the built environment. A variety of public buildings of the precolonial Moroccan towns is analysed and considered in terms of their function and architectural style, as well as the typical layout of precolonial Moroccan towns respective to the established model of Islamic urbanism. The analysis of artistic expressions such as paintings is provided in order to facilitate an understanding of how the public buildings were perceived, demarcating the public sphere of urban life. Public buildings are interpreted as uniting and interconnecting life that was otherwise rather separated within the individual urban quarters. Chapter 5 follows upon the history of Morocco when it became a protectorate as one of the last parts of Africa to formally become dominated by the modern European (French and Spanish) powers. The impact of colonialism differed between the coast and the inland, with a disproportionate economic focus on the coast. As opposed to the East African coast, the architectural masterplans for Moroccan cities were in several cases fully realised, and overseen by colonial administrators. This chapter highlights that French colonialism centred on building new quarters and spacious boulevards, which created novel type of streetscape, fulfilling the public role of streets and squares. In this chapter, Jan Pěchota explains how enacting the layout plans bordered on social engineering, creating a historicising environment in precolonial urban quarters, preserving features perceived by the colonizers as representing the indigenous culture and effectively segregating it from the newly built quarters for Europeans. On the basis of archival maps and photos it is demonstrated that the identified schizophrenic nature of urban layout still predetermines the present-­day character of the towns in this region. Chapter 6 of the fourth part of this volume concentrates on the Iberian Peninsula. It explores its past associated with al-Andalus, a historical period that serves as an example of Islamic colonialism in Europe. The chapter discusses the shifts taking place between the eighth and sixteenth centuries, during which the Iberian Peninsula was colonized in several waves from North Africa. It encompasses the periods of the Roman, Islamic and Christian influence, which blended into one another and in fact

References

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all represented colonial forces with no single time-frame clearly distinguishable as precolonial. Within the study time period, power shifted between several capitals, especially Cordoba, Seville and Granada. The analysis is based mostly on archaeological and architectural data. Following the temporal development of the towns, their growth and sequence of building activities, it derives that claiming space was a crucial theme in the colonizing efforts of this period. With a town’s growing power, new quarters were usually established around public buildings such as mosques or a palace. In contrast to North-West Africa, the Iberian town layout always borrowed from preceding traditions and buildings were rarely demolished. The construction strategy of public buildings, their placement and decorativeness were important drivers that probably guaranteed social power over the towns. The presented analysis of palatial complexes at Madinat-al-Zahra show how semi-public space was integrated and ever-present in elite buildings. Although the Iberian Peninsula was never united during the study period, there were alternating efforts towards either greater unification or fragmentation. These were enacted through the manipulation of the distribution of public space. The final chapter compares the three discussed regions. Considering they share characteristics such as some features of Islamic urbanism, the presented discussion reveals how individual types of public space known from Islamic towns were employed within each urban context. It also shows, that residential buildings also participated in public life. With a public function recognised especially in courtyards, space syntax is used to highlight and compare some major patterns in the configuration of the courtyards, demonstrating different local traditions. The comparison of the individual regions adds new perspectives to the established classification of towns or recognised typologies of urbanism. It has been recently argued that public space was paramount in premodern cities because they facilitated the cohesion of a collective society, while in segmentary states it facilitated its fractured nature of management (Blanton & Fargher, 2011). If cities are recognised as living organisms, public space is key to their understanding, because as the ultimate representation of movement and congregation, it is associated with social life and change, adding dynamics to sensory perception. In a paraphrase to an argument voiced by Bremner (2016: 15), we do not need a new perspective on (pre)colonial urbanism or the roles of public space, but rather many perspectives on these issues. In this vein, the present volume strives to broaden the debate on public space and to view colonialism and the built environment through an alternative lens.

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Nevadomsky, J., Lawson, N., & Hazlett, K. (2014, 2014/03/01). An ethnographic and space syntax analysis of Benin kingdom nobility architecture. African Archaeological Review, 31(1), 59–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-­014-­9151-­x. Njoh, A.  J. (2007). Planning power: Town planning and social control in colonial Africa. UCL Press. Njoh, A. J. (2008). Colonial philosophies, urban space, and racial segregation in British and French colonial Africa. Journal of Black Studies, 38(4), 579–599. Osei-Tutu, J.  K. (2018). Forts, castles and society in West Africa: Gold Coast and Dahomey (pp. 1450–1960). Brill. Parker, J. (2000). Making the town: Ga state and society in early Colonial Accra. Heinemann. Platts, H. (2019). Multisensory living in ancient Rome: Power and space in Roman houses. Bloomsbury. Psarra, S. (2009). Architecture and narrative: The formation of space and cultural meaning. Routledge. Rapoport, A. (1990). The meaning of the built environment: A nonverbal communication approach. University of Arizona Press. Reid, A. (2013). The emergence of states in Great Lakes Africa. In P. Mitchell & P. Lane (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of African archaeology (1st ed., pp. 887–899). Oxford University Press. Reid, A., & Lane, P. (Eds.). (2004). African historical archaeologies. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Rhodes, D. (2010). Historical archaeologies of nineteenth-century colonial Tanzania: A comparative study. Archaeopress. Rhodes, D.  T. (2014). Building colonialism: Archaeology and urban space in East Africa. Bloomsbury Academic. Rhodes, D., Breen, C., & Forsythe, W. (2015). Zanzibar: A 19th century landscape of the Omani elite. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 19(2), 334–355. Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism (1st ed.). Pantheon Books. Said, E. W. (1993). Culture and imperialism. Knopf. Silva, C.  N. (Ed.). (2015). Urban planning in sub-Saharan Africa: Colonial and post-colonial planning cultures. Routledge. Sinclair, P. (2013). The archaeology of African urbanism. In P.  Mitchell & P.  Lane (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of African archaeology (pp. 689–702). Oxford University Press. Skeates, R., & Day, J. (Eds.). (2019). The Routledge handbook of sensory archaeology. Routledge. Smith, M. L. (Ed.). (2003). The social construction of ancient cities. Smithsonian Institution Press. Stahl, A. B. (2002). Colonial entanglements and the practices of taste: An alternative to logocentric approaches. American Anthropologist, 104, 827–845. Thompson, A. S. (Ed.). (2013). Writing imperial histories. Manchester University Press. Vale, L. J. (1992). Architecture, power, and national identity. Yale University Press. Wise, J. M. (2000). Home: Territory and identity. Cultural Studies, 14(2), 295–310. Wright, G. (1991). The politics of design in French colonial urbanism. University of Chicago Press. Wynne-Jones, S. (2013). The public life of the Swahili stonehouse, 14th–15th centuries AD. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 32(4), 759–773.

Part II

The East African Coast

Chapter 2

Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

Abstract  This chapter deals with the period approximately from the eleventh to the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century CE, during which hundreds of urban settlements of various sizes dotted the coast of East Africa. These Islamic towns were characterised by distinctive coral-rag architecture, with public buildings represented by mosques, tombs or town walls. Although still little studied to date, streets and open spaces seem to have been an equally important part of the public sphere in the built environment. The presented discussion also seeks to explain the absence of markets, and how their role known from other Islamic towns might have been fulfilled by specific parts of the houses. Furthermore, the socio-spatial role of urban quarters, which represented smaller units within the towns, is highlighted. The constructed access routes, proportions and sensory properties of the built environment are discussed in context with public features and structuring of the urban landscape. It is concluded that visual and physical access probably played a significant part of power negotiations in the precolonial Swahili towns. Keywords  Precolonial urbanism · Swahili · Islamic · Access · Visibility · Power The East African coast experienced a rich and complex precolonial past that was associated with the development of a very specific urban tradition. The social trajectory of the coastal population on the relatively narrow strip of land extending only a few kilometres inland, but almost 3000 km along what is also known as the Swahili coast, was in various ways distinct from the African interior. Urban lifestyle and subsistence based on marine resources may be associated with the coast from the eleventh century CE, based on archaeological data (Fleisher et al., 2015). Throughout the last millennium, the coastal towns were predominantly Islamic and featured complex architecture with buildings of various sizes, including houses, open spaces and mosques. The early historical records as well as descriptions of the visiting traders on the coast attest that Swahili towns functioned as city states, which made various temporal alliances with one another to form larger political units (Ali, 2016). The towns © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Baumanova, Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_2

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2  Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

probably had individual rulers, but these shared their power with local influential families that maintained ties to other towns through alliances and intermarriages. The organisation of the community as a whole also had an important political and economic dimension, because power was intertwined with tapping into trade-­ networks and resources from trade. Past research in archaeology, history and ethnography has established that the structure and organisation of space likely played a crucial role in Swahili urban power negotiations for centuries before colonisation. For example, the display of valuables was actively used to re-enforce one’s social status, as well as strengthen the links between specific people, families and places (e.g. Donley-Reid, 1987; Fleisher, 2013; Horton & Middleton, 2000). Some of these aspects about the use of space, such as its symbolic connotations or accessibility of certain spaces for specific groups of people, have material reflections. Regularities and potential patterns may be teased out from the analysis of the built environment and on the basis of critically-viewed parallels with recent centuries, most importantly the constructed access routes, proportions, and sensory properties of the urban environment. Identifying public features in the Swahili precolonial environment may help us to understand where the public played a role in constituting the urban lifestyle. This chapter aims to characterise the key public aspects of Swahili urban layout in the 2nd millennium CE preceding the European and Omani colonisation. Specifically, I focus on the dynamics of public life as enacted in the communally used buildings and spaces featured in the precolonial towns. As argued in the introductory chapter, the public features are distinguished as such which main purpose is not residential and which have been used by larger groups of people that those of a single household. The aim is also to show how the sensory environment, especially in terms of spatial configuration and material features of the constructed space, was intertwined with the construction of the society and its social mechanisms. This chapter reviews what were the specific patterns in the structure and distribution of public spaces. The presented interpretations demonstrate how a tradition of specific sensory characteristics of urban built environment helped to create speculative social opportunities. Public spaces on the precolonial East African coast are analysed as an important component of the social environment that facilitated the (re) distribution of power between various groups and that was active in the construction of the local identity.

2.1 The Historical Context of Precolonial Urbanism on the Swahili Coast There are multiple data sources, which can be studied for describing and analysing precolonial urbanism on the East African coast. As a main historical resource, there are travel accounts produced by foreign visitors such as Arab traders, the Portuguese from the fifteenth century, and the British and Dutch from the late sixteenth century

2.1  The Historical Context of Precolonial Urbanism on the Swahili Coast

27

(Pearson, 1998). There are also Swahili chronicles which date to the precolonial period, but were only written-down after 1500 CE. The well-known chronicles of Pate and Kilwa, among other sources, narrate the history of the Swahili settlements (e.g. Tolmacheva et al., 1993). Written documents mention at least 40 larger trading towns or city-states (Ali, 2016: 16). However, more than 400 sites with upstanding stone architecture have been recorded on the coast (Breen & Lane, 2003; Wilson, 2017). The majority of detailed information on Swahili precolonial urbanism hence comes from archaeological sources. The Swahili coast extends from Somalia in the north across Kenya, Tanzania and to Mozambique, including the northern coast of Madagascar and many islands and archipelagos along the coastline (Fig. 2.1). The Swahili have been known as a maritime culture at least for the last millennium (Fleisher et  al., 2015). For

Fig. 2.1  A map of the Swahili coast showing the location of some of the important sites mentioned in the text

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2  Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

approximately the same time, Islam spread along the coast, adapting to the pre-­ existing social environment and simultaneously contributing to the transformation and emergence of local urban life (Ali, 2016). Large scale conversion to Islam is estimated to have been occurring in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Pearson, 1998: 57); at least from the same time if not a century earlier we may speak of settlements, which are urban in the local context (Sinclair & Håkansson, 2000). The region has experienced several periods and types of colonialism, which did not affect the whole of the coast in a uniform format or intensity. If we aim to define the precolonial context as a period when the course of the social, political and economic trajectory was steered by the Swahili, then its dating is not straightforward along the whole of the nearly 3000 km long coast. Throughout the 2nd millennium CE, the region maintained well-established contacts with many areas of Europe, inland Africa and Asia. The connections of the Swahili coast to the wider Islamic world were based both on shared belief systems as well as trade, but intensive contacts were maintained also with non-Islamic communities. In 1331, a Muslim trader Ibn Battuta wrote about the Swahili coast and recorded trade around Mogadishu, and from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century, several trade and exploration voyages were sponsored by the Chinese emperors (Alpers, 2014). Modern Europeans came to the coast in the late fifteenth century. The first recorded voyage of Vasco da Gama describes the arrival of the Portuguese to Mombasa on the coast of present-day Kenya in 1499. Despite their efforts in the subsequent centuries, the Portuguese did not rule on the coast, but tried to divert and disrupt trade in their favour by establishing strongholds and military fortresses such as Fort Jesus in Mombasa. In the sixteenth century, Fort Jesus served Portuguese interests also against the growing Ottoman power, who the Swahili supported. The Portuguese were expelled from the coast in 1652 by the Omanis, who then maintained their presence and power on the coast (Croucher, 2007), which was transformed into the Zanzibar sultanate between 1729 and 1964. It was hence under the Omani rule, when the coast first entered the colonial period. European colonies were established on the East African coast in the 1880s, with the colony of German East Africa in present-day Tanzania, which then passed to British hands in 1919. In 1960s–1970s the states on the East African coast became independent from the colonial rule. Compared to other countries inland and in other parts of Africa, East African coast experienced a relatively long colonial period, when power shifted from one coloniser to the next. The impact of these forces on the public life of Swahili towns will be examined in the next chapter of this book. The precolonial period of approximately eleventh to the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century CE are discussed here first.

2.2  The Urban Built Environment on the Precolonial East African Coast

29

2.2 The Urban Built Environment on the Precolonial East African Coast The Swahili society of the 2nd millennium CE stands out as urban, especially in contrast with the preceding centuries and with contemporary inland African settlements, which existed in close proximity and maintained contact with the coast, such as those of the Mijikenda. The specific type of urbanity and ornamentality was limited to the Swahili coast (Wynne-Jones, 2016: 87). From another perspective, the effort to distinguish between the rural and the urban is of limited use and appears almost artificial on the coast, as virtually all settlements regardless of their size and character of the built environment also widely engaged in fishing, animal husbandry and featured orchards and fields (Croucher, 2007; LaViolette & Fleisher, 2009). Nevertheless, at least the later Swahili are known to have regarded themselves as urban, considering urbanity and engagement in trade as the traditional key components of their identity (Middleton, 2004: 4). The unique character of Swahili towns was defined as bearing similar characteristics of the built environment and social phenomena along the whole coast, while also welcoming a range of local variations and foreign influences. The economy of Swahili towns developed in context with trade, which was the driving force behind the extensive contacts with other regions. The nature of long-distance trade was shaped by the environmental and social conditions. The monsoons predetermined the seasons when the traders from far away arrived to the Swahili towns in which they must have lived accommodated by the locals for several months, before the change of the monsoon winds allowed for a return journey (Datoo, 1974). On the other hand, Swahili families relied on intermarriages to other towns along the coast and to the African interior (Spear, 1981: 95), which facilitated the strengthening of trade ties and establishment of new ones. Hence, there were many centuries of precolonial cosmopolitan urban life, which was characterised by knowledge of life-­ ways in other Islamic regions, as well as entanglement with culturally quite different communities e.g. in India or China, well before the start of the colonial era. Swahili towns were characterised by the use of specific building materials. Portuguese visitors such as Duarte Barbosa who wrote in the early sixteenth century described Swahili towns with handsome houses of stone and lime with terraces (Barbosa, 1866: 10–13). The ‘stone’ was in fact a type of limestone, an organic material also known as coral rag, or mawe in Swahili. The earliest Swahili stone structures were built of porites coral. This quickly changed to a combination of coral rag, a fossilised coral used for the main portion of walls, with porites incorporated only for decorative features, as its use required divers to lift it from the ocean (LaViolette, 2018: 329). For example, at Shanga it was recorded that the ashlar blocks were first joined using mud mortar, a technology that developed at the latest by the fourteenth century, and then by lime mortar used  along the whole coast (Horton, 1996: 242). Mangrove poles were used for roofing, as a durable and readily available material in the local environment, but they also limited the width of rooms that were roofed with mangrove poles to about 3–3.5 m. The use of these building

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2  Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

Fig. 2.2  The ceilings of Swahili rooms in precolonial coral-rag buildings. On the left: mangrove pole ceiling (reconstruction from the site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania); on the right: vaulted coral-­ rag ceiling preserved on the site of Mtwapa, Kenya. Photos by the author

materials allowed the construction of multi-storey buildings, when coral blocks were placed on top of mangrove poles, which could bear their weight (Fig. 2.2). However, this made the structure very heavy and adding a storey was only possible after several years during which the ground floor settled (Meier, 2016: 124). Various other types of stone were also used in building, but mostly selectively in the form of slabs and blocks, e.g. to serve as a doorstep. Coral rag is a light and durable material which hardens with time and exposure to the elements. When freshly cut from the sea, however, porites is soft and may be carved similarly to wood. This quality was frequently exploited in the precolonial era. From later preserved or documented examples, elaborate examples of carving are well-known especially on wooden doors or furniture of the Swahili (Meier, 2016). Nevertheless, buildings on archaeological sites show that coral rag was decorated in the same manner, e.g. around doorways and on stone tombs (Fig.  2.3). Furthermore, some rooms and the exterior of the houses were frequently plastered to maintain the gleaming white appearance (Middleton, 2004: 46). It is attested historically  that stonemasons were widely respected and feared, similarly to the status associated with blacksmiths (Meier, 2016: 40). Today, archaeologists accept that the precolonial built environment had many specific characteristics. The size of towns ranged between a few to about 50 hectares. As only architecture built of durable material preserve above ground, it is difficult to estimate how many buildings or how large exactly were the settlements when inhabited. Tombs, town walls, mosques and houses played roles in public life, reaching beyond their immediately apparent purpose, i.e. to serve commemoration, religious practice and as private residence. As a large portion of public space was constructed of coral rag in the precolonial period, it seems likely that this building material strongly participated in public life. With this in mind it can now be discussed how the public space was structured.

2.3  The Structure of Urban Life

31

Fig. 2.3  A 3D scan of a tomb with engraved inscription and niches at the site of Jumba la Mtwana, Kenya

2.3 The Structure of Urban Life Precolonial urban sites on the Swahili coast did not have a uniform character or layout. Some of the largest towns documented on the coast is Gede (also spelled Gedi) in Kenya, or Kilwa Kisiwani in Tanzania. The size of such larger towns may have been around 35–45 hectares based on the recoverable evidence, so it likely that they were in fact larger. While Kilwa is well-known from both Swahili chronicles and accounts of travellers and conquering colonisers, Gede is known exclusively based on archaeological data. Comparing the layout of these sites, they did not follow any single model. The towns consisted of buildings with residential and public purpose, and as it will be discussed below, most often a combination of both. The towns do not seem to have a single centre, which corresponds with the multi-­ centric character described in ethnographic accounts. Larger towns were probably characterised by a denser construction of stone houses, by existence of larger houses and/or by congregation of some houses into larger house blocks as exemplified at Gede on Fig. 2.4. The largest houses found on these sites had more than 45 rooms and are also known as ‘palace-complexes’ (Baumanova & Smejda, 2018) and house blocks usually comprised of about 4 or more house units. There is a great likelihood that precolonial towns were divided into urban quarters, similarly to the later towns described by European historians and ethnographers (Baumanova, 2020; Horton, 1994). Mercantile competition that existed

32

2  Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

Fig. 2.4  Layout plan of a part of the site of Gede, Kenya. The palace complex is outlined in red on the right, the block of houses in purple in the centre and two mosques in blue and yellow. The plan has been adjusted on the basis of a map kindly provided by the Zamani project team

between individual towns and prevented their joining into larger political units also functioned on the level of urban quarters, resulting in a multi-centric character of the social and spatial organisation known across Islamic Africa (Baumanova et al., 2019). The quarters were often divided by an unbuilt strip of land and regular social events such as festivals served to redistribute and reconcile power between social groups residing in the individual parts of the town (Middleton, 2004: 51). There is also archaeological evidence of different house forms, activities and food consumption in individual parts of the towns such as at Shanga and Vumba Kuu (Horton, 1996; Wynne-Jones, 2016: 111). For example, at Pate it was documented that each quarter might have had its own mosque and gate to the town (Abungu, 2018). Smaller towns usually did not feature palaces or larger house blocks, or if they did, they were not built in stone. A 2021 survey on the site of Jumba la Mtwana, Kenya, dated to the fourteenth to fifteenth century (Wilson, 1980: 54) has

2.3  The Structure of Urban Life

33

Jumba La Mtwana N

0

12.5 25

50

75

Meters 100

Fig. 2.5  The plan of the precolonial town of Jumba la Mtwana, Kenya, showing the distribution of known stone public buildings and spaces (indicated by the yellow circles). Analysis by the author on the basis of a survey conducted with the Zamani team in 2021

demonstrated how public space was spread out across the preserved town (Fig. 2.5). There might have been more open spaces, which location now cannot be ascertained. Nevertheless, it shows that public buildings were evenly distributed across the site, at least on its preserved extent of about 15 hectares. Sites of less than 10 hectares are even more frequent and dot the entire coast. The smaller towns usually preserve as a scatter of individual houses with one or a few mosques. The organisation of preserved buildings does not seem to follow any regular (linear, circular or otherwise) alignment. However, towns of all sizes consisted of individual types of features, which may be found along the whole coast, suggesting that the Swahili towns subscribed to a similar vocabulary in the architectural construction of urban life and to a particular urban sensorium. Both larger and smaller towns featured mosques, tombs, houses and town walls of similar design. There were also multiple temporary buildings and outbuildings, which served various activities, such as wells, storage buildings, port infrastructure, and most likely, there were also caravanserai for caravans arriving from inland. These types of buildings are difficult to distinguish archaeologically, but it is speculated that for example the smaller ‘palace’ near Kilwa, Husuni Ndogo, may have been a caravanserai (Chittick, 1974: Fig. 2). A mixture of stone and wattle-and-daub residential houses was typical for most towns. However, there were towns virtually without any stone architecture, such as Tumbe and Chwaka on the island of Pemba, Kenya (LaViolette & Fleisher, 2009). The real ratio of stone and wattle-and-daub architecture cannot be established, due

34

2  Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

to preservation issues and history of research, which strongly focused on the remains of stone architecture and did not look for evidence of houses built of less durable material. The organisation of precolonial towns does not suggest there was any segregation between inhabitants on the basis of building material used for residences. Wattle-and-daub houses were intermixed with stone houses, although on some sites stone buildings were concentrated in certain parts of the town as at Mtwapa (Kusimba et al., 2018). This was no longer true in colonial towns, e.g. in Zanzibar (Bissell, 2011: 108), which was affected by Omani, German, as well as British development. As it will be shown in the following chapter, colonialism introduced new factors to the economic and social relationships on the Swahili coast, and most importantly took power from Swahili hands. The established spatial organisation of littoral towns was disturbed not by foreign presence but by imposed decision-making on building placement, appearance and use of space in general.

2.4 Public Buildings The earliest structures to be built of stone in the precolonial towns were mosques that signified the importance of Islam for the Swahili, although the urban population was probably only gradually becoming Islamic at the beginning of the second millennium CE (Garlake, 2002: 170). The first mosques, as documented at Shanga, Kenya (Horton, 1996), were built of perishable materials, but at least from the eleventh century CE they were built of coral rag blocks. The mosques on the Swahili coast were rather small, and their size did not very much increase throughout the precolonial period. As the population converted to Islam, it was the number of mosques that grew significantly rather than their size. In the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries, the larger towns such as Pate, could have more than 10 mosques (Horton et  al., 2017). On the archaeological sites of average precolonial towns, there are usually about 3–6 mosques, as at Kua, Tanzania or Mtwapa, Kenya. The building of additional mosques might have affected the hierarchy of their social importance in the given town. On some sites, like Jumba la Mtwana or Mnarani in Kenya surveyed in 2021, one of the smaller mosques was associated with a rectangular structure, which might represent a madrasa, i.e. an Islamic school, but their existence in the precolonial period so far remains speculative. Their potential presence would have also played a role in establishing a relative significance of the given mosque. Each mosque had a qibla wall with a mihrab, a semi-circular niche, oriented towards Mecca. In front of the qibla, the space for prayer was structured by piers that supported a roof which was mostly flat, sometimes with small domes. Interestingly, mosques in the north part of the coast in what is today Kenya and Somalia had a single row of piers running parallel with the qibla wall, thus creating two aisles and obscuring the view of the mihrab from the back of the mosque, as apparent at Gede or Mogadishu (Garlake, 1966). On the other hand, mosques of the southern coast, especially in Tanzania, had three rows of piers, which opened up the

2.4  Public Buildings

35

Fig. 2.6  Photo of the Great Mosque of Kilwa. Photo by the author

view of the mihrab across the whole space of the mosque. The octagonal profile of supporting piers, often seen on the southern part of the coast, facilitated an easier visual access around the mosque, as exemplified by the largest preserved precolonial example of the Great Mosque at Kilwa Kisiwani (Fig. 2.6). In most towns there was no tendency to locate mosques centrally. Rather, they were placed on the edge of towns or what might have been individual quarters. Ethnographically, it has been recorded that mosques were built between individual urban quarters (Middleton, 2004: 51). Some were close to the port and visible from the sea, which might have been an important component in the self-presentation of the town as at Songo Mnara (Horton et al., 2017) or Jumba la Mtwana, where the Great Mosque is located directly on the beachfront. A location close to large houses was also typical, as their owners might have sponsored the building of the mosque, and so undoubtedly increased their own social influence. Mosques were often associated with burials, both simple and in monumental tombs, which among other things must have had an impact on power negotiations among individuals and groups of the living society. Another feature with a great public relevance often found in the vicinity of mosques were wells. On some sites, wells were identified not only by mosques, but also within houses, and on open spaces between houses. A rather extreme example of this is the site of Jumba la Mtwana, Kenya, where at least 15 wells were identified by the author in 2021. In the colonial period, drawing water from wells has been

36

2  Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

noted as an occasion where chatting with other community members, exchanging gossip and creating social bonds played an important role in  localized identity building (Fabian, 2019). This could have been the case in the precolonial period too. Stone tombs were an important component of the wider urban built environment. They were built using the same techniques and material applied in the construction of other coral rag and lime mortar buildings. A specific type of these tombs featured tall pillars that in some cases were visible over the buildings and hence likely affected the urban experience and translated to social life (Baumanova, 2018). Multiple parallels may be drawn between the tombs and houses, especially in terms of decoration. Features such as artificial doorways and niches were carved into the tomb facades as well as intricate and interlacing ornaments. In some cases, the tombs evoked the idea that they were built to model a small house. The location of tombs was not limited to the adjacency of mosques or to cemeteries, which were also located in the vicinity of towns. Tombs were distributed across the urban environment in direct association both with houses and open spaces. Larger towns may have had about 5–8 stone tombs found in various architectural associations. For example, there were 6 monumental tombs recorded across the core of the townsite of Gede, Kenya, distributed in association with both religious and secular architecture, as well as open spaces. Stone tombs can undoubtedly be counted among structures with a public function, as they were active in multiple public and social roles. Based on ethnographic evidence, regular processions took place around the tombs and archaeology confirms that offerings were deposited on and around the tombs (Fleisher & Wynne-Jones, 2012). They hence likely functioned as a memorial infrastructure, a permanent reference to ancestors and founders of the towns. Memorial and religious architecture has been considered communal architecture, as opposed to houses that served individual families (Wynne-Jones, 2016: 87). Although the houses, as residential architecture, can be expected to have served private functions, they also had many public roles. The most important argument for this assumption is the preferred view today that precolonial Swahili towns did not feature any markets (Suzuki, 2018; Wynne-Jones, 2013). In a merchant society, there must have been alternative spaces for trade transactions. As it is established in Swahili archaeology today, trade was most likely conducted through the houses, which constituted a guarantee on affluence of the house owner (Wynne-Jones, 2016: 181, 188). It was probably through providing accommodation in their own houses (Suzuki, 2018) and hospitality that the house owners controlled the movement and trade deals of the visiting merchants. Written accounts confirm that visiting merchants were approached and guided to accommodation by hosts already upon arriving to the Swahili ports such as in Mogadishu (Alpers, 2014: 40). The most common type of a precolonial stone house had about 5 rooms, one open courtyard and one entrance, but with each increase in size by 8–10 rooms, an additional entrance was built, and the new rooms tended to be grouped to units of 2–4 rooms (Baumanova & Smejda, 2018: 85). Each house featured an open courtyard, which was often stepped (Fig. 2.7), with seating available for many people, certainly exceeding in dimensions the capacity of the house. It has been argued that

2.4  Public Buildings

37

Fig. 2.7  A view of one side of a stepped open court at the site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania. Photo by the author

these courts were used as communal spaces and for hospitality (Wynne-Jones, 2016: 188). As opposed to Islamic courtyard houses of the Near and Middle East, precolonial Swahili houses were not arranged around a central courtyard, but rather the court represented only a node in the sequence of rooms. Considered from the entrance, there were more rooms situated beyond the courtyard inside the house, compared to usually one small anteroom between the entrance and the courtyard. The public function of the houses was further strengthened by the baraza, a long bench standing outside along the walls of people’s houses, that served as a major meeting space (Loimeier, 2009), a tradition followed through the colonial era up to today. In later written accounts, observants noted that the front doors of houses were mostly left open (Fabian, 2019: 124). The arrangement of rooms within houses with aligned doorways allowed an unobstructed visual connection through several rooms when desired (Baumanova & Smejda, 2017; Donley, 1982), either from the entrance or immediately from the first anteroom of the house. In fact, on some sites where doorways do not appear to be arranged in line all the way from the entrance, as at Songo Mnara, they still have an alignment when considered from the front (ante) room immediately beyond the front doorway (Fig. 2.8). Although clearly representing thresholds, the doorways created a link between the outside life and the inside of the house. Houses were the most represented type of building in Swahili towns, given their relative quantity. On some of the larger sites, houses were more elaborate and appear to have been invested with more decoration than the mosques, which is

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2  Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

Fig. 2.8  Visibility through doorways demonstrated on an example of the most common type of a stone house on the site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania, with a schematic plan on the left and a photo of the configuration on the right

especially apparent on some sites, for example at Jumba la Mtwana, Kenya (see also Sasoon, 1980). Many towns also featured town walls, which however rarely circumscribed the entirety of the town and had multiple structures or entire quarters on the outer side. In several cases, the town walls clearly run through portions of the settlements as at Manda (Wynne-Jones, 2016: 30–31), Mambrui, Malindi (Qui & Ding, 2018: 211) or at Gede. Although town walls were built of the same material as houses and mosques, they were unadorned and probably always kept rather low. In most cases, an adult could see over the top of the wall. The walls hence probably did not have a defensive function. From living historical towns it may be derived that entranceways through the walls or simple gates played an important symbolic role for the urban quarters, which is still discernible from the street network as in the Old Town of modern Mombasa (Baumanova, 2020). The walls of houses were frequently incorporated into the town walls. It is likely that individual families were responsible for the upkeep of different sections of the town walls (Sinclair, 2018: 189) and the walls were built using same material and construction techniques like the adjacent houses. As such, they could represent the only truly public building project that can be found along the East African coast. There are also ethnographically documented cases of alternative modes of boundary-­ building, when areca palms were used to demarcate the limits of towns or their sections (Middleton, 2004: 49). The most important role of the town walls may have lain in structuring movement, keeping it under public management and signifying that it socially mattered. Other secular buildings which would have a specifically public purpose have not been identified on the precolonial East African coast. As a possible exception, the structure of Husuni Ndogo at the site of Kilwa Kisiwani, needs to be mentioned. The square enclosure of Husuni Ndogo have been argued to represent a caravanserai or a market (Garlake, 2002: 174). A market function is unlikely, because as it was stated above, markets on the coast are otherwise unidentified and trade was likely

2.5  Public Spaces

39

conducted in the nearby palace of Husuni Kubwa. Most likely, Husuni Ndogo is an exception in the sense that the entire circumference of its walls survives, but some plain stone structures without any further structuring on a square or rectangular layout may have been present at multiple other sites. Perhaps, questions about their use will be answered by future excavations. By all means, such structures represent an interesting crossover between a building and an open space.

2.5 Public Spaces To determine the specific extent and layout of open spaces in between buildings is extremely difficult for precolonial Swahili sites. Their positioning was very much defined by the placement of buildings and by walls. However, it is complicated to ascertain the number and density of buildings without large open area excavations, which have not taken place on most sites. Some information on the spatial configuration and social role of open spaces however may be derived. Larger open spaces seem to have been located in the centre of some towns. In some cases, these open areas featured stone tombs, mosques, or wattle-and-daub buildings as at Songo Mnara (Fleisher & Wynne-Jones, 2012). In association with these, evidence of ritual and commemorative practices was found (Wynne-Jones & Fleisher, 2016). Central areas at Shanga and Vumba Kuu were also associated with consumption and congregation, and many daily activities took place in the public eye (Fleisher, 2013; Wynne-Jones, 2016: 110–111). The existence of streets or even a street network represents one of the key themes in discussion on any public space. Compared to the rural environment, the experience with urban lifestyle might be distinguished by familiarity with the narrow, directional and limited street space. However, a discussion of potential presence of streets is virtually absent from archaeological literature on the precolonial Swahili towns due to the irregular distribution of buildings without an identifiable alignment and because mud-and-thatch houses do not preserve above ground. On the other hand, the existence of streets in Swahili towns is attested by first modern Europeans visiting the coast (Barbosa, 1866: 10). Recent surveys of the author suggest that streets might be identifiable. For example, streets in the form of a narrow passages between two lines of houses may be identified in association with isolated structures like the northern and southern part of the palace complex at Gede or at several places between houses at Jumba la Mtwana, both in Kenya (Fig. 2.9). This type of individual streets could be better described as passageways, which ends sometimes formed doorway-like openings. Access to these narrow streets could have been easily controlled, but given the height of surrounding walls, made the people inside the passageways virtually invisible to the rest of the town. At the site of Jumba la Mtwana, Kenya, 5 houses were identified in close vicinity (Sasoon, 1980). During a 2021 survey of the author undertaken in cooperation with surveyors of the University of Cape Town, fragments of a street network where several streets intersect have been documented at

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2  Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

Fig. 2.9  Photos of streets on sites mentioned in the text. On the left: passageway in Gede; a fragment of a street network at Jumba la Mtwana. Photos by the author

the site of Jumba la Mtwana (Fig. 2.9). Contrary to Gede, the houses at Jumba do not form a block tightly packed together. A detailed study of streetscapes may hence be a potential next step in spatial studies on some precolonial Swahili towns. Cemeteries represent another type of spaces with a public role. Swahili cemeteries comprised of multiple graves, which preserve with and without tombstones or superstructures, and sometimes they also feature monumental tombs described above. These were sometimes located at the edge of a town but in many cases also close to buildings, the port or rather centrally within the residential built environment. Often there were multiple cemeteries, especially in larger towns. Given their placement, it seems likely that apart from being visited for commemoration practices, they were also frequently walked past. Apart from central locations, open spaces were also placed close to the port, i.e. on the waterfront, a very public space in coastal towns. While ports had an established importance in the colonial era thanks to their associations with trade (e.g. Hoyle, 2001), their relevance was perhaps even stronger in the precolonial period, when there was a larger proportion of small-scale trade and fishing and when there were less technical requirements for the ports to serve large vessels.

2.6 Urban Power and Identity in Context of Public Space From the above characterisation of individual features it derives that communal and public aspects were repeatedly invoked in the precolonial built environment of the Swahili towns. The need to enact social ties and provide hospitality is reflected in

2.6  Urban Power and Identity in Context of Public Space

41

the individual houses, which featured benches for seating at the entrance to the house and open courtyards for seating greater number of people than could have permanently resided in each house. The largest houses had more and bigger courtyards. This coincided with the argument that the Swahili towns were an oligarchic society (Wynne-Jones, 2013) and had a king or queen, who reigned rather than ruled, with the ruler acting as a hub of the mercantile networks (Middleton, 2004: 62). Public life and the events associated with congregation hence could have served as opportunities for power negotiations in the precolonial society. The important public role of the houses is also intertwined with women in the precolonial society. Over the last two centuries, Swahili Islam became more centred on men, but in the precolonial period women held significant social power, as the eldest daughter inherited the house (Middleton, 2004: 92, 115) and there are records of powerful queens such as Mwana Mkisi of Mombasa (Berg, 1968). There is no archaeological evidence of the seclusion of women to specific places or rooms; on the contrary they were commemorated by mortuary monuments, as settlement founders, and hence they were likely active in constructing Swahili identity and public life. By extending hospitality and as potential house owners, women also actively contributed to trade and shaped the economic ties. Apart from a place of residence, the house symbolised wealth and access to commercial networks, and hence likely functioned as a material claim on social power. Stone houses and the associated town walls represented a great investment on most sites, suggesting that secular power played a key role in the urban landscape. The placement of mosques in the vicinity of some palace-complexes e.g. at Gede, Kenya or Songo Mnara, Tanzania suggests that wealthy families may have sponsored the building of mosques, especially in the largest of the known towns. Power was hence enacted through both secular and religious buildings. Socio-spatial dynamics may be identified in the efforts to make access to power recognised and visible. Power strategies were employed to achieve wealth through exclusionary social networks and access to prestige goods (Robertshaw, 2003), as well as intermarriage between influential families from different towns (Berg, 1968). Ethnographic studies attest that objects of prestige were displayed in decorative walls of niches and wealth was made visually accessible to visitors (Donley, 1982). On many sites these niches preserve from the precolonial period. Displaying valuable items was hence another spatial practice with connotations for social power. Undoubtedly, public space was also linked with Swahili identity, which had both inclusive and exclusive features. The coastal identity was expressed through the built environment by a shared vocabulary of building types and technologies. Tombs in particular played an important role in the process of creating a shared identity of the coastal culture (Baumanova, 2018). However, individual city states had their own distinct histories and local identities, e.g. associated with guardian spirits (Middleton, 2004: 122), and the urbanites were known by the specific town they were from (Garlake, 2002: 169). The lineages of the town founders were respected as the first natural leaders and ruled the respective town with a council composed of members of the extended family, as documented in Mombasa (Ray, 2018). However, in a community of mediators, identity on the coast was “situational rather than

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2  Precolonial Public Spaces in Towns on the East African Coast

heritable” (Middleton, 2004: 19), defining the Swahili as a part of the Islamic world, as well as incorporating features unique to the Swahili, represented in the public space for example by the pillar tombs. Social networks, materially constituted in the public space, were the ultimate source of power and at the same time expressed the coastal identity. Competition, ultimately associated with trade and the building of social networks, was inherent to the structure of the Swahili built environment on multiple levels, present in the gradated levels of access in individual houses, in the division or towns into urban quarters, or in the city-state character of the coastal society. The longevity of these social mechanisms is reflected in the long-term recognition of the same public features in the precolonial built environment.

2.7 Conclusion The case studies discussed in this chapter suggest that precolonial urbanism on the Swahili coast followed a distinctive trajectory and that public space played a key role in this process. Considering both the larger and smaller sites it derives that the size of the town did not primarily affect the distribution and character of public space. The only pattern apparent when comparing larger and smaller towns is that in larger settlements the buildings with a public function were more monumental, more numerous, and the fragmentation to quarters was more distinct. Streets and narrow passageways were part of the urban space, contributing to an increased complexity of features and inevitably enhancing potential social control of movement. The organisation of space catered for structured interactions and served the urban social dynamics. An intricate visual environment was created with features such as doorways, walls, or gates. The structure and appearance of the built environment were reflected in the dynamics of public life and vice versa. The concepts of power as an aspect of public life was strongly represented in the built environment. Those who held power, which was drawn from ancestry, wealth and access to social networks, employed features such as stone tombs reminding of important ancestors, as well as prominent positioning, size and configuration of great residences, to demonstrate their status. Nevertheless, these urban elites probably also used public features, such as courtyards situated in their own residences, and mosques to let the wider public share and negotiate this power. Open spaces and the presence of town walls which structured movement and access to various parts of the towns then served to define the status of the quarters within the town and respective to the outside world. Particular occasions such as processions, celebrations or feasts used to renegotiate the distribution of power, gained weight by their association with specific public spaces, such as tombs or open spaces. Past research, especially in ethnography, brought the theme of privacy to the archaeological discussions on the Swahili coast (Donley, 1982). More recently, its importance was critically reviewed, for example when Wynne-Jones (2013)

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convincingly argued that privacy or lack of it were not qualities of space, but rather of interaction. Still, privacy, in the sense of controlled and gradated visual and physical access, was architecturally very well defined in the coastal precolonial towns, especially in contrast with public display. A public component may be found at the core of residential buildings with the highest capacity for privacy, and conversely, a level of exclusion and privacy may be identified even in the most public spaces. Overall, there was no single model for building a town on the precolonial coast in terms of layout, but there were definitely individual built features and, importantly, their distribution, that created a recognisable spatial vocabulary for the whole of precolonial East African coast. As it will be shown in the following chapter, colonialism affected this spatial vocabulary and disturbed its structuring. Hence, the social opportunities that the towns afforded to the inhabitants and visitors became also significantly altered. Acknowledgements  The author would like to thank the Zamani project team, University of Cape Town, for their cooperation in surveying and digitally processing the layout and 3D scans of the site of Jumba la Mtwana, Kenya, which was kindly supported by the National Museums of Kenya (permit no. NMK/CST/FTJ/1/2). The survey was financed by the grant project awarded to the author by the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) No. 20-02725Y.

References Abungu, G. (2018). Pate. In S.  Wynne-Jones & A.  J. LaViolette (Eds.), The Swahili world (pp. 614–619). Routledge. Ali, O. H. (2016). Islam in the Indian Ocean world: A brief history with documents. Bedford/St. Martin’s. Alpers, E. A. (2014). The Indian Ocean in world history. Oxford University Press. Barbosa, D. (1866). A description of the coasts of East Africa and Malabar in the beginning of the sixteenth century (H. J. Stanley, trans.). Printed for the Hakluyt society. Baumanova, M. (2018). Pillar tombs and the City: Creating a sense of shared identity in Swahili urban space. Archaeologies-Journal of the World Archaeological Congress, 14(3), 377–411. Baumanova, M. (2020). Urban kinaesthetic heritage and the production of social sustainability. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 32, article no. 102445. Baumanova, M., & Smejda, L. (2017). Structural dynamics of spatial complexity at the ‘Palace of Gede’, Kenya. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 52(1), 71–99. Baumanova, M., & Smejda, L. (2018). Space as material culture: Residential stone buildings on the precolonial Swahili coast in a comparative perspective. South African Archaeological Bulletin, 73(208), 82–92. Baumanova, M., Smejda, L., & Rüther, H. (2019). Pre-colonial origins of urban spaces in the West African Sahel: Street networks, trade, and spatial plurality. Journal of Urban History, 45(3), 500–519. Berg, F. J. (1968). The Swahili community of Mombasa 1500–1900. Journal of African History, 9(1), 35–56. Bissell, W.  C. (2011). Urban design, chaos, and colonial power in Zanzibar. Indiana University Press. Breen, C., & Lane, P. (2003). Archaeological approaches to East Africa’s changing seascapes. World Archaeology, 35(3), 469–489.

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Chittick, H. N. (1974). Kilwa: An Islamic trading city on the East African coast. British Institute in Eastern Africa. Croucher, S. (2007). Facing many ways: Approach to the archaeological landscapes of East African coast. In D. Hicks, L. McAtackney, & G. J. Fairclough (Eds.), Envisioning landscape: Situations and standpoints in archaeology and heritage (pp. 55–74). Left Coast Press. Datoo, B. A. (1974). Influence of monsoons on movement of dhows along the East African coast. East African Geographical Review, (12), 23–33. Donley, L. (1982). House power: Swahili space and symbolic markers. In I. Hodder (Ed.), Symbolic and structural archaeology (pp. 63–73). Cambridge University Press. Donley-Reid, L. (1987). Life in the Swahili town house reveals the symbolic meaning of spaces and artefact assemblages. African Archaeological Review, 5, 181–192. Fabian, S. (2019). Making identity on the Swahili coast: Urban life, community, and belonging in Bagamoyo. Cambridge University Press. Fleisher, J. (2013). Performance, monumentality and the ‘built exterior’ on the eastern African Swahili coast. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 48(2), 263–281. Fleisher, J., & Wynne-Jones, S. (2012). Finding meaning in ancient Swahili spatial practices. African Archaeological Review, 29(2), 171–207. Fleisher, J., Lane, P., LaViolette, A., Horton, M., Pollard, E., Morales, E. Q., Vernet, T., Christie, A., & Wynne-Jones, S. (2015). When did the Swahili become maritime? American Anthropologist, 117(1), 100–115. Garlake, P. S. (1966). The early Islamic architecture of the east African coast. Published for the Institute by the Oxford University Press. Garlake, P. S. (2002). Early art and architecture of Africa. Oxford University Press. Horton, M. (1994). Swahili architecture, space and social structure. In M.  Parker Pearson & C.  Richards (Eds.), Architecture and order: Approaches to social space (pp.  147–169). Routledge. Horton, M. (1996). Shanga: The archaeology of a Muslim trading community on the coast of East Africa. British Institute in Eastern Africa. Horton, M., & Middleton, J. (2000). The Swahili: The social landscape of a mercantile society. Blackwell Publishers. Horton, M., Fleisher, J., & Wynne-Jones, S. (2017). The mosques of Songo Mnara in their urban landscape. Journal of Islamic Archaeology, 4(2), 163–188. Hoyle, B. (2001). Urban renewal in east African port cities: Mombasa’s old town waterfront. GeoJournal, 53(2), 183–197. Kusimba, C. M., Williams, S. R., Monge, J. M., Mohamed, M. M., Oka, R., Oteyo, G., Kusimba, S. B., & Dussubieux, L. (2018). Mtwapa. In S. Wynne-Jones & A. J. LaViolette (Eds.), The Swahili world (pp. 226–230). Routledge. LaViolette, A. (2018). Craft and industry. In S. Wynne-Jones & A. J. LaViolette (Eds.), The Swahili world (pp. 319–334). Routledge. LaViolette, A., & Fleisher, J. (2009). The urban history of a rural place: Swahili archaeology on Pemba Island, Tanzania, 700–1500 AD. International Journal of African Historical Studies, 42(3), 433–455. Loimeier, R. (2009). The Baraza: A grass root institution in East Africa. In L. Fourchard, O. Goerg, & G.-P. M. (Eds.), Lieux de sociabilité urbaine en Afrique. Harmattan. Meier, P. (2016). Swahili port cities: The architecture of elsewhere. Indiana University Press. Middleton, J. (2004). African merchants of the Indian Ocean: Swahili of the East African coast. Waveland Press. Pearson, M. N. (1998). Port cities and intruders: The Swahili coast, India, and Portugal in the early modern era. Johns Hopkins University Press. Qui, D., & Ding, Y. (2018). Mambrui and Malindi. In S. Wynne-Jones & A. J. LaViolette (Eds.), The Swahili world (pp. 205–213). Routledge. Ray, D. (2018). Defining the Swahili. In S. Wynne-Jones & A. J. LaViolette (Eds.), The Swahili world (pp. 67–80). Routledge.

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Chapter 3

Public Aspects of Colonial Urbanism on the East African Coast

Abstract  This chapter is focused on the colonial period on the coast of East Africa, mainly in what is today Kenya and Tanzania. The period is defined broadly, discussed from its roots in the sixteenth century up to the twentieth century. The types of buildings that characterised the public aspects of urbanism are scrutinised in turn, including their appearance, distribution and configuration in the urban layout. It is demonstrated that a number of public buildings was introduced to the urban space in the colonial era, including markets, seats of business institutions, administration or military buildings. The presented analysis shows that the public sphere of urban life represented in the built environment was significantly altered, as the newly introduced buildings did not have established parallels in the precolonial period. The colonial development accentuated the waterfront, disrupting the preexistent system of urban quarters, and also diverting power away from the networks associated with Swahili houses. It is also assessed how the colonial concepts in the built environment were spatially challenged by the indigenous urban dynamics, and finally that the changes associated with the period paved way for the abandonment of some towns in favour of new sites, and continue to be reflected in the structure of present-day towns. Keywords  Colonial architecture · Swahili · Urbanism · Urban quarters · Street network Similarly to the precolonial period, the colonial urban experience on the East African coast is complex and multi-faceted. The Swahili coast, whose precolonial development has been discussed in the preceding chapter, extends from what is today Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania to Mozambique, the Comoros and northern Madagascar. This chapter mostly focuses on the coasts of present-day Kenya and Tanzania, with which the author is most familiar and for which there is rich archaeological and architectural evidence. For the purposes of this paper, the colonial period is understood broadly as an era of pronounced foreign influences from Europe and the Arabian Peninsula, and it differed from the precolonial period in the sense that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Baumanova, Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_3

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the external political forces strived to control the affairs and the social and economic networks on the East African coast. This process started with the Portuguese first landing on the coast in 1498, and reached its height between in the nineteenth and twentieth century, when the East African coast was under a direct management of colonial powers. The gradual colonization was accompanied by changes in the built environment, where social processes were reflected and intertwined with changes in the urban spatial organisation. The role of public space and the ways in which public power was attested and enacted inevitably altered with the growing influence of foreign powers. In this chapter, I focus first on defining the changes in the representation of various types of public features in the built environment during the colonial era, based on the urban archaeological record from along the coast. This includes characterising the new types of buildings and spaces that were introduced to the colonial towns, as well as identifying the types of public features that went out of use or disappeared entirely from the urban space. I aim to show whether and how the existing precolonial types of public buildings and spaces changed their form, appearance and distribution in the colonial era. Second, I highlight changes in the urban layout and in the distribution of public buildings and spaces, considering what this would have meant for the use of the urban space. As in other chapters of this volume, rather than focusing solely on the individual preserved architectural features, it is predominantly spatial configurations that are drawn into the debate, in order to present a more complex perspective on the issue of public sphere in Swahili urbanism during the colonial era. The main aim is to analyse the potential social connotations associated with changes in the built environment, while the contemporary economic, political, and social factors such as the nature of trade or slavery in the colonial era are in this chapter inevitably marginalised. The arrival of the Portuguese to the coast at the very end of the fifteenth century marked the beginning of a period of gradual but significant transformations. The period discussed here hence has its roots in the sixteenth century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the most prominent external force striving to claim control of the coast was that of the Portuguese, characterised by their military efforts to conquer the coastal towns and take over the trade. In 1696, the Swahili allied with the Omanis and succeeded in expelling the Portuguese from what is today Kenya and Tanzania, with the Portuguese maintaining some control only on the south of the coast, in present-day Mozambique. In the early eighteenth century, power shifted to the Omani sultanate, which controlled most of the coast until the formal establishment of the European colonies. In Zanzibar, to where the Omani court was moved in the 1830s, the Busaidi rulers as successors of the sultanate held power until 1964. The rest of East Africa was divided at the Berlin conference of 1884, when political power over the continent was distributed among European colonial powers and resulted in the formal establishment of the German East Africa (including the coast of present-day Tanzania), British East Africa (including the coast of Kenya), Portuguese Mozambique, and Madagascar and the Comoros as French sphere of influence. After the First World War, the British took over the former German East Africa, which then became the colony of Tanganyika. The colonial

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period ended with independence in the 1960s, and 1970s in the case of Mozambique (for a comprehensive overview with maps see e.g.: McEvedy, 1995). The majority of building activities that significantly affected the layout of the towns and the built environment took place between the second half of the nineteenth century and the First World War. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Swahili coast had long-established contacts with foreign lands and peoples, and the precolonial towns on the coast likely had a cosmopolitan character. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Swahili identity was not predetermined by ethnicity or origin, but rather linked to the coast as a place of residence, invested with personal ties, and knowledge of local events and customs (Allen, 1981; Middleton, 2004). Therefore, the colonial development was affecting an urban environment that had assimilated many foreign influences in the past. However, the nature of colonial development differed in its imposing nature and abrupt introduction of changes and new features. Of course, foreign influences were not uniform in terms of the level of impact or control exercised, which both fluctuated over time. In some towns, such as in Mombasa or Zanzibar, the pre-existing towns were subject to a relatively intensive development and colonial planning (Bissell, 2011; Silva, 2015); in others, new settlements were founded under European influence such as Bagamoyo, and yet elsewhere, not much imposed development took place (Fig.  3.1). However, the period under study extending over nearly five centuries resulted in a decidedly changed appearance and composition of towns on the coast in terms of their built environment. This chapter strives to characterise its public aspects and start disentangling the patterns in the material evidence, as it has been called for by architects, historians and archaeologists (Bissell, 2011; Meier, 2016; Rhodes, 2014), rather than to identify the agents of change. The period of European and Omani colonial rule also brings new types of data sources. Apart from the Swahili chronicles, which date from the precolonial period, but were written down in the sixteenth century, the historical records were mostly composed from the later sixteenth century onwards by visitors and colonizers, the Portuguese, German, British and the Dutch (Pearson, 1998). Some of the contemporary written sources describe the appearance of the towns and Swahili urban customs at the time. Although the testimonies are given by strangers with their own political agendas and cultural backgrounds, they complement the archaeological data and also allow us to evaluate, among other things, which socio-spatial aspects were viewed as notable by the colonizers. For example, one of the earliest written sources, a journal describing the first voyage of Vasco da Gama in 1497–1499 shows, how important the built environment was in acting on the contemporary sensory experience. It describes that the Portuguese were welcomed on the sea, guided and led through series of gates into the town of Mombasa, then through multiple guarded doors and to the king/sultan of the town (Ali, 2016: 101). The significance of carved doors was described in sixteenth century Pate and Mombasa, when these were carried away by the owners to a new place of residence or inherited (Maitland-Jones et al., 1985: 12). Other records, such as that of another Portuguese captain, Duarte Barbosa, attests that rulers showed and guided the Europeans

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Fig. 3.1  A map showing the location of the towns mentioned in the text

through the towns upon their arrival, aware and proud of the local urban beauty (Barbosa, 1866: 10–13). The sources also attest that at the time of modern European contact, most towns were independent and had local chiefs (Ichumbaki & Pollard, 2021: 21), confirming the city state-like political organisation established on the coast. Especially for the last two centuries of the colonial period, there is a growing amount of contemporary ethnographic evidence, which is useful for drawing parallels with the precolonial times. It also brings more detailed insights into the construction of many public buildings, for which there are no such records in the precolonial period. Ethnographic data, for example, reveal details about contemporary building practices, as in Zanzibar, where there are accounts of women specialising in the transport of building material and employed as skilled plasterers (Bissell, 2011: 49–50). This type of data also brings an insight into the relatively small role of gossip on private life and, on the contrary, the dominant importance of public

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behaviour in  local gossip and production of situated identity, as exemplified in Bagamoyo, a prominent colonial town in what is today Tanzania (Fabian, 2019: 25). Many buildings from the colonial period survive, although these mostly represent the construction efforts of the colonizers. Given the multitude of foreign influences and the long period when oversees powers were controlling the urban development on the coast, it is difficult to disentangle the individual drivers and motivations behind change in the built environment. Many trends were shared regardless of which foreign power influenced the development of the urban space. However, with analyses of the composition and structure of the colonial built environments, it is possible to consider the aspect of time, i.e. to establish how the role of public buildings and space differed from the precolonial period. The towns of the colonial period, the introduction of new features, as well as the stories of continuity and change, can hardly be analysed from the relatively narrow perspective of individual disciplines, but need to reflect both on changes in the built environment and in the Swahili society. As it has been observed, the colonial buildings have mostly been studied by historians and architectural historians, while they still remain mostly outside the interest of archaeologists (Rhodes, 2014). The archaeological perspectives and technique of analysis brought forward in this chapter strive to generate an increased understanding of the complexity of spatial configurations in colonial East Africa.

3.1 Colonial Urbanisms on the Swahili Coast As opposed to other parts of Africa, where a single colonizing force dominated or strived to dominate throughout the modern colonial era, such as the French in most of West Africa, the East African coast experienced multiple and often rather contradictory colonization strategies from the outside, including the Portuguese, the Omanis, the British and the Germans. The Portuguese were the first European power on the Swahili coast, whose influence was longer lived in the southern part of the Swahili coast, especially in what is today Mozambique. Their arrival and involvement had a strong military component, characterised by an effort to conquer and hold specific towns and ports. This was reflected by construction associated with military garrisons. As further discussed below, coastal forts today represent a typical Portuguese mark left on to the coastal built environment. The presence of British colonizers was the most long-term as for modern European influence on the East African coast. The main strategy employed by the British was to redistribute power to the local rulers favourable to British authority (Rhodes, 2014: 11). The British in East Africa distinguished between black natives and Indians in a hierarchical system, where Indians had advantages over the black population. In the urban development under the British colonial rule, “the necessity of possessing a plan was invariably stressed, while its production and implementation were treated as incidental” (Bissell, 2011: 268). As a result, the British colonial administration planned and documented urban structure on the Swahili coast, often

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constructing individual residences and public buildings such as customs houses, but a larger development of entire urban quarters mostly did not take place (Njoh, 2007). But, there was a support for the maintenance of segregated districts, streets and quarters of the mercantile middle-class, characterised by a particular building style. There was segregation based on race, which was often argued to allow a better control over trade and the local population (Njoh, 2008; Rhodes, 2014: 117). There was also support for industrial construction in the colonial towns. The German efforts are represented in what is today Tanzania, and as for political strategy, it was mostly focused on maintaining control over trade agreements through colonial administration (Rhodes, 2014: 12). Contrary to the British, the Germans classified all non-European population as natives without a system of hierarchy (Fabian, 2019: 62). The political aim of German colonialism in Africa was to establish and keep the political balance in Europe. German influence had a relatively strong impact on the urban layout, and the resulting triangulated design of urban space is preserved for example in Bagamoyo or Tanga, which date to the nineteenth century (Cornevin, 1969). Multiple nations of present-day central Europe beyond what is today Germany, such as the nations of the Austro-Hungarian empire, were also entangled with colonial efforts on the coast, complacent with them, active in the colonial economic networks and engaging in missionary and exploration activities. Italy was also active at the very north of the coast in present-day Somalia, where the most important port was Mogadishu, and influence over its development oscillated between Italy and Ethiopia. In East Africa, there was also some French involvement, although only limited to the Comoros and parts of Madagascar. French missionaries were active in many towns along the coast outside of France’s direct political influence. French colonial strategies regarded the colonies as ‘overseas France’, aiming to influence and assimilate local cultures (Potter et  al., 2018: 68–70), characterised architecturally by building broad avenues and palaces, e.g. in the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo. As a consequence, French rule may be characterised by an effort to establish locally all tiers of bureaucracy (Wright, 1991). The impact on urban layout is not represented in the focus areas in this chapter, consisting mainly of Kenya and Tanzania, but it is discussed in Chap. 5 in context with Morocco. Generally, modern European colonialism strived to make cities easily intelligible (Home & King, 2016). On the East African coast, this aided planning and management purposes of the colonizers and often resulted in the establishment of new boundaries and networks in the urban layout, not present in the precolonial period. Universally, European buildings were often monumental and built using markedly different style compared to the Swahili precolonial traditions. As Bissell argued, “colonial rule hinged on efforts to refashion cultural landscapes, seeking to induce new modes of behaviour by altering the contexts in which conduct could take place” (2011: 108). For the colonizers it signified control over the urban space and local populations, but perceptions of the colonized were much more complex. European architectural efforts aimed to claim control of urban space especially in terms of economic networks and political order, but often they ended up more or less consciously accepting local ways in terms of architectural style of

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individual buildings or resigned to shaping urban layout solely in isolated neighbourhoods (Silva, 2015). Omani colonialism had distinctively different features compared to European influence. The Omanis were Muslim like most of the population on the coast and by the time they claimed strong political control on the coast there had been centuries long history of contact, trade, and established social networks. The Omani presence and links with the Arabian Peninsula had a prominent effect on Swahili society and consequently affected the built environment. The fact that the Swahili had shared cultural features with the Omanis facilitated social contestations, which were not present with the Europeans. Meier argued that Swahili and Arab ownership of certain spaces was fought through making architectural claims (2016: 23). It is difficult to decide to what extent this was a social conflict with a spatial dimension, as the concept of claiming space might have a projected modern flavour. Nevertheless, much of the ethnographic record compiled after the period of Omani colonialism suggests that precolonial society and customs of the Swahili have altered. For example, the concept of the waungwana, a term used for patricians of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, for which claiming Arab descent enhanced and justified their elite social status (Horton, 1994; Spear, 1984), became pronounced only with Omani influence. The same applies to the pronounced social hierarchy, according to which the serfs, watumwa, lived separate from the elites and outside the town walls (El Zein, 1974). As a result, the meaning of some built structures, such as the connotations and use of specific rooms within Swahili houses described by ethnographers and ethnoarchaeologists in the twentieth century cannot be directly projected on the precolonial period, because these concepts have changed over time (Fleisher, 2015). It may be derived that the colonial influence left its mark on the coastal environment. The different colonial strategies were determined by a number of factors, such as social, economic and political motivations of those involved, and as a result they have had different impact on the built environment, sometimes demonstrated by changes in the range of the public buildings represented and in the altered configurations of the urban layout. The local traditions of public use of space with links to the precolonial period also continued, and they had to be fitted into the changing built environment. This may be exemplified by public events such as the shauri, public courts held for resolving conflicts, which took place openly so that everyone could attend, or the importance of consulting local elders and leaders of stakeholder groups (e.g. Allen, 1981; Horton & Middleton, 2000: 22). The populations vested on the coast claiming local identity, adapted to, altered and reinterpreted the colonial development to serve their own needs (Demissie, 2012), because identity was often represented as spatial loyalty, in knowing and understanding places in each town and playing a role in its destiny (Fabian, 2019). These contested, intertwined and parallel efforts of the colonizers and the locals inevitably affected the visual environment of the towns as well as their spatial networks. The colonial built environment will now be discussed with the use of selected case studies.

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3.2 New Types and New Roles of Public Buildings in the Colonial Towns The range of buildings with a public function that were serving economic purposes, religious or social congregations, or as seat of institutions and that became established in the precolonial period (see previous chapter) significantly changed with colonialism. The inclusion of new buildings into the urban space was pronounced and altered the built environment of the towns as well as its sensory characteristics. The types of these buildings will now be discussed in turn, considering how they contributed to the socio-spatial environment of the coastal towns. The earliest buildings associated with modern colonizing efforts of foreign powers were forts, built by the Portuguese from the sixteenth century. The earliest stands on the island of Kilwa, Tanzania, and it was completed in 1505 (Chittick, 1974), but there were others like Fort Jesus in Mombasa (Fig.  3.2), Kenya and on the

Fig. 3.2  Fort Jesus in Mombasa, Kenya, as photographed between 1927 and 1935 by a Czech traveller Bedřich Machulka. (Photo courtesy of the National Museum in Prague, Náprstek Musem, ethnographic photo collection, no. Af I 5847 a, reproduced with permission)

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Mozambique Island (Croucher, 2015: 36; Kirkman, 1974). Fort architecture was typical with its corner bastions and star-shaped defences, reminiscent of other Portuguese examples in coastal West Africa. These forts fulfilled a number of public functions, occasionally served as prisons and as a refuge for those holding power, and as a defence base both against attacks from the sea and against potential uprisings in the respective adjacent town. They were prominent symbols of control, especially military power. For example, Fort Jesus was the first target when power was changing hands in Mombasa and it was held subsequently by the Portuguese, the Omani sultans, and the British. As for public buildings with a military function, there were also barracks, which hosted military garrisons during the European colonial rule (Pearson, 1998). Given what is known about the precolonial period, exchange in Swahili towns took place through the houses, as no buildings or spaces dedicated specifically to mercantile activities have been discovered. However, in the colonial period, markets became a common part of public urban space as at Tanga or Zanzibar, where they were described by Richard Burton in the nineteenth century (1967 [1872]). The Europeans and Omanis were bringing their own concepts of trade and urban design. Rhodes (2014: 86) argued that Europeans were building new markets for which European medieval towns served as a model. Markets are also typical in the Arab world, where they often represent an extension of the caravanserai. On the Swahili coast there were also caravanserai as at Bagamoyo, which is a large rectangular structure without a roof and with a single gate (Chami, 2004). Based on the typical layout of caravanserai, the only parallel in a precolonial context may potentially be detected at Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania, as the structure known as Husuni Ndogo (Chittick, 1974: 196–198). The appearance of markets as a new urban feature signified centralization of exchange, and helped the colonizers to claim control over resources and the trade economy. The number and distance of markets from one another was not sufficient to service the urban needs (Rhodes, 2014: 56), and therefore the use of houses for exchange known from the precolonial period probably continued. The shifting nature of the commercial power of the houses was partially replaced by a more predictable, but stiff system symbolised by the markets as an imported type of places dedicated to mercantile activities. Apart from markets, the flow of material to and from the coast took place through customs houses. These could be single or double storey structures located close to the port. Contact with overseas was also maintained through post offices. The major centres of European administration, legislative and political power were bomas. A boma typically had two storeys as the German boma in Pangani, a monumental façade with a balcony and a central courtyard. They sometimes had a tower or towers as at German Bagamoyo, which made them visually dominant in the urban landscape (Fig.  3.3). Another tall landmark built in the colonial period were clock towers, a popular component of a number of public buildings. There were also seats of business companies, such as that of the German East Africa company in Bagamoyo.

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Fig. 3.3  A German boma in Bagamoyo, Tanzania

As for religious buildings, houses of worship now represented an increased variety of faiths. There were Hindu temples such as in Bagamoyo (Fabian, 2019: 66). We have no evidence of these for the precolonial period. With the presence of the Europeans, churches were constructed, usually under the supervision of missionaries and built in a spatial association with mission stations. Missions could be regarded as the main cultural centres of the Europeans. Apart from churches, in the vicinity of missions there were also schools and/or hospitals. As discussed below, they were usually constructed on the waterfront as may be exemplified in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. In towns on the Swahili coast, this represented a break with precolonial traditions, as a significant diversification of social or educational services across the towns. Overall, the main public buildings added to the urban landscape by the Europeans were seats of institutions. They were public in the sense of serving a range of administrative, political, economic and religious purposes, and on the outside, they were usually tall, visually dominant buildings. It was the exterior of these buildings that fulfilled the public and socially symbolic aspect of their function. The inside of these new buildings had a ‘public’ function only for some, while for others such as the indigenous population, they were virtually non-accessible.

3.3 Changes in Swahili Public Space Change was also happening in social aspects of public life. There was a growing and increasingly diverse population, which included Indians, Europeans and Arabs temporarily staying or residing on the coast, who were claiming rights to control people, places, and making political decisions. According to the research of Steven

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Fabian, claiming support of the community and local identity at the time was associated with being seen at public places and talking with others on the street, knowing many people, and being recognised (Fabian, 2019: 121). Some of the precolonial buildings and spaces with public functions were no longer used or their function was altered. The diminishing of importance or their new roles may be detected on the basis of various signs in their architectural characteristics. They fell into disrepair, were deserted or significantly altered. A number of well-known European explorers and officials who spent some time on the coast like Oscar Baumann, Richard Burton, Henry Stanley and Vasco da Gama described the slowly changing settlements and use of urban spaces they encountered (Freeman-­ Grenville, 1962; Rhodes, 2014: 47; Stanley, 1906 [1878]). From the accounts it derives that streets, as the most common type of open public space, were becoming characterised as linear passageways between continuous lines of buildings. Although streets were known in the precolonial period as discussed in Chap. 2, larger street networks with  continuous lines of buildings have not been recorded in deserted precolonial towns and might have taken shape with a growing population and the need for a denser construction. To some extent, it may also be a preservation issue as more houses were built of stone after the sixteenth century. What was visible for the public in the exterior space carried important connotations. This is exemplified by various cases of intra-town rivalry, recorded for example in association with dance societies, which fiercely competed in attracting members and hosting more elaborate events, or with dressing up one’s slaves to raise social tensions (e.g. Myers, 2003; Ranger, 1975). Generally, power was renegotiated through provoking gossip and attracting public attention. It may be speculated that this might have been accentuated in the external decorativeness of residential buildings too. With a growing involvement of the colonizers, the number of mosques on the Swahili coast grew. Hundreds of new mosques were constructed between 1870s and the end of the First World War (Meier, 2016: 78), alongside new churches and some Hindu temples associated with the incoming Indian population. This trend is hence linked with the period of British and German as well as Omani influence, so it cannot be simply attributed to the growing influence of Islam from the Arabian Peninsula. It might have been caused by the growth of towns and their population, and more importantly by the fact, that the number of urban quarters was increased, and if a certain level of quarters’ self-management continued from the precolonial period, then each had its own houses of worship. Monumental tombs, and especially pillar tombs, had been a prominent feature of the precolonial urban landscape, positioned by the houses, on open spaces and near mosques. As discussed in Chap. 2, they had likely been associated with identity and social power. Their use became significantly limited with the growing influence of foreign powers. Some tombs were still visited in the eighteenth or nineteenth century and connected with stories of settlement founders or saints (Wilson, 1979). However, they were no longer built in the newly developing towns or fully integrated within the urban structure. Remembrance pillars and monuments built by the Europeans as a testament to the memory of their deceased, similarly to the Swahili tombs, require some reflection here. It cannot be said that they replaced the

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indigenous precolonial tradition of monumental tombs, but they shared some of its public functions. They were built as monuments to the identity of the colonizers and to the conquest of the colonies. Most researchers agree that these monuments served to claim control of public space (e.g. Demissie, 2012; Njoh, 2007). These symbolic roles run in parallel to the precolonial roles of Swahili tombs, especially pillar tombs (Baumanova, 2018). Contrary to most others public structures that characterised the colonial era, the remembrance pillars and monuments of the colonizers were not associated with mercantile activities. In Bagamoyo, plans to erect a monument to the German officers who lost their lives in fights when taking control of the town at a market place were discarded in favour of placing it in the European quarter, close to the administrative buildings, in order not to provoke social unrest (Fabian, 2019: 223). This example suggests that visually dominant colonial monuments were likely attributed with sensitive symbolic connotations in the local context. Another shift in the content of the built environment is connected with town walls. As described in the previous chapter, their public role was not defensive, although partially this could have been one of their functions; rather, they served to heighten the control of movement in and around the town, without significantly affecting the visual environment. With the growing influence of the colonial powers, town walls were no longer constructed. However, at that time the feature of sea walls appears, which also combines ‘practical’ and symbolic functions. Sea walls were built by the Europeans primarily to prevent erosion. Also, most attacks on towns in the colonial era were led from ships. On the other hand, sea walls were sometimes built larger or longer than necessary as at Mombasa (Hoyle, 2001; Rhodes, 2010), in order to facilitate control over movement and to limit trade on the shoreline both visually and physically. In the case of these linear wall features it cannot be simply stated that town walls were in a sense replaced by sea walls, although chronologically this was the case e.g. in Mombasa, where town walls went out of use in the sixteenth century with the Portuguese presence (Maitland-Jones et al., 1985: 28). Even if there is no evidence that this shift in building traditions would have then been perceived as interlinked, still the acting on spatial organisation, on the capacity for movement and symbolic references to order and control are similar for both features. As it has been discussed in the previous chapter, precolonial houses fulfilled some public roles on the Swahili coast, especially in association with hospitality and mercantile activities. This must have changed with the gradual alteration of the composition of urban space from the 16th and increasingly in the following centuries. European colonizers promoted an approach of strict ordered design and role for public activities, associated with classification of the urban buildings according to form and function (Myers, 1997). With the growing importance of markets, as well as shops and business going through non-indigenous hands in customs houses, railways and ports, it may be presumed that the public activities taking place within houses diminished in the colonial period. On the other hand, some social roles remained, such as the use of baraza in front of houses – a bench that served as major meeting space for the house owners and passers-by for gossip and discussion that made and broke social relations in the town (Myers, 2003).

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The outside appearance of the houses, including their symbolic function and architectural references to foreign design was probably important in the colonial period. This may be presumed in connection with the more pronounced and permanent definition of streets in colonial towns. Considering for example Pangani in the nineteenth century, a general ‘Arabisation’ of the precolonial house design may be observed in features like the popularity of multi-storey houses among the elites, with house owners living on upper floor and the ground floor used as a shop or rented. Another feature imported from Arabia might have been the tradition of building a raised floor in the rooms of houses most distant from the entrance, or laying out the house around an internal courtyard surrounded by small rooms, which features are not observed in the precolonial towns. This resulted in a layout where no more than two doors were positioned on the same axis, which led some later Swahili historians to describe this pattern as typical of Swahili house spatial logic (Meier, 2016: 56). In fact, this was a novelty at the time, representing a contrast to the precolonial organisation of house doorways, which were typically aligned offering visual permeability when doors were open (Baumanova, 2020a). In the precolonial period, houses on sites in Kenya and Tanzania also usually featured courts near the entrance and rooms were not distributed evenly around a court, but continued beyond the court in a sequence of gradual accessibility (see previous chapter). Although Europeans built multi-storey official buildings and institutional seats, European residential architecture shows a clear preference for bungalows (Rhodes, 2014: 95). European houses were built using the local coral and lime technique, with which the construction of each storey took several seasons due to the requirements of the building technology for the settling of walls (Meier, 2016: 124). The fact that bungalows were hence quicker to build might have appealed to the Europeans. The palace complexes or large houses with around 50 rooms encountered in the precolonial period on sites like Gede, Kilwa Kisiwani or Songo Mnara are no longer represented in the colonial period. As these precolonial sites were deserted, which trend is further discussed below, these monumental residential structures, which probably also fulfilled a public role for congregation and exchange, were no longer built. There are multiple examples of palaces in this period, especially in Zanzibar, among which the House of Wonders (formerly Beit al-Ajaib) was especially monumental and showy. However, these were built in a style reminiscent of the Arabian Peninsula and served to fulfil private residential and representative function for the Omani elites (Meier, 2016).

3.3.1 Architectural Features and Building Style Apart from recognising how the representation and functions of public buildings and spaces changed in the urban spatial fabric on the Swahili coast, it is also important to consider the social connotations of building material and architectural style, as these undoubtedly contributed to the sensory environment and use of the towns.

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The aim here is not to disentangle the symbolic meaning from the utilitarian aspects of building style, but rather to analyse both as intertwined. During the colonial period, there was a continued use of makuti (wattle-and-­ daub) and coral rag, by the colonizers and the indigenous population. For example, mosques as well as churches in fact utilized coral rag, lime and mangrove beams following the precolonial tradition. However, new imported building materials and styles were also adopted, and made very visible. As a material, Indian iron played an important role in British buildings in Mombasa or Zanzibar, where it symbolized resources available through the imperial networks (Meier, 2016: 58). Under the British colonial regime, Indians and Arabs were ranked above the Africans and so specific imported building materials and styles carried association with a higher status. This is attested in buildings like the Maternity hospital in Zanzibar built by the British in an Arab style (Jackson & Uduku, 2016: 403). This was not the case under German rule, which usually referred to European building styles. For example, the Customs House in Bagamoyo, a symbol of German colonial rule, incorporated exposed cross-beams in its façade, a typical Bavarian architectural feature (Fabian, 2019: 223). Timber cross-beams, similarly to conical roofs, for example, were distinctive features referencing European styles and tastes, that were unused by the indigenous population or the Omanis (Rhodes, 2014: 74). Typically, European houses utilized a number of features perceived as monumental and dignified to European eyes, as a symbol of domination over the coastal population (Demissie, 2012). These included features evoking height, such as tall buildings with multiple storeys, columns, (clock) towers, or width with spacious entranceways and external defined spaces such as double doors, balconies, frontal verandas, fences around buildings and dedicated approach routes. Even the Omani sultans reflected on the British, Indian and Arab tastes. In Zanzibar and Mombasa, for example, the front façades of buildings were derived from Indian and Middle Eastern models (Sheriff & Jafferji, 1998). On the other hand, Europeans also adopted some local architectural features, such as an external staircase or a bench, baraza, situated in front of the building for spending time in informal meetings and discussions.

3.4 Urban Layout and Structure Having discussed how the range of built features with public roles changed, it may now be considered how the layouts of the towns and the distribution of public buildings and spaces were impacted. The most prominent colonial towns, which all served as economic and administrative centres for the Europeans, included Tanga, Pangani, Bagamoyo, Kilwa Kivinje, Dar es Salaam, or Lindi, as well as Zanzibar, where Omani influence was the strongest. On the other hand, from the sixteenth century there was an archaeologically recorded trend of people leaving coastal towns with an established precolonial tradition (Kusimba, 1999). Many precolonial sites were deserted in the sixteenth and even more so in the seventeenth century. Hence, it seems that the growing influence of foreign powers, both European and Omani, had

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an impact on settlement patterns on the Swahili coast (e.g. Wilson, 1982). Colonialism also increased the differences between the coastal urban and rural groups, in terms of their self-identification, subsistence base and economic livelihoods, which had not been so prominent in the precolonial era (Kusimba, 1999: 173). With the desertion of some towns and the establishment of new ones, the settlements often did not move very far and it is possible to follow the shifting centre of gravity from one site to the next (Fig. 3.1). For example, on the northern coast of Tanzania, with the gradual desertion of Kaole, the town of Bagamoyo to the north began to become prominent. Later, in the twentieth century, the German colonial administrators were pushing the development of Dar es Salaam at the expense of Bagamoyo. On the southern coast of what is today Tanzania, there was a major precolonial centre of Kilwa Kisiwani, on an island just off the coast where the Portuguese also seated their garrison. However, with the arrival of the German rule, it lost its dominance to Kilwa Kivinje on the mainland and that in turn to Kilwa Masoko under the British colonial regime. A similar pattern may be observed with precolonial Kua and the shift of settlement to Chole on Mafia island and eventually to Kilindini, or from Tongoni to Tanga (Mturi, 1975). Similar shifts may be followed in what is today Kenya, where precolonial centres in the Kilifi area lost prominence first in favour of Malindi, and eventually, Mombasa. The move to a new site was often motivated by economic and political impulses of the colonizers, for example by building a railway to the interior, which provided a strong economic advantage to Mombasa or Dar es Salaam. The transition could also take place for various reasons less predetermined by planning, including moving gradually to a larger port with the capacity to offer better anchorage for larger ships or a more attractive destination for caravan routes, or simply a location more favourable for a growing urban population. Nevertheless, the newer and larger towns still had an indigenous history of formation, described in more detail in Chap. 2. The distribution of public buildings such as mosques and the structure of the town as composed of individual urban quarters were socially meaningful spatial practices and had a long history reaching to the precolonial period. The most important concept in terms of urban layout was the system of wards, or urban quarters, described ethnographically. Towns arose as divided in two moieties separated by a part of land usually with a mosque, unbuilt area, stretch of sand or grass (Middleton, 2004: 51), that may also be described as urban duality. For example, Bagamoyo of the colonial era developed out of several adjoining yet independent wards that were tied together by pathways, each featuring its own houses of worship and other public spaces, and their economic success was grounded in competition (Fabian, 2019: 20, 72; Middleton, 2004: 51–52). Colonial development had connotations for the socio-spatial system of urban quarters. For example, in Pangani, Tanzania (Fig. 3.4), the river divided the town into northern and southern half, and on both its sides of the river, individual quarters were built. In the nineteenth century, the centre of power associated with trade and administration was in the northern part of the town, which is oriented to the waterfront, features buildings with multiple storeys and was favoured by the colonial regime (Moon & Blanchard, 2009). Before the end of the nineteenth century,

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Fig. 3.4  A Google Earth image of Pangani, Tanzania spread out on both sides of the river

however, the political centre of gravity might have been balanced between the two halves of the town divided by the river, and to the south of the river in the Bweni quarter, where the layout is oriented inward away from the sea (Fabian, 2019; Rhodes, 2010). The town of Bagamoyo, Tanzania, was rebuilt at least twice after uprisings and wars of the colonial era. Its triangular layout is reminiscent of German colonial planning (Rhodes, 2014) where one street, present-day Mtoni Road, was running to the point of the triangle, dividing the town into northern and southern parts, with the north encompassing today’s quarters of Mjimpya and Nchipana and the south those of Gongoni and Dianinge (Fig. 3.5). Here, although the town plan was to a certain degree imposed, Mtoni road running west-east respected the layout of the separate quarters. A similar case may be argued for Mombasa, Kenya, where the town was divided into north and south by a thoroughfare, remnant of which is now Nyeri Street, defined organically on the basis of traditional division of the town into quarters (Baumanova, 2020b; Berg, 1968). As it may be seen from these examples, there was an organically developed pattern to distribute the urban quarters not along the coastline but perpendicularly to it. The concentration of places associated with public power towards the waterfront occurred only with colonialism as in Mombasa (Maitland-Jones et al., 1985: 32). The above examples show how the precolonial principles of the urban system based on quarters were translated in the colonial context. In the larger colonial towns, the concept observed in small country towns might have developed into towns with multiple quarters where they fulfilled the function of wards (Baumanova, 2020b).

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Fig. 3.5  The layout of Bagamoyo, Tanzania, highlighted on a Google Earth image. The plan shows the triangular layout of the main streets – a heritage of the colonial era. The labels signify the distribution of the quarters. The red dots signify the distribution of the mosques. The blue dots show the location of public buildings, many of which are concentrated to the waterfront

A major break with precolonial times in the towns is hence represented by the emergence of the waterfront zone. The oceanfront was the area where most of the colonial development was concentrated, especially from the eighteenth to the mid-­ twentieth century. It was described in the written sources as featuring visually appealing coral and lime houses, with few main streets and many smaller alleys leading to open spaces where a lot of mercantile activities took place (Behr, 1891: 129; Stanley, 1906 [1878]). In Pangani, only 2 out of 13 structures on the waterfront date from the precolonial period (Rhodes, 2014: 60), suggesting the scale of colonial German impact on the built environment of the waterfront. Another major town of the colonial era, Tanga, also shows development of the waterfront according to European tastes, which features clearly delimited access routes, customs houses and bomas. In Mombasa, the waterfront featured most of the European residences, two mosques, two open spaces and a fishmarket (Hoyle, 2001). In Bagamoyo, there was a similar composition of buildings with mainly European residential structures, a fishmarket, a boma and a customs house. As exemplified graphically on Fig. 3.5, the waterfront hence featured a mix of public and European private buildings, and spaces with a pronounced dedication to serving colonial administration and facilitating references to European power, economic gain and needs. Although the colonial development resulted in introducing a new centre of gravity in the waterfront zone, the distribution of mosques was still reminiscent of the precolonial era, when houses of worship were not located centrally, but each quarter had its own.

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The distinctive focus of the colonial development on the waterfront resulted in introducing a new feature to coastal towns – a street running parallel to the coast and dividing the waterfront zone from the rest of the town. This phenomenon is exemplified to this day by the Indian street in Bagamoyo, or Ndia Kuu Road in Old Town Mombasa. This type of street was often lined with many shops, mostly managed by Indians, and began to take shape from the nineteenth century (Meier, 2016: 41). It was so notorious in popular culture associated with the colonial era that its mercantile character is seamlessly intertwined into the spirit of Mombasa in popular novels, like that by the Kenyan author Peter Kimani, Dance of the Jacaranda. The street physically created a quarter associated with the waterfront, which disturbed the pre-established spatial order in Mombasa and also ‘cut off’ the waterfront as if a separate quarter. There is no evidence in the layout of towns of the precolonial era for existence of streets in this particular configuration. Another issue affecting the urban layout was the introduction of zoning to public space, where colonial development promoted the formation of mercantile, administrative, religious and residential zones. This resulted in the development of areas with only one function, as well as broadened the gap between the locals and the colonizers. Such zoning in its fully-fledged version is well apparent in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, because the city was established by the Germans on a previously unoccupied land; another example is Dodoma, Tanzania, which was designed in zones spreading from the railway station (Home & King, 2016: 79). The preferential development of space on the waterfront partitioned and created control over access to the towns. Colonial towns on the East African coast were the subject of master planning efforts from European architects and urban planners. The success of precolonial urban centres first led to the colonial interest in them (Rhodes, 2014: 58). With their development, there was a push for the street network to be organized more and more on a regular  right-angled grid. However, this was only partially put in practice, mostly with regard to the main streets and European quarters. Master plans for a redesign of the urban layout were created several times, but most often not realised as at Zanzibar (Bissell, 2011: 267), or at Bagamoyo as attested by the records of Georg Richelmann, who acted as a German district officer re-planning the town after most of it was destroyed in order to supress a Coastal Uprising in 1888–1890 (Richelmann, 2010 [1892]). The planned linear layout never emerged in Bagamoyo, instead the new development followed the established social and transport networks in their irregularity (Fabian, 2019: 222). It was a similar case in Mombasa, which was also destroyed by the British and then rebuilt (Kiriama, 2018). The efforts to re-plan Swahili cities continues today with Chinese investment announced by president Xi Jingping, which was never realised (Schindler et al., 2021). Rather, long-­ term influence on the distribution of the buildings and their concentration on the waterfront discussed above impacted the urban layout much more.

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3.5 Conclusion Public buildings and spaces on the East African coast were one of the key arenas reflecting the different social forces active in the urban society of the colonial period. Frequently, the contested colonial past enacted in the built environment continues to have a practical impact in present-day cities through the preserved heritage of individual buildings and urban layouts. The European and Omani colonizers were oscillating between bringing in new built features facilitating their economic power and political dominance on the coast, as well as some that served as mementos of their homeland. This was apparent for example in the introduction of markets to the urban space, and their spatial proximity to the network of customs houses, bomas, railways and the port, i.e. places under direct colonial control. Some precolonial architectural features like pillar tombs and town walls went out of use, but the principles of building walls, specific access routes, thresholds and monuments in the urban landscape was continued under colonial regimes in new contexts. Europeans focused the urban development to the waterfront and introduced specialised zoning to the coastal towns, based on ethnicity as well as different types of activities. This process of urban transformation was implanted on the local urban networks and identity. The Europeans, however, did not succeed in creating public buildings and spaces that could be fully assimilated to the precolonial urban structure. On the contrary, the disproportional focus on the waterfront disrupted the precolonial system of quarters, that tended to create balance between access to the port and the distribution of public buildings. In contrast, the failure of reshaping the towns completely is demonstrated by the inability to press the urban master planning into realisation. The building efforts of the colonizers were resisted in rebuilding of towns after some were virtually destroyed in colonial wars and uprisings, such as Bagamoyo and Mombasa, that were rebuilt still reflecting the precolonial system of urban quarters with an even distribution of mosques, and with winding streets with limited number of larger streets interconnecting multiple quarters. European colonialism undoubtedly limited the capacity of the Swahili society to enact the socio-spatial relations within the urban space, while Omani influence pulled the Swahili society closer to the model of urban Islam in the Arab world. Simultaneously, the colonizers were trying to adopt some of the local traditions. The adoption of some aspects of the precolonial Swahili built environment was reflected in the colonial architectural style, in the use of architectural features serving outdoor socialising and as status symbols such as the baraza and the visually dominant doorways. Some issues of the contested colonial urban landscape are carried to the present day. For example, Bagamoyo is still facing problems with connectivity. These are associated with the homogeneity of development, with an inability to fully interconnect the waterfront with inland development and with the disproportionately growing southern part of the town, resulting in an unbalanced social use as well as with uneven distribution of infrastructure (Schindler et al., 2021). At least some of these

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problems would have been resolved in the precolonial past by the balanced development of quarters, and the state of their permanent economic and social competition, without disproportionately promoting the waterfront. The long-term colonial efforts to introduce zoning created problems in towns like Dar es Salaam, with its socially troubled segregated city layouts perpetuating the artificial divisions in the society, and causing selective preservation of heritage, such as that associated with the wealthy Arab traders and wage labourers. The analysis of colonial public space hence brings a potential lesson for the future, when achieving a socio-spatial balance of the urban environment could be aided with an increased understanding of the local role of urban quarters and public spaces.

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Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P. (1962). The East African coast; select documents from the first to the earlier nineteenth century. Clarendon Press. Home, R., & King, A. D. (2016). Urbanism and master planning: Configuring the colonial city. In G. A. Bremner (Ed.), Architecture and urbanism in the British empire (pp. 51–85). Oxford University Press. Horton, M. (1994). Swahili architecture, space and social structure. In M.  Parker Pearson & C.  Richards (Eds.), Architecture and order: Approaches to social space (pp.  147–169). Routledge. Horton, M., & Middleton, J. (2000). The Swahili: The social landscape of a mercantile society. Blackwell Publishers. Hoyle, B. (2001). Urban renewal in east African port cities: Mombasa’s old town waterfront. GeoJournal, 53(2), 183–197. Ichumbaki, E.  B., & Pollard, E. (2021). The Swahili civilization in Eastern Africa. In Oxford research encyclopaedia of anthropology. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ acrefore/9780190854584.013.267. Jackson, I., & Uduku, O. (2016). Sub-Saharan Africa. In G. A. Bremner (Ed.), Architecture and urbanism in the British Empire (pp. 393–422). Oxford University Press. Kiriama, H. (2018). Mombasa. Archaeology and history. In S. Wynne-Jones & A. J. LaViolette (Eds.), The Swahili world (pp. 620–628). Routledge. Kirkman, J. S. (1974). Fort Jesus; a Portuguese fortress on the East African coast. Clarendon Press. Kusimba, C. M. (1999). The rise and fall of Swahili states. AltaMira Press. Maitland-Jones, J., McCrae, J., Aldrick, J., & Macdonald, R. (1985). The old town, Mombasa: A historical guide. Friends of Fort Jesus. McEvedy, C. (1995). The penguin atlas of African history. Penguin Books. Meier, P. (2016). Swahili port cities: The architecture of elsewhere. Indiana University Press. Middleton, J. (2004). African merchants of the Indian Ocean: Swahili of the East African coast. Waveland Press. Moon, K., & Blanchard, P. (2009). Pangani historic town. Pangani Heritage Conservation Report. Uzikwasa. Mturi, A.  A. (1975). A guide to Tongoni ruins: With notes on other antiquities in Tanga and Pangani districts including the Amboni caves. Division of Antiquities, Ministry of National Culture and Youth. Myers, G.  A. (1997). Sticks and stones: Colonialism and Zanzibari housing. Africa, 67(2), 252–272. Myers, G.  A. (2003). Verandahs of power: Colonialism and space in urban Africa (1st ed.). Syracuse University Press. Njoh, A.  J. (2007). Planning power: Town planning and social control in colonial Africa. UCL Press. Njoh, A. J. (2008). Colonial philosophies, urban space, and racial segregation in British and French colonial Africa. Journal of Black Studies, 38(4), 579–599. Pearson, M. N. (1998). Port cities and intruders: The Swahili coast, India, and Portugal in the early modern era. Johns Hopkins University Press. Potter, R. B., Binns, T., Elliott, J., Nel, E., & Smith, D. (2018). Geographies of development: An introduction to development studies (4th ed.). Routledge. Ranger, T. O. (1975). Dance and society in eastern Africa, 1890–1970: The Beni ngoma. University of California Press. Rhodes, D. (2010). Historical archaeologies of nineteenth-century colonial Tanzania: A comparative study. Archaeopress. Rhodes, D.  T. (2014). Building colonialism: Archaeology and urban space in East Africa. Bloomsbury Academic. Richelmann, G. (2010 [1892]). Meine Erlebnisse in der Wissmann-Truppe. The British Library.

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Schindler, S., Nguyen, N.  D., & Barongo, D.  G. (2021). Transformative top-down planning in a small African city: How residents in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, connect with a city in motion. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 39(2), 336–353. Sheriff, A., & Jafferji, J. (1998). Zanzibar stone town: An architectural exploration. Gallery Publications. Silva, C. N. (2015). Urban planning in sub-Saharan Africa: Colonial and post-colonial planning cultures. Routledge. Spear, T. T. (1984). The Shirazi in Swahili traditions, culture, and history. History in Africa, 11, 291–305. Stanley, H. M. (1906 [1878]). Through the dark continent; or, the sources of the Nile, around the great lakes of equatorial Africa, and down the Livingstone River to the Atlantic Ocean. Harper & Brothers. Wilson, T. H. (1979). Swahili funerary architecture of the North Kenya coast. In J. de Vere Allen & T. H. Wilson (Eds.), Swahili houses and tombs of the coast of Kenya (pp. 33–46). AARP. Wilson, T. H. (1982). Spatial analysis and settlement patterns on the East African coast. Paideuma, 28, 201–219. Wright, G. (1991). The politics of design in French colonial urbanism. University of Chicago Press.

Part III

North-West Africa

Chapter 4

Precolonial Public Spaces of Urban North-­West Africa Jan Pěchota Abstract  This chapter deals with Morocco’s pre-colonial history and the form of settlements in this period. The introduction summarizes relations with other countries with an emphasis on the initial penetration of external influences and the reflection of these influences in architecture. Based on a comparison of primary sources (namely travel books) and material heritage, a description is given of the morphology of selected cities and the placement of individual areas or specific buildings with an emphasis on the occurrence of universal elements. Based on an analysis of the layout of settlements, the relationships are defined linked to the placement of buildings and open spaces (such as the structure of marketplaces or the relationship between residential and commercial neighbourhoods). Attention is also given to the function and significance of individual buildings for the local culture and the functioning of society (e.g. public baths), the dichotomy between the public and private, or the strict localization of activities into reserved spaces. Keywords  Precolonial urbanism · Medina · Souk · Fondouk · Madrasa · Hammam · Kasbah · Marabout · Riyad Morocco was a part of the Mediterranean cultural space before Common Era as a result of the first Phoenician and later Roman expansions. For this reason, its cultural histories and, by extension, architecture could not have developed in a wholly isolated manner. External influences almost dominated over local tradition in some places, primarily on the coast. While the Phoenician influence in Morocco, contrary to the area of today’s Tunisia, was limited almost exclusively to the coast where the Phoenicians built their nautical bases (Tamuda/Tetuan, Rusaddir/Melilla, Lixus/ Larache and others), it is evident among the Romans, who followed the Phoenicians, that their influence to a certain degree reached also to the interior of the northern part of Morocco, as the limes romanus were located roughly south of the 34th parallel, i.e. south of the connecting line between Rabat/Salé – Volubilis (Camps, 1980: 290). The latter, which was one of the most significant cities of the Roman province The original version of the chapter has been revised: This chapter was inadvertently published without the contributing author’s names on the chapter opening page which has been included now. A correction to this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_8 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022, corrected publication 2022 M. Baumanova, Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_4

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of Mauretania Tingitania and at the time of its peak was inhabited by over 20,000 citizens, was located more than 100 km into the interior. Roman architecture had a relatively little influence on the morphology of Moroccan cities, as the Berbers and Arabs founded their cities outside the remains of Roman sites, which they often left to deteriorate. Thus, the newly founded cities did not usually copy the street network that was typical for Roman urbanism or the placement of gates and monumental structures.1 Contrary to this, we can find a particular reflection of Roman architecture in a score of monumental structures from the Islamic period in the form of used material and decorative elements. This is due to the fact that, especially during the construction of palaces, material from the ruins of Roman cities was used in some cases up to a millennium and a half after the Romans had withdrawn from Morocco.2 With the arrival of Islam to Morocco in the second to the last decade of the seventh century, the autochthonous Berber architectural tradition began to fall under the strong influence of the Arab-Islamic tradition. The Islamization of the indigenous inhabitants of northwest Africa took place much more quickly than their Arabization;3 however, in light of the fact that a number of cities was founded by the arriving Arabs or Arabized Berbers, it can be assumed that the Arabic influence in the architecture of Maghreb began to dominate already before the end of the first millennium, primarily in areas which could later be considered Arabized. These areas were also urbanized distinctly faster in contrast to the considerably less Arabized areas, in which a more rural character was preserved. In later periods, architecture and urbanism fell under the natural influence from the east of the Islamic empire and from Muslim Spain. Furthermore, primarily as a result of migration within the territory of Islam, these influences blended with the autochthonous architectural tradition. The causes of this migration include numerous insurgencies and namely the Christian reconquista on the Iberian Peninsula.  One of the exceptions is the city of Tangier, the historical center of which is located on the site of the Roman settlement Tingis and where the Rue Es-Siaghine, the present main street of the historical center, copies the Roman Decumanus maximus. Other Roman cities remained inhabited for a certain time after the departure of the Romans, but no further development or transformations took place; on the contrary, they fell into decline and abandonment. 2  This is why we can, for example, identify columns in the Composite order in the colossal gate of Bab al-Mansour in Meknes. The use of ancient remains in Salé is also mentioned by Leo Africanus (1896: 407) 3  The topic of the Islamization of the Berbers itself is a complicated one, and at present carries political and ideological connotations. Proof of the seamless Islamization of some Berbers may be found in the fact that the Islamic army, which invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711, was primarily Berber, and its leader Tariq bin Ziyyad was a Berber. In a number of areas, the Arabian armies surely encountered strong resistance to Islamization. At the same time, it is necessary to differentiate whether the resistance was aimed at Islamization itself, or against the inferior status (and the associated tax burdens) that Berbers held even after conversion to Islam, which was the case of the Berber Revolt of 739 (see Pennell, 2003: 23). The issue of the Islamization of Berbers was extensively discussed primarily in the second half of the twentieth century in connection with a number of activities that can be generally labelled as the Berber national revival and namely the efforts to delegitimize these activities. 1

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One of the consequences of the migration caused by the reconquista was the strong Andalusian influence that is visible, for example, in the Jewish quarter of the city of Fes. In connection with this influence, it should also be added that the Andalusian culture and its formation itself had already been strongly influenced by migration from Maghreb and the occasional military and political dominance of Berber dynasties in Andalusia. In terms of the connection between Morocco and other cultural areas, it is characteristic that the first Islamic kingdom on the territory of today’s Morocco (which was founded in the area of Volubilis) was not founded by a Moroccan-born Muslim, but by Idris bin Abdullah, a refugee from the Mashriq. A clear connection with the Mediterranean space also took place in the period of the Almoravids and Almohads, who also linked their empires to Andalusia. The Portuguese conquests of the Moroccan coast are examples of an intensive contact (Ceuta, Mazagão/El Jadida, Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gué/Agadir, Safim/Safi) and the long-term occupation of Tangier first by the Portuguese, then by the English. In these cities, we can observe most clearly the European influences in the pre-colonial period namely in fortifications and port architecture. A typical characteristic of a number of Moroccan port cities is not only the occurrence of estilo manuelino; the influence of European naval powers is also evident in terms of the morphology of the cities, as port infrastructure in these cities became a dominant element. The relationships between Morocco and other countries cannot be reduced to the level of mere military conflicts. Diplomatic contacts should not be ignored, the most striking example of which are diplomatic relations between Alawite sultan Ismail (who ruled from 1672 to 1727) and French King Louis XIV, whose goal it was to create an alliance against the Spanish Habsburgs and arrange a marriage between Sultan Ismail and Louis’ daughter Marie Anne de Bourbon. Although neither of these two aforementioned goals was achieved, these contacts allowed the Moroccan sultan to acquire knowledge of the construction of Versailles, the monumentality of which inspired him in the construction of his palace complex in Meknes. The campaigns of the Moroccan pirates (e.g. the so-called Salé rovers in the seventeenth century) to the north with the goal (among others) of capturing slaves can also be considered a specific form of contact between Morocco and Europe.4 These captives, who in some cases took part in the construction of Moroccan cities, also projected European elements into Moroccan architecture. Another method of contact with the outside world that should not be omitted were the trips made by Moroccan pilgrims to Mecca. The most well-known example of this is the rihla (or journey) of Ibn Battuta, which took 23 years and, in addition to the North-African coast, led him through Iran, Iraq, the Swahili coast, China and India. Over the course of the nineteenth century, lively trade contacts existed namely with France and England and took place via the cities on the Moroccan coast, where European cultural influence began to grow once again. It is evident from the

 Their expeditions reached as far as the British Isles or Iceland. The most well-known but fictional victim of the rovers was undoubtedly Robinson Crusoe (see Defoe, 1719: 20). 4

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aforementioned that, despite the fact that Europeans gained a direct and unfettered influence over the appearance of cities in the interior only after beginning the massive construction of European quarters in the first years of the protectorate, European influences had already been reflected to a certain degree in the previous centuries. Aside from the influence that can be labelled purely colonial in the case of coastal cities, which were for a certain time under direct European rule, the architecture of Moroccan cities tended to be influenced by European models also in cases where European architects were invited to Morocco by the sultan5 or the abilities of European captives and converts were utilized.6 As a consequence of the relative isolation of the Moroccan interior from the colonial influences, which lasted until the end of the nineteenth century, examples of selected cities can be used to analyze precolonial urban morphology and architecture, the latter of which is the most distinct material reflection of the culture of northwest Africa, which was formed over many centuries as a fusion of the autochthonous Berber tradition influenced by the Mediterranean cultural space, the Eastern Arab-Islamic tradition, and the African environment. The analysis focuses on selected aspects of the connection of space and the society that inhabited it. Emphasis is placed primarily on the function of open public spaces and publicly accessible buildings in Moroccan society and the dichotomy between the public and the private. The goal of this chapter is also to demonstrate the geographical-cultural diversity of Morocco using examples of the morphology of Moroccan cities, which is presented as a reflection and a testament of this diversity. Based on the study of the morphology of Moroccan cities in the pre-protectorate period, it is possible to compare the morphology of city quarters created in the period of colonization and the subsequent interpretation characterizing the transformation of public places in colonized urban contexts.

4.1 Government in Pre-protectorate Morocco: A Territory of Governance and Territory of Dissidence Morocco is a historical state with a tradition of its own royal dynasty ruling the territory that roughly corresponds to its borders today. However, the absolute control of the sharifian sultans over the whole territory of Morocco was to a certain degree illusory in the pre-protectorate period. From a geographical and cultural perspective, Morocco is such a complex and diverse country that holding it for a longer period of time under consistent control of a central government in the past was

 See footnote no. 34.  “The Kasba [of Rabat], or Government Quarter, is famous for its beautiful gate of semi-Gothic architecture, decidedly the work of Christian hands – slaves brought from Spain, many of whom were captured on the high seas.” (Kerr, 1894: 44) 5 6

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nearly impossible. The French protectorate administration was definitively successful in doing so as late as in the 1930s, when forced centralization of the country was achieved. This suppressed the traditional noncentralized structure of the society that was based upon a genealogical principle that continued to function in the rural areas of Morocco as the historical legacy of rival clans, families and dynastic kingdoms. In addition, the segmentary society was further strengthened by the absence of an extensive class of rural feudal lords, who otherwise could have formed a link between the rural and urban areas, a fact which significantly complicated the administration of the countryside.7 In this context, neither an independent bourgeoisie nor an effective bureaucracy was built. Cities were linked to the countryside primarily through trade and religion. Trade was not only an impulse for the creation and development of cities, but also linked the extensive and remote regions of Morocco together and connected the country to the outside world. Examples of this include Trans-Saharan trade in the eighth century, the presence of merchants from Genoa and Venice on the Moroccan coast a half-millennium later (Africanus, 1896: 407) or the missions of Moroccan merchants to Manchester and Lyon in the nineteenth century (Pennell, 2003: 121). Centres of Islam were located in cities, and the connection of cities and rural areas was made possible due to religious rules. Potential disputes were resolved by marabouts  – local charismatic individuals with strong religious authority. Islam was also a link between highly heterogeneous clans, and Islamic mystical orders  – tariqas – mediated communication throughout the country.8 A fundamental characteristic of Morocco, which to a great degree determined the character of Moroccan history, was a prerequisite for maintaining the clan-based structure of the society until the first half of the twentieth century and also visibly manifested itself in the architecture and morphology of Moroccan settlements was the country’s distinct topographical segmentation. Moroccan territory is divided by four mountain ranges (Rif, Middle Atlas, High Atlas and Anti-Atlas), which create barriers delimiting expansive and flat territories such as the arid regions of the Sahara to the south and southeast or the fertile areas in the north and central regions of the country. While the flat territory from the perspective of a central government was easily governable and controllable and came to be known as bilad al-makhzan, or the territory of governance or order, the mountainous and remote areas were called the territory of dissidence – bilad al-siba. From a cultural and ethnic standpoint, the significantly lower degree of Arabization is linked to the difficult (if not impossible) control of these territories and is a logical consequence of the fact that Arabs coming to the territory of today’s Morocco from the east could more easily occupy the flat regions, where Arab culture and the Arab language (as its primary vehicle) spread more quickly among the autochthonous population. This is still evident today on the linguistic map of Morocco, on which regions with a significant  The so-called big caids, who at the end of the 19th and beginning of the twentieth century gained control of the High Atlas passes, were an exceptional phenomenon. 8  For more on the topic of regionalism and “tribalism” in the pre-protectorate period, see Burke III, 1976, Chapter 1. 7

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proportion of Berber dialects clearly copy the mountain ranges while the flat lands – primarily the fertile ones – belong to speakers of Arabic. The question of the centre of the empire, in the sense of a capital, is a relatively complicated one – in Morocco’s case, it is impossible from a historical perspective to discuss capital cities in the sense the term is used in modern urbanism,9 as the capital was considered to be the place where the sultan and his court were seated. We can begin to speak about the capital of Morocco only from 1912 on, when the French protectorate administration established Rabat as the capital city. This decision was made for purely practical reasons with little consideration for traditions. While some dynasties were firmly linked to a city built (or even founded) as a royal seat by their rulers, this royal seat was moved more frequently in the case of the present Alawite dynasty. In the case of a turbulent situation (e.g. the beginning of the twentieth century), this shift could take place up to several times a year. This fact led to the phenomenon of the four so-called imperial cities, i.e. cities that served repeatedly as the royal seat of the sultan or the capital of the empire. As a consequence, the cities of Fes, Marrakesh, Meknes and Rabat are exceptional from a cultural and political perspective, but paradoxically not from an architectural one. It can also be said that these four cities do not form a category par excellence from a morphological perspective. Elements representing the presence of political, military and religious power, i.e. namely citadels, palaces and stone-built mosques were also found in cities that were not labelled imperial. Their form was more modest, as these “non-imperial” cities rarely reached an economic significance comparable to imperial cities, but the occurrence of these buildings was not limited in principle. The second fundamental argument refuting the existence of imperial cities as their own unique architectonic category is that the architecture and morphology of the imperial cities strongly differs in regard to the geographical environment in which they are located and the historical circumstances in which they developed.

4.2 Resources The study of urbanism and architecture in north-western Africa is characterized by the fact that the vast majority of available literature that might serve to create a thorough and well-rounded image are of external origin. These sources can be divided up into two main groups. The first are the works of Andalusian geographers and travellers such as Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī (died 1094), Ash-Sharīf al-Idrīsī (died 1166) and al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Wazzān, perhaps more commonly known as Johannes Leo de Medicis – Leo Africanus (died c. 1554). Although their works are crucial in understanding the history, culture, and society of Maghreb, they will be used as sources in the work only marginally, as they do not provide sufficiently

 Thus, usually the largest city of the country, which is the traditional power center, where the country’s government and central authorities are permanently seated. 9

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relevant information on the discussed topics and are not specific enough to be relied upon with certainty. At the same time, it should be noted that the descriptions of Leo Africanus were in many cases still up-to-date at the beginning of the twentieth century (Gaillard, 1905: 112), and some still are.10 With regard to the fact that the aim of this publication is to compare the precolonial state with the state in the colonial period, key resources are namely materials from the period that closely preceded the onset of colonialism. These resources are travel logs and reports created by European travellers, diplomats, missionaries, and soldiers who had the opportunity to visit Morocco in the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. However, these materials are very often a testimony to the prism through which the authors viewed the outside world and not a description of a true situation that could be uncritically accepted. This fact stems namely from the strong ethnocentrism that is characteristic of the travel logs from the nineteenth century and beyond. For this reason, the processing of sources requires a critical approach, the contextualization of particular information in the framework of the history and culture of the region, and the comparison of written sources with material heritage. Unfortunately, the comparison of material heritage mostly cannot be based on the results of archaeological research, as this research takes place in a very limited extent and in cities that are continually inhabited. An example of an area that was recently subjected to an intensive archaeological research is Sijilmasa – a significant point of Trans-Saharan trade since the eighth century (e.g. Fauvelle et  al., 2016; Gutron & Fauvelle, 2018; Messier & Miller, 2015). In light of the fact that the city had already been abandoned at the end of the fourteenth century and was never an object of colonization due to its position on the edge of the desert, it cannot be used for the analysis of morphological transformation. In case of the analysed towns, the comparison of literary sources and material heritage can to a large degree be based on the present appearance of settlements, as key elements (e.g. the street plan, dichotomy between residential and commercial areas, positioning of buildings crucial to the life of the community) have been preserved to this day to a significant degree. Among other factors, this was caused by the fact that the transformation of settlements in the protectorate era (which is the subject of the following chapter) did not stem from the extensive reconstruction of existing urban areas, but mainly from the building of new city quarters, while the medinas were intentionally conserved as living museums allowing for the presentation of the past in contrast with the protectorate status within the French mission civilisatrice. While studying written sources, it is also helpful to remember the words of Barnaby Rogerson, an expert on north-western Africa, who concisely reacted to the creation of an alternative image of the region with the words: “There are, and always have been, two North Africa’s [sic] available to English eyes: one real, the other

 For example, Africanus’ descriptions of the operation of hammams (1896: 426–427) or the positioning of souks (1896: 430–436). 10

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highly coloured by our collective imagination. As the fly-leaf of Pat Gray’s recent novel Mr Narrator acknowledges, it ‘portrays with documentary accuracy a Morocco which has never existed, but one which has now been colonized by surrealism’.” (Rogerson, 1995).

4.2.1 Morphology of Settlements in the Urban and Rural Areas of Morocco The contrast between both parts of Morocco did not lie merely in ethnic differences and issues concerning the sultan’s rule or control. A number of characteristic traits linked to ethnic issues were also reflected in the morphology of settlements. Bilad as-siba is a less densely populated territory, in which the flatland areas are less fertile than in the bilad al-makhzan and were used as pasture land or for growing crops. If some of the areas of bilad as-siba were fertile, their potential did not tend to be used to the fullest. Out of fear of rural rebellions, merchants did not risk investing their capital in the countryside, and the low degree of dependence on the soil provided the population with greater mobility. In the event that the sultan’s harka arrived for the purpose of collecting taxes, the inhabitants could gather up almost all their possessions and temporarily abandon their settlement. This was also the case for the central plains, which were a highly fertile area. Under the threat of marauders and the sultan’s tax collectors, however, the population preferred a semi-nomadic way of life instead of making greater use of the land’s fertility. The fact that the population often fled from the sultan’s power from their villages and towns to the mountains can be described as a permanent conflict between centralism and regionalism. From the perspective of morphology, settlements in bilad al-makhzan and bilad as-siba differed distinctly, as in many aspects they reflected the local environment and culture. While the territory of bilad al-makhzan was significantly more urban, the territory of bilad as-siba was of a strongly more rural character. In the case of bilad as-siba, a crucial element of towns and a large number of villages was the fortress, or kasbah. These fortresses were most often built according to a unified plan, which preserved some of the elements that were typical of urban Islamic architecture but was distinctly adapted to the rural environment, primarily with the emphasis on security elements. They were usually three-storey buildings on a square ground plan with robust towers (also on a square ground plan) in each corner. Just like the square courtyard of typical urban riyads opened in an upward direction, in kasbahs the air and light were brought into the whole structure via a vertical central tunnel that was counterbalancing the small windows on the enclosure walls. While the size of windows in urban architecture stemmed from the emphasis on privacy, in rural architecture it was namely a security feature. All three floors of the kasbah fulfilled a specific function, which again stemmed from the environment and lifestyle of the Moroccan countryside. Sheds for farm animals were located on the

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ground floor and a kitchen and storage room for food, seed and tools were located on the second. Living spaces were located on the third. The flat roof served as an open terrace, which in the summer months was used as a sleeping area, for the drying of agricultural crops, or for family celebrations. The family that inhabited the kasbah possessed significant power, which was represented by this immense structure. This power was not necessarily military or economic, and may have also been religious or intellectual. It could have also represented central government, but may have also been partially or completely independent of it. The fundamental building material for the construction of kasbahs and other buildings especially in the rural areas of Morocco was clay loam, which, together with small rocks, organic material or lime and sand, was packed into timber, the removal of which left typical rectangular openings reminiscent of loopholes in the walls (see Africanus, 1896: 230, 260; Leared, 1876: 162; Montbard, 1894: 183). Alternately, the material was left to dry in the sun in the form of unburnt bricks. The walls were then coated with daub from clay loam with mixtures of fibrous organic material, mainly hay. Trunks of tamarisk or date palms, suitable for their flexibility, were primarily used as ceiling girders and beams. The absence of arches as supporting elements is linked to the material used, and thus the Berber architecture of kasbahs distinctly contrasts with Islamic-Arab architecture, for which the arch is the most typical element. As a result of the penetration of Arab culture into Berber areas via Islam, we can find arches in kasbahs; however, they usually hold a decorative, non-structural function. These decorative arches, which represented the status of the building’s owner, can be found in both the interiors and entrance portals. While arches built as a part of entrance portals were meant to manifest the owner’s status publicly, they heightened the owner’s prestige in the inner areas among potential guests, primarily during congregational events.11 A specific element of kasbahs as compared to homes in the urban areas was the occasional use of decorations oriented towards public space. The highest parts of the kasbahs, i.e. the towers or walls surrounding the roof terraces, were often decorated with simple right-angle decorations typical for Berber art. These patterns can also be found on rugs, ceramics and the facial tattooing of Berber women and thus have a primarily social-identification role, i.e. the connection between the product, building or woman and the lineage and family that they belong to. Kasbahs were very susceptible to weather conditions and therefore highly demanding in terms of maintenance. This is evident primarily in oases and semiarid regions, where, after only a few decades, unattended kasbahs were transformed into ruins consisting only of the fragments of their enclosure walls. In the mountains, where stone was used more often as a building material, the lifespan of these structures was significantly higher. If the owner of the kasbah lost his status and was forced to abandon it, such brutal plundering took place that usually nothing more than the enclosure walls was left of the kasbah. For the new local ruler, it was more

 For example on the terrace, which served for holding feasts.

11

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advantageous to have a new kasbah built, leading some villages and oases to be de facto strewn with the remains of kasbahs (Doutté, 1905: 49). The construction and maintenance of kasbahs can be seen as relatively demanding activities in terms of experience and skill. The necessary technical knowledge and capabilities were relatively widespread among the Moroccan population in the countryside in the southern (and therefore very arid) regions, as life in the oases to a large degree depended on the construction and maintenance of a system of expansive underground irrigation tunnels – khettaras. These tunnels were tens of kilometres long and their construction required not only theoretical knowledge, but also technical skill and human resources. As a result of their costly nature, these irrigation systems were managed by the community, which meant it had a responsibility for them and their costs and benefits were distributed evenly among the inhabitants of the oasis. Thus, from a social perspective, they functioned as a factor that strengthened solidarity of the oasis’s inhabitants and played a crucial role for the community life of the oasis. This aforementioned type of kasbah provided protection to better-situated families in rural regions, where marauders, thieves and revolting tribes posed an almost permanent threat. While kasbahs often stood independently in the expansive oases, which served as a resource for agricultural production, it was not exceptional in villages and towns for kasbahs to become a part of a continual built-up area, or for several mutually independent kasbahs to be located in close proximity to each other. The term ksar is used in cases where kasbahs became a part of a continual built-up area that was also fortified by a wall. If a kasbah was a part of a dense developed area, it was evident that its influence to a certain degree also reached the neighbouring streets, as it arched and partially formed a roof over them, providing the inhabitants of the kasbah with a significant social control over these areas. The most typical and highly preserved example of a ksar is the city of Aït Benhaddou. In light of the fact that this city is located on a hillside, it represents an example of another element typical for Berber settlements in rural areas – an agadir, which was a fortified granary often located on the peak of a hill. Simple, solitary kasbahs also lined the Moroccan valleys, where they formed crucial points along trade routes and offered sufficient support and safety to the merchants who connected the Moroccan countryside with the cities in the north and west or to caravans carrying out Trans-Saharan trade. On the contrary, in the case of significant centres of regional power, it was not an exception for kasbahs to create more intricate and extensive complexes of a fortress character. Thus, despite functioning independently from each other (or creating groups under the administration of independent families or regional rulers), kasbahs held a significant public function by allowing for a certain social unity and the connection of the country across its regions. This connection of regions supported by a network or kasbahs was not politically motivated, but stemmed from economic activities that were independent of the central government.

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4.3 Structure of Cities: Typical Traits and Varieties While settlements in the rural areas of Morocco mostly respected a single model, a much greater diversity from a morphological perspective may be found in larger cities in the area of bilad al-makhzan, which stems from the position of these cities, the surrounding environment, its history and, finally, their significance. Three of the four imperial cities – Fes, Marrakesh and Rabat – can be used as an efficient demonstration of both this diversity and universal elements. Just as in the case of rural areas, the kasbah was also a symbol of political and military power in large Moroccan cities. In an urban context, however, the term tends to take on a different meaning. While in the case of rural settlements it is a technical term that also includes architectural specifics, in urbanized regions it is a label for fortresses in general without further specifications that are not subject to a unified visual model. These are purely military sites which have a defensive character and a permanent military garrison, or citadels (Mármol y Carvajal, 1667: 51), which made up the political centre of more significant cities. In the countryside, the kasbah was meant to provide protection primarily from external danger or from outside the village or town in which it was located. In larger cities, it was evident that the inhabitants of the kasbah-citadel were also to be protected from the danger posed by the inhabitants of the city itself. A part of the kasbah-citadel was often the sultan’s palace, residence of the governor (pasha), the treasury, and prison. Therefore, citadels were the primary target for rebelling inhabitants in cases of uprisings, which were by no means uncommon in Morocco. The placement of kasbah-­citadels within this agglomeration was associated with this risk. While kasbahs in rural areas were often surrounded by built-up areas, kasbah-citadels in cities were often placed either adjacent to built-up areas or completely outside them (see Chevrillon, 1919: 114; Leared, 1876: 171; Mármol y Carvajal, 1667: 52). In Fes, the aspect of the kasbah’s position in relation to the city is accentuated by the fact that, aside from the citadel (or the New Fes fortified government quarter), which was divided from the city by gardens,12 two other fortresses were also situated above the town not to protect it, but to control it (Bressolette & Delaroziere, 1983: 269). It was also typical that the kasbah provided protection to the mellah – the Jewish quarter that tended to be adjacent to it (e.g. Fes, Marrakesh). The kasbah-citadel basically created a power counterbalance to civilian urban development.13 Although these two units shared defensive walls, they tended to be  These gardens in some historical periods fell into disrepair and became “waste lands… with their rocks, aloe trees, caves tombs, ruins, and the heaps of decaying animals above which the birds of prey are wheeling.” (Loti, 1892: 140) In 1910, however, this same area is described as a “…peculiar delight and pride of the Fasis [citizens of Fes].” (Ashmead-Bartlett, 1910: 255) The decline of the gardens is mentioned already by Africanus: “That garden which you might haue named a paradise in olde time, is now become a place where the filth and dung of the whole citie is cast foorth.” (1896: 270) 13  „The Kasba is the official quarter, where the soldiers and governing officials have their home, and the prison …receives all evil-doers, and men whose luck is ill.“(Forrest, 1904: 82) 12

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divided from one another by other walls, which in some cases further strengthened the aforementioned gardens that filled the space between these walls. This mutual counterbalance is distinctly evident in Fes, where the citadel basically created its own quarter, or even the city of New Fes (Fes al-Jadid) itself. This citadel was founded in 1276 after the Marinid sultan Abou Yusuf Yacub made Fes the capital of his newly founded empire for tactical and political reasons and Old Fes (Fes al-Bali) and the fortresses near it ceased to be sufficient in terms of their capacity both for the deployment of his troops and the sultan’s ambitions. New Fes thus became a political, administrative and military centre that, in addition to the sultan’s palace (which, together with its adjacent gardens, took up over half the space), stables, armoury, and barracks, also contained the civilian, residential quarter with its own Friday mosque. During the sultan’s absence, Fes al-Jadid was often depopulated, as the palaces of the local elites were located in the old section of Fes (Champion, 1927: 78; Gaillard, 1905: 95), which was also the case of the embassies and diplomatic residences (Gaillard, 1905: 113). Because Fes al-Jadid held its own specific function, the status of Fes al-Bali as a center of education and Islam was in no way affected.14 In addition to the medina and kasbah, a Jewish quarter, or mellah, was located in the majority of important cities.15,16 Jewish quarters in Moroccan cities were often located near the palace district, allowing the ruler to keep control and protection over Jews. Spatial segregation in this case was not primarily discriminatory, as a significant aspect of it was the protection of the Jewish community. In the event of riots, however, the Jewish quarter could function as a buffer zone protecting the sultan’s palace. The existence of unique quarters and voluntary segregation allowed Moroccan Jews to practice their religion more freely, which outside the borders of the mellah was limited by discriminatory regulations. Jews had not obligation to live in the mellahs located in cities; however, they usually did not live outside the mellah, as they would be exposing themselves to possible attacks. Throughout the day, Muslim and Jewish society commonly mingled, with Jews operating outside the mellahs and Muslims also visiting mellahs for various purposes. Many Jews made their living as roaming merchants, travelling freely throughout the whole country, primarily in rural areas. Even in cities where there was no mellah, Jews still tended to reside together.17 From an administrative perspective, Jewish quarters were highly autonomous. An elected council managed the revenue of the community, cared for its public spaces and education, and hired guards who enforced order and protected  For more see Bressolette & Delaroziere, 1983.  This was not a rule – for example, there was no mellah in in the port city of El Jadida (Forrest, 1904: 30). On the contrary, whole Jewish villages are known to have existed. 16  Spatial segregation in North Africa dates to the beginning of the fifteenth century; at the beginning of the Middle Ages, all religious confessions lived together (Sobotková & Pěchota, 2018: 66) 17  The city of Tanger is an exception: « Mais à Tanger il n’y a point de quartier juif: les enfants d’Israël y vivent au milieu des sectateurs de Mahomet, et leurs maisons ne diffèrent point de celles des Maures… » (Leclercq, 1881: 56); even there, however, all synagogues are located in close proximity to one another. 14 15

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the entrances to the mellah, which were closed at night. The synagogues that were located in the Jewish quarters (and were built in spite of a formal interdiction) were usually inconspicuous and often indiscernible from residential homes, which also often housed them (Gaillard, 1905: 95). In regard to the fact that Jews made up nearly the lowest class of Moroccan society and achieved higher status only on exception, mellahs were seen to be the dirtiest areas of Moroccan cities, proof of which can be found in the poor hygienic situation mentioned by a number of European visitors.18

4.4 Public Buildings The appearance of the pre-colonial urban built-up area – the medina19 – was distinctly diverse throughout all of Morocco. Despite this fact, however, some of its elements can be considered universal. Medinas were compact, densely developed areas that frequently had a highly irregular street network, which gave an impression of randomness20 – see Figs. 4.1 and 4.2 – plans of the medinas of Ouezzane and Chefchaouen, two small inland towns in the northern part of Morocco. The quarters into which cities were divided were to a large degree autonomous from the perspective of functionality and administration and contained key structures for both human life in general and also for life in the Muslim community. Their organization was subject to Islamic norms. Crucial elements included a public water source (sabil – water fountain), bakery,21 mosque and baths (hammam). The functional autonomy of individual quarters is accentuated by the fact that they were divided from one  A typical description of a mellah is offered by the Garnier brothers: « Le quartier du Mellah est incontestablement le plus sale, le plus infect de toute la ville de Fez. Les maisons y sont plus sombres, les murs plus crasseux, les rues plus étroites et plus puantes que partout ailleurs. Ce ne sont, dans tous les coins, que tas d’immondices, cloaques empestés; bourbiers nauséabonds. Et, dans cet immense dédale de ruelles qui s’entrecroisent, grouille une population d’êtres loqueteux, couverts de crasse et de vermine. La plupart des enfants ont la tête pelée de teigne, le nombre des syphilitiques et des scrofuleux est énorme et, à chaque pas, on rencontre des malheureux dont les jambes tuméfiées sont rongées d’ulcères hideux. » (Garnier & Garnier, 1899b: 8) For more reflections on mellahs in the travel logs of European visitors at the end of the 19th and beginning of the twentieth century see Sobotková & Pěchota, 2018, Chapter 6. 19  The attempt to define and analyze the medina, just like the attempt to define an Islamic city (see footnote no. 42) was often influenced by contemporary discourse, be it colonial or post-colonial, and as a result the term medina itself is burdened with a number of connotations (e.g. Radoine, 2012). The following is a simple definition of a medina: “A medina is a city, usually established in medieval times, that grew continuously within its original perimeter, until the early twentieth century“(D’Ayala & Copping, 2007: 39) 20  For a discussion on the issue of the randomness of medinas see Radoine, 2011. 21  These bakeries were not used for the sale of bread, but were shared ovens in which inhabitants baked bread from dough that they would bring themselves. In some cases, these bakeries were connected to hammams and made use of the furnaces that were primarily used to heat water for the baths. 18

Fig. 4.1  Plan of Ouezzane medina demonstrating the irregularity of the street network, which gave an impression of randomness, as it was recorded in 1942. (Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241 Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 114811, 3-43, 1943; Copied from: French Morocco Map G24.0, 1942; Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

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Fig. 4.2  Plan of Chefchaouen medina with an irregular street network, which gave an impression of randomness, as it was documented in 1943. (Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241 Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 103500, 3-43, 1943; Copied from a Spanish Map, 1:2200, Xauen; Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

another by gateways that were closed at night (Garnier & Garnier, 1899a: 11; Harris, 1909: 117). The gateways allowed the responsible authorities to control movement in the city. In addition, these gateways  – even when open  – had a psychological effect on the population as a manifestation of power and control. At the same time,

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however, they supported inhabitants’ identification and solidarity with their particular quarter. From the perspective of every Islamic city’s social functionality, the Friday mosque has been crucial since the very beginnings of Islam. While there may have been multiple “common” mosques (masjid) in one quarter, only a single Friday mosque was initially allowed to be located in each city.22 The reason for this was the congregational aspect of these institutions, as their purpose was for the whole Muslim community of the given city to meet in one place during the Friday prayer – the most important prayer of the week. In the event of social problems, one of the consequences of these Friday congregations was also the fact that Friday mosques could serve as a place in which the population’s latent dissatisfaction could transform into revolt.23 On the other hand, if the representatives of political power had the secure support of the local imam, Friday congregations had the potential to help calm the situation. While in Marrakesh (al-Kutubiyya) and Rabat (al-Kharrazin) the Friday mosques were located on the periphery of the medina and were thus easily accessible to visitors from the outside, Fes’s dense population led to the foundation of multiple Friday mosques in the medina to cover its area. The fact that another Friday mosque was located in Fes’s citadel – Fes al-Jadid – only emphasized the position of the citadel as a city that was symbolically and functionally independent from the old area – Fes al-Bali.24 From an architectural standpoint, the majority of Moroccan mosques are of a hypostyle type regardless of the time of their foundation.25 The courtyard of the quadrangular ground plan was closed on three sides by an arcade, and the hypostyle itself adjoined the fourth wall of the courtyard. This roofed space covered the qibla wall – a wall that is perpendicular to the direction of Mecca and dominated by the mihrab – the most ornate part of the mosque created by a half-circular niche in the wall. The roof of the hypostyle was formed by several aisles, the placement of which was variable in relation to the qibla wall – crosswise, parallel or a combination of the dominant perpendicular aisle with adjoining parallels. On the vast majority of Morocco’s territory, minarets were built on a square ground plan in the north or west corner of the mosque, i.e. outside the hypostyle and qibla wall. A deviation from this plan can be seen in minarets in the northern area of Morocco, where an  S rozvojem měst přestalo toto pravidlo být dodržováno, neboť přestalo být možné, aby se všichni věřící z jednoho města vešli k páteční modlitbě do jedné mešity. 23  An example are protests against the French protectorate administration that took place in 1936 in Fes (Wyrtzen, 2015: 168). 24  Although Bressolette and Delaroziere (1983: 251) claim that the construction of the Friday mosque in Fes al-Jadid began on Ramadan in 677 (1278), according to Robert Hillenbrand (2000: 245), the Friday mosque in Fes al-Jadid did not yet exist in 1350. 25  The Hasan II Mosque in Casablanca, which is probably the most internationally known Moroccan mosque due to its monumental proportions, is an exception to this rule. Another exception, for example, is the so-called “Spanish mosque” over the city of Chefchaouen, which was built by the Spanish in the protectorate era. Both of these exceptions fall under the colonial or post-colonial period. 22

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octagonal ground plan is often found. Other exceptions are minarets that originally served a different purpose, e.g. the minaret on an irregular pentagonal ground plan in the city of El Jadida, which was originally used as a watchtower. Another category of structures that are closely linked to mosques are madrasas – higher education institutions of a religious character, which simultaneously provided accommodation to students. Madrasas were usually located in close proximity to mosques and adopted some of their functional elements (Champion, 1927: 40). Their central parts to a certain degree corresponded to the layout of mosques, which they also partially copied from a decorative perspective.26 Nonetheless, they were often more extensive complexes with additional pavilions.27 In regard to the fact that the foundation of the oldest Moroccan madrasas date back to the ninth century (al-­ Qarawiyyin and al-Andalusiyyin, Fes) and their significance distinctly exceeded Morocco’s borders, their area and visual appearance also corresponded to this fact.28 Moroccan madrasas were pre-eminent throughout the whole Middle East namely due to the decorative nature of their courtyards, which strongly contrasted to the austerity of the students’ cells located on the upper level along the circumference of the courtyard. Only on exception was it possible to view the madrasas’ courtyards directly from the street, as the portal and courtyard were usually separated by a hallway that turned at a right angle. This construction element, the goal of which was to strengthen the division of the structure from the outside world, ensure privacy and limit the penetration of noise from the street, is also found in riyads. In the case of madrasas, the entrance via a longer hallway allowed the visitor to abandon the tumult of the street and psychologically adapt to the tempo of a building with a religious character (Hillenbrand, 2000: 242, 244). A typical aspect of folk Islam in Morocco is maraboutism – the cult of “saints” which is architectonically projected in tombs.29 Although classic interpretations of Islamic law prohibit the cult of saints as it is understood in the Christian context,30 maraboutism is inseparable from North-African Islam. Marabouts may be prominent figures of both purely local but also national or international significance. While only the names of some have been preserved, others are the subject of extensive hagiography or today have numerous followers in the mystical brotherhoods they founded (Crapanzano, 1980: 16). In any case, they are always the bearers of  While decorative stucco prevails in mosques, in madrasas we find a greater balance between the use of stucco, ceramic tiles and wood (see Hillenbrand, 2000: 242). 27  The spatial layout was subject to the possibilities offered by the surrounding environment  – madrasas were usually located in the very dense built-up area (Hillenbrand, 2000: 243). An exception, for example, is the Marinid madrasa in the area of Chellah in Rabat; however, its area or significance does not equal the madrasas in Fes or Meknes. 28  Some madrasas may have also served for a certain period of time as Friday mosques. For example, Bu Inaniya in Fes had corresponding furnishings (e.g. a minbar and maqsura) and was generally closer in character to a place of worship than to one of education (Hillenbrand, 2000: 254–255). 29  For more on Moroccan maraboutism, see Crapanzano, 1973, 1980; Gellner, 1969, 1981. 30  E.g. hadith “Abu Huraira reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, ‘O Allah, do not turn my grave into an idol that is worshiped. Allah has cursed people who take the graves of their prophets as places of worship.’”(Ibn Hanbal, n.d.) 26

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barakah – a divine blessing making them worthy of respect and following. Thus, the cult of saints as an aspect of folk Islam is also strongly linked to gathering, be it in the form of religious pilgrimages to the tomb of Mawlay Idris, the most prominent Moroccan national “saint”, pilgrimages to the tombs of local marabouts, the communal recital of prayers, or participation in collective rituals of religious brotherhoods. From an architectural perspective, the tombs of the “saints“ in Morocco by vast majority are “squat white buildings with domed roofs” which are “strewn throughout the Moroccan landscape” (Crapanzano, 1980: 16) and form an inseparable addition to cemeteries (Fig. 4.3). However, these may also include extensive burial complexes, as is the case of the tomb of Mawlay Idris I in the city of Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, the size of which corresponds to his nationwide importance, or the case of the tomb of Mawlay Idris II in Fes, which reflects his status as the founder of the city.31 On the contrary, Yusuf ibn Tashfin, the founder of Marrakesh, is interred in a modest, inconspicuous tomb that does not serve congregational purposes.32 The fact that the ever-present nature of these tombs was often reflected in travel books and namely in their visual appendices is proof of the degree to which the tombs visually affected both Moroccans and foreigners (Fig. 4.4). A typical characteristic of the tombs is the green paint symbolizing Islam on the doors, entrance portals or domes (Fig. 4.5). Nonetheless, its presence is not essential, and the earthen tombs in the southern and eastern areas of Morocco bear only the natural colour of the clay from which they were built (Fig. 4.6). Defensive walls were a crucial element of Moroccan cities and were of both a symbolic and also primarily fortifying character.33 These were usually high, robust walls lined with battlements (Loti, 1892: 129). In the case of citadels, the enclosure wall may have been doubled, and several other circles of walls with the sultan’s palace at the centre may have also been situated inside them. The walls were interspersed with outlying towers, occasionally bastions,34 and massive gateways, which were a typical characteristic of Moroccan architecture and often garnered attention

 Proof of the holiness of this site is found in an event from 1902, when missionary David J. Cooper was killed by an enraged villager after entering the tomb. 32  “…Yusuf ibn Tachfin, who built Marrakesh, enjoys his long, last sleep in a grave unnoticed and unhonoured by the crowds of men… who pass it every day. “(Forrest, 1904: 102) This sentence was still valid in 2019. 33  Naturally, this does not apply without exception: „As seen from without, the city [Marrakech] has a compact and strong appearance; but it is needless, perhaps, to add that, in relation to advanced warfare, it may be regarded as quite unfortified. About two thirds of the space enclosed is taken up with gardens or covered with rubbish.“(Leared, 1876: 160) Contrary to this, Mármol y Carvajal admired the quality of Marrakesh’s fortifications in the seventeenth century (Mármol y Carvajal, 1667: 51). 34  The bastions were built primarily under the influence of European fortification architecture, which inspired the fortifications of some newly built cities. An example of the inspiration is the year-long engagement of French military architect Théodore Cornut in planning the fortifications of the city of Essaouira, during which he based his work upon the fortifications of the French city of Saint-Malo. Another bastion that is evidently influenced by the European building tradition is located in Rabat. 31

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Fig. 4.3  Le cimetière de Salé by Mathilde Arbey, 1934: Painting of tombs located in the cemetery outside the city walls of Salé. (From Mauclair, 1934: 181; Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-O3J-717)

Fig. 4.4  Jardins de Chella by Mathilde Arbey, 1934: Painting of a tomb located in Chellah, a medieval necropolis on the outskirts of Rabat. (From Mauclair, 1934: 127; Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-O3J-717)

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Fig. 4.5  Photo of a tomb located in Chellah, a medieval necropolis on the outskirts of Rabat. (Source: author’s archive, 2018)

for their decorative nature, which strongly contrasted with the austerity of the walls (see Hodgkin, 1866: 69; Loti, 1892: 299–300). In the past, this austerity was interrupted only by the heads of insurgents exhibited on the walls as a warning. The walls were made of clay, sand and lime (Bressolette & Delaroziere, 1983: 258) or stone, and the gateways were decorated with colourful ceramic tiles with arabesques or geometric patterns (Loti, 1892: 139). The city gateways were opened only during the day; at sunset they were closed, and travellers could not enter after dusk, which was often mentioned in European travel logs (e.g. Loti, 1892: 289). Just like the gateways dividing individual quarters, gateways in the enclosure walls played an important role even when they were not closed – they held a strong psychological aspect of control over access to the city, which could be applied at any time. In the case of gateways on the outer walls, this aspect was distinctly strengthened by the imposing decorations emphasizing the richness of the empire or the power of the sovereign. The riyad is a relatively unified type of residential architecture. Although it was a typically urban structure, a number of its elements show a correlation to rural kasbahs. One of these is the unroofed square courtyard, which similarly to kasbahs brought light and air into the building, counterbalancing the small windows in the enclosure walls. In regard to the fact that the small size of the windows in urban architecture was not primarily a security element as the windows served to preserve privacy, these windows were accompanied by mashrabiyas – wooden latticework

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Fig. 4.6  Photo of a tomb located in the Skoura oasis, Ouarzazate Province. (Source: author’s archive, 2018)

that made it possible to observe the goings-on in the street without the observer himself (or herself) being seen.35 The austerity of the external walls of riyads contrasted with the often rich decoration of the interiors. Thus, from the outside, it was not possible to determine the affluence or social status of the owner. This even applied to palaces, which were made up of extensive complexes of internal gardens in the riyads’ courtyards (Ashmead-Bartlett, 1910: 268). The absence of decorative facades on riyads and other types of buildings located in Moroccan medinas (and thus also in madrasas and fondouks) can be attributed to the density of buildings, which made it impossible to admire the facades from a greater distance or notice their potential ornateness at all. From an external view, even the overall dimensions of the building could not be estimated, as structures in the residential built-up area were usually closely adjoined to each other. Entrance portals were often the only externally visible decorative part of buildings. In cases of buildings with a public function, such as mosques or madrasas, the entrances were often placed where streets crossed. This allowed visitors to walk up to the building from multiple directions, but they could also view the decoration of

 “…ill looking street, between ruinous and blackened walls of great height, without a window to relieve their severe aspect; at considerable distances only there are grated openings, from which we are furtively observed by female eyes.“(Loti, 1892: 142) 35

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the portal from a distance, and not only peripherally. The same function, i.e. allowing inhabitants to perceive the ornateness of the entrance portals, was also held by the small open spaces that were left undeveloped before some of the portals for this purpose. A significant role within the economic life of the city was held by fondouks36 – semi-public roadside inns, which provided facilities to merchants, who could lay down their goods here, close a business deal, or spend the night (Forrest, 1904: 136). Because business negotiations did not usually take place in the homes of merchants in residential quarters, as family and business affairs were strictly divided from a spatial standpoint (Gaillard, 1905: 156), fondouks played an irreplaceable role within souks and the economic life of the city. Evidently because a part of their role included the provision of accommodation, their internal segmentation is reminiscent of the architecture of riyads. Individual rooms were placed around the square courtyard lined by arcades. However, the entrance portals, which were positioned from the street directly into the courtyards, and the courtyards themselves had distinctly broader proportions in order to allow loads of goods to pass through them that were then stored and sold in the fondouk (Montbard, 1894: 190, 194). Contrary to the Seljuk fondouks, which were built along trading routes at regular distances that corresponded to one day’s journey and therefore did not necessarily have to be located in cities, and also Egyptian and Tunisian fondouks, which were placed outside urban walls, Moroccan fondouks were a part of the inner built-up area of medinas. Their exact position corresponded to the focus of the specific fondouk, as no fondouk provided a space to all merchants, but was always oriented towards specific types of goods  – those that were designated for merchants with agricultural products or more sizable goods were for logistic reasons located close to the city walls, while fondouks designated for merchants with artisanal products and more valuable commodities were located closer to the part of the souk where the given article was traded (D’Ayala & Copping, 2007: 40–41). The fondouks that were located within souks gradually lost their accommodation function and served exclusively as shops in which goods were permanently exhibited. They also served as places for business negotiations. However, it was not exceptional for a merchant to rent the whole house for this purpose. Although these houses usually corresponded to residential riyads in their positioning, they primarily tended to be considerably less decorated and gave a more modest impression (Gaillard, 1905: 157–8). Places that from a cultural standpoint held great significance for the functioning of traditional Islamic society and possessed a strong congregational aspect were the public baths  – hammams. As was mentioned above, hammams were located not only in each city or village, but even in every quarter.37 Their significance within the community was so great that they were classified in importance just behind mosques and were built in close proximity to them. Their position on the borderline of the  In other parts of the Islamic world, the terms caravanserai or khan are used.  E.g. Arthur Leared counted 21 of them in Marrakesh (1876: 65). Africanus writes of more than one hundred public hammams in Fes (1896: 426), while al-Bakri mentions roughly twenty (Al-Bakri, 1913: 262). 36 37

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public and private gave them a highly specific role (Fadli & Sibley, 2009: 1–2). The concept of baths in which individual rooms are divided according to the temperature of the air and the heating is ensured by a system of tunnels under the floor (hypocaustum) was based upon the architectural structure of Roman baths. However, their social role, which stemmed from the features and practices of Islamic society, was distinctly different. The hygienic significance of the hammam in the pre-colonial period was crucial. Although some economically more well-off households had a water source in the courtyard of the riyad, water distribution systems could be found only in the palaces of the highest social classes. The vast majority of inhabitants was thus dependent on public sources of water, which were located in every quarter (Leared, 1876: 161). A visit to the hammam once a week was a ritual that included both physical and spiritual purification (Brame, 2018: 1–2). In the Islamic concept, physical, moral and ritual purity creates one whole, and thus the meaning of the hammam was to provide a suitable space for this purpose. Even at present, a shower in conservative Moroccan society is often considered to be an inefficient purification, as from the point of view of many Moroccans it does not allow for the heating of the body or scrubbing of skin and also lacks a social aspect. Hammams were often placed near mosques; this, however, does not mean that the ritual cleansing before prayer had to be carried out in them. Aside from the hygienic and spiritual function, they played a significant socio-economic role, as they allowed for regular and coincidental meetings and the strengthening of social ties. They provided the only safe space for social interactions between women outside their homes, as they could meet here in a place divided from the outside world.38 This even became one of the typical motifs of the Orientalist fantasies created by European artists.39 Partial female nudity in female hammams was also of practical use in cases in which the mother of a young man wished to verify inconspicuously whether her potential daughter-in-law possessed the suitable physical proportions. Hammams also played a socio-cultural role in prenuptial rituals, in which brides and their entourages visited the hammam the day before their wedding (Brame, 2018: 135), or during other rituals linked to significant life events. The hammam as a meeting place was naturally significant not only for women, as men also made use of it for the purpose of social contact. Hammams together with mosques were located on main streets or near them due to reasons of easy accessibility. In regard to the fact that a water supply was crucial to the operation of hammams, access to the water supply system was another reason for their positioning near the main road (Fadli & Sibley, 2009: 2). With regard to the private aspect of their function, their portals were not usually decorated in any distinct manner and from the outside they gave a wholly inconspicuous impression. This was further strengthened by the fact that they tended to be partially built below  Hammams are either divided into male and female baths or are shared by both sexes at specific times so that men and women cannot meet. For example, men use the hammam from sunrise to noon and women from noon to sunset (Leared, 1876: 165). 39  E.g. Delacroix, Gérôme, Ingres (Brame, 2018). 38

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ground level for energy saving reasons. On the contrary, they were easily identifiable when looking downwards, namely thanks to their typical domed roofs. This type of roof arch in Moroccan architecture is otherwise rather exceptional – except for hammams, domed roofs appear in Morocco more often only on tombs. In addition to the use of this specific architectonic element, another connection can be found between hammams and tombs. Public baths also often carried the name of a “saint” in order to strengthen their spiritual effect. In regard to their location in the dense built-up area, their intentional inconspicuousness, and their connection to other buildings (mosques, bakeries), hammams did not appear as free-standing buildings.

4.5 Public Spaces One of the most characteristic features of Moroccan medinas was the high density of the built-up area, which often gave an oppressive impression. The street layout was not distinguished by any universal scheme. While in the Rabat’s medina the street layout has a relatively right-angle organization with the main streets around the circumference of the medina, in Marrakesh the streets branch out radially from the souks rather than from the central square of Jamaʿ al-Fna, evoking an imperfect spider web. Fes al-Bali (Figs. 4.7, 4.8) is an extreme example: the city has become famous throughout the world for the irregularity of its street layout (see De Amicis & Tilton, 1882: 216; Loti, 1892: 146–7), and the narrow, winding streets and alleyways reminiscent of a maze have become a tourist attraction. The absence of a main street that would connect the western and eastern section of the city divided by a river points to the fact that Fes al-Bali was created via the linking of two cities, which had initially developed independently from one another.40 Another typical feature of medinas was the high number of blind alleys in residential quarters. The few transversal streets gradually branched out into increasingly narrow alleyways, in which only the entrances to homes were located. These alleys were considered to be private, not public space that belonged only to the inhabitants of the homes that could be entered from them. The density of the built­up area was not necessarily caused by the lack of space (the plain on which Marrakesh was founded provides almost unlimited space in comparison to the valley in which Fes al-Bali lies), and may have had other purely practical reasons. The narrow streets gripped by multi-story houses provided protection from the sunshine and gave the area a private character, emphasizing the residential function in contrast to the broader streets of the business quarters. The narrow and winding streets provided inhabitants with an indispensable advantage in the defence of the city from attack. In addition, movement in the city was made difficult by the poor state of its  The fact that Fes (then only Fes al-Bali) is made up of two cities is described by al-Bakri in the second half of the eleventh century (1913: 262) and al-Idrisi in the twelfth century (Al-Idrisi, 1866: 86). 40

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Fig. 4.7  Fes in the seventeenth century (According to an old engraving; from La Renaissance du Maroc: Dix Ans de Protectorat: 11; Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Philosophie, histoire, sciences de l’homme, 8-O3J-431)

surfaces (Cunninghame Grahame, 1898: 264). Streets were often neither paved nor reinforced, which limited the movement of both potential conquerors and the inhabitants of the city themselves. The disadvantage of this layout manifested itself primarily during epidemics of infectious diseases, which were a consequence of the poor hygienic situation and trash that often piled high in the narrow streets (Stutfield, 1886: 244). Squares did not play a very significant role in pre-colonial Morocco, and sites that in an urbanistic plan would have been conceptually designed as squares were found in medinas only sporadically. Generally speaking, the spaces marked as squares in the dense built-up area of Moroccan medinas give the impression of merely residual space left over from other construction. From the pre-colonial areas of the three analyzed cities – Marrakesh, Fes and Rabat – an extensive square was found in only the first city mentioned. Marrakesh’s main square Jamaʿ al-Fna is today characterized by its irregular shape, the absence of a dominant building from the pre-colonial period, and its location at the edge of the medina and not at its centre. Nothing, however, prevented this site from becoming a favourite centre of social

Fig. 4.8  Fes city plan showing the irregularity of street network and the density of the built environment in the medina, which is located in a valley, as it was captured in 1933. (2/42/G.S.G.S. Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 110448, 12–42, 1942; Copied from a French map dated 1933 G24.0, 1942; Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

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and cultural life in the evenings (see Forrest, 1904: 115; Leared, 1876: 194), reaching worldwide renown, and today being one of the most visited tourist destinations in Morocco. Contrary to Fes, which is crowded into a valley, and Rabat, which is surrounded by the sea from one side and a river from the other, the existence of such a square in Marrakesh was made possible primarily by the positioning of the city on an extensive plain, on which it could expand in all directions. This terrain was also suitable for the foundation of expansive gardens, parks and orchards in close proximity to the medina and, in some cases, in the medina itself. Marrakesh’s al-­ Kutubiyya Friday mosque, which was atypically placed outside the medina itself, was also surrounded by gardens and open space (Leared, 1876: 135). A part of the gardens and parks was often publicly accessible and, although gradually falling into decline in the nineteenth century (some dated as far back as the twelfth century), they were always an ideal place for rest, as they provided shade, calm and fresh air. Furthermore, private gardens in palaces were highly representative and were often used to host guests (see Leared, 1879: 51). The meshwar was a significant open space which, however, was only minimally accessible to the public. It was an imposing space past the first gateway of the imperial palaces, which was reserved for highly formalized meetings between the sultan and ambassadors, the elite, and other prominent persons (see Garnier & Garnier, 1899b: 6). In the pre-colonial period, the centre of economic and in a certain regard also social life of large cities were souks – marketplaces. While in rural areas souk denoted an open market of a temporary character (Al-Bakri, 1913: 4) or a periodical market that was held in a certain place always on the same day of the week, in cities it formed an extensive part of the medina, where goods were not only sold, but also produced. From a construction perspective, this included partially roofed streets that were lined with small shops opened to the street (see Ashmead-Bartlett, 1910: 262). The roofing was not of a highly permanent character, and was usually ensured by wooden crossbeams bearing wooden latticework, reeds or other light material (see Garnier & Garnier, 1899a: 13). Architectonic solutions in the form of domed roofs that are typical of Eastern bazaars do not appear in Morocco. Workshops often formed a part of the shops, and could be located in the back area of the shop, on the upper floor, or directly in the main section where production and sales were conducted in one place. The main streets of the souk served for commerce and as transit thoroughfares (Forrest, 1904: 110), which often led to the Friday mosque and thus became the primary axis of the medina. A deviation from this model is evident for example in Marrakesh, where the al-Kutubiyya Friday mosque was located on the margins of the medina and relatively far from the souks at its centre. However, even in this case the main business streets form the axis of the medina and link Jamaʿ al-Fna Square with the Ben Yusuf Mosque and madrasa. The branches of this central thoroughfare housed additional shops, which gave rise to a whole commercial quarter. According to the extent of this branching-off from the main street, souks can be divided into linear ones, where the majority of activities is concentrated on the main thoroughfare that are typical of smaller medinas (Rabat), and

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networks of souks, which make up whole quarters (Fes, Marrakesh).41 In souks in Islamic cities,42 shops with goods of the same kind were concentrated next to each other. In the case of linear souks, the main street could be divided into individual sections according to the articles being sold and, in the case of a network of souks, whole streets were devoted to individual articles.43 This solution was advantageous for customers, merchants and the authorities monitoring the souk. Customers who were interested in a product of a certain category had the opportunity to compare goods in neighbouring shops. Merchants maintained an overview of their competition, their prices and quality, and could more easily organize themselves into guilds, which represented them.44 Finally, the authorities could more easily monitor the quality of the sold goods and collected taxes. The placement of types of goods within the souk was subject to tradition that stemmed from practical circumstances and religious customs. In the part of the souk closest to the Friday mosque, goods that had a certain spiritual character or possessed a religious aspect were usually bought and sold. This included goods such as perfumes, candles, dates and religious literature, but alleys of scribes were located here as well (Africanus, 1896: 430; Gaillard, 1905: 113). This plan created a natural connection and transition from the sacred or holy to the altogether profane. In regard to the fact that the quarters surrounding the Friday mosque tended to have a commercial, not residential character (which was natural, as crowds passed through them), the contrast between the holy and the profane was especially distinct. Extensive workshops producing odours or smoke (tanneries, pottery workshops) were located on the edge of the medina for strictly practical reasons. Not only were worshippers not annoyed by odours and smoke during Friday prayer, it was also advantageous from a logistical perspective, as bulky materials (leather, clay, fuel) did not have to be transported via the narrow and crowded streets of the medina. Just like in every quarter, basic infrastructure was available in souks, i.e. a water source and a mosque, usually of a smaller scale. A part of the souks were the open areas located outside the main thoroughfares, which also had a commercial function – for public auctions that required more space for the auctioneer to present the  For more examples in the Middle East, see Awad, 1989: 49.  It should be added that the term Islamic city is highly debatable and there is no absolute agreement among experts concerning the existence of the universal traits of an Islamic city, nor is there consensus concerning whether the term should be used or if it has meaning at all (which is also the stance of the author of this chapter). For a list of some arguments, see Awad, 1989: 13–19. 43  “Shops where the same kind of goods are sold are grouped in quarters by themselves. There is the street of the dealers in clothing… There is the street of the leather merchants… Then there is the street of the workers in brass… finally, the quarter of the armorers…” (Loti, 1892: 234) The accumulation of shops with the same articles near each other was described by Africanus (1896: 430–6). 44  “Trades-unionism is no recent innovation at Fez, for it has existed for centuries whilst still undreamt of in the industrial centers of Europe. The workers in the various trades bind themselves together, and appoint representatives to look after their rights and interests and to negotiate with the officials appointed by the Marzhen to regulate the industry and civil life of the capital.“(AshmeadBartlett, 1910: 265) 41 42

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goods and for the parties interested in buying them. Typical articles of these auctions included rugs and slaves, who were still being traded at the beginning of the twentieth century in open spaces (see Ashmead-Bartlett, 1910: 263; Forrest, 1904: 121–136; Garnier & Garnier, 1899a: 18). Other spaces, usually in the marginal areas of the souk near the edges of the medina, were used by farmers from the countryside (Campbell, 1897: 67), for whom there was no practical or economic reason to bind themselves to a specific immovable property in the medina. Interaction between the city’s inhabitants and merchants or even rural farmers also took place outside the city walls (Forrest, 1904: 109). Open markets appeared in designated spaces at specific, usually seven-day intervals, where articles whose sale would not be possible inside the medina were bought and sold – this namely included horses, mules and other farm animals and products offered by the farmers.

4.6 Conclusion Based on the complete analysis of the ways in which key public buildings and public spaces are used, we can define several characteristic features in which the mechanisms of the Moroccan precolonial society interconnect with the morphology of settlements. The most distinct characteristic identified in the analysis is the strict localization of individual activities in designated spaces and the related dichotomy between places with a public function and the houses, i.e. the thorough division of residential and commercial/public space. Respect for this dichotomy is evident namely in the tendency for business transactions to be carried out exclusively in souks or fondouks (built close to souks), not residential homes. It is also reflected in the strict separation of souks and residential areas, which is indicated in the character of the streets itself – commercial zones housed more spacious streets allowing for the movement of merchants and the transport of goods, while residential neighbourhoods were created by narrower streets that were further divided into blind alleyways. Their narrow dimensions allowed for the passage of only a limited number of people who dwelled in the homes on a given street. They also provided protection from both the sun and potential attackers, gave the area a private character, and made it easier for inhabitants to monitor those who moved about the area. Adherence to this dichotomy between publicly accessible and private space distinctly strengthened the significance of public buildings and spaces in society, as they played a key role namely in the business sphere. The function of Friday mosques was equally fundamental for the operation of society, as they functioned as a strong socio-unification element despite not holding a monopoly over all religious activities, but only over the main prayer of the week. While the significance of public buildings was truly substantial, public spaces did not fulfil a very prominent function. With the exception of Marrakesh’s Jamaʿ al-Fna square, which still bears a strong cultural aspect today, we cannot find any

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square in the analysed cities in the precolonial period possessing a strong congregational function or importance in terms of the projection of power. With the exception of the meshwar, which was not however publicly accessible, the streets of the souks were the only other open space with a prominent social function. Social power was realized primarily via public buildings, not open public spaces. Although trading practices were carried out to a great degree in souks, a considerable part of this activity also took place in fondouks. Religious and administrative practices, i.e. additional tools for the realization of social power, were carried out almost exclusively within buildings. Another highly pronounced trait is the universal occurrence of specific architectonic elements that are independent of the building’s function. Examples of this are the decorative entrance portals that appear on mosques, madrasas, riyads, and fondouks, which strongly contrast with the simple facades of these buildings. A similar effect is made by the gateways that stand out next to austere defensive walls in their delicate ornateness. Based on this fact, we can presume the importance of this decoration for the cultural identity of the inhabitants. We find a structural analogy among riyads, fondouks and madrasas (i.e. among buildings with a primarily residential, commercial and religious-educational function), the layout of which is concentrated around a central, square or rectangular courtyard. However, there is no absolute conformity in these structures – for example, fondouks possess significantly more generous proportions than riyads, and madrasas house key spaces with religious functions. The final trait that stems from the analysed data is the relative centralization of social power or the practices through which social power is realized, even despite the separation of inhabitants within quarters, which are to a large degree functionally autonomous. While quarters possessed the infrastructure necessary for daily life (bakeries, water sources, hammams, mosques) and the appearance of their autonomy was strengthened by dividing walls and gateways, trading practices were centralized in souks and in the fondouks primarily located there. In terms of religious practices, arguments pointing to both central or decentral placement can be found. Madrasas and Friday mosques were also frequently located primarily in souks or in proximity to them; thus, souks can be labelled geographically as the factual centres of social power. On the contrary, other mosques were relatively evenly distributed in other quarters in order to make them easily accessible for each of the five daily prayers. However, these prayers can be carried out in privacy, and visiting a mosque to do so is unnecessary. Therefore, it would be incorrect to claim that they created a relevant counterbalance to the Friday mosque. Relative geographical decentralization can be observed in more populated cities, where (contrary to original principles) more Friday mosques were built. The discussion in this chapter points to the fact that precolonial Morocco had a distinctive character, in which power structures were intertwined with spatial organization. The interventions of the colonial period will be discussed in the following chapter.

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Chapter 5

Public Spaces in Context with Colonial Urbanism in Morocco Jan Pěchota

Abstract  This chapter deals with the period of the French Protectorate in Morocco (1912–1956), namely its first decade, and the influence of French colonial rule on the development of Moroccan cities. Based on the study of primary sources and field research, this chapter contains an analysis of the transformation of Moroccan cities and the intentional creation of a dichotomy between precolonial settlements and newly-built neighbourhoods. While the precolonial medinas were conserved for political, aesthetic and economic reasons, new neighbourhoods were intended to represent European influence and progress. Attention is given to the political and ideological motivation that stood behind the creation of this dichotomy and to its impacts on the life of the local inhabitants. The text explores differences in spatial layout and buildings as seat of institutions (post offices, banks, churches) that began to appear in Morocco with the advent of colonialism. In this context, the text focuses on their spatial placement within cities and the socio-spatial relationships associated with it. Keywords  Colonial urbanism · French protectorate · Medina · Villes nouvelles · Colonialism · Neighbourhood

5.1 The Advent of Colonialism The colonial experience in Morocco is an especially interesting case of colonial influence both within Africa and on a global scale. Morocco was one of the last formally colonized regions of Africa, becoming a part of European colonial empires as late as 1912. As a result, the experience of the long-term colonization of other territories and also a more modern view of the possible methods of rule and realization of power in the administered territories could be reflected during the implementation of protectorate rule. It is also one of the few countries where European The original version of the chapter has been revised: This chapter was inadvertently published without the contributing author’s names on the chapter opening page which has been included now. A correction to this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_8

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022, corrected publication 2022 M. Baumanova, Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_5

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masterplans were almost fully put to practice and where this was carried out gradually with the intention of achieving a long-term and prosperous model of urbanism. The signing of the Treaty of Fes on 30th March 1912 confirmed the French protectorate rule over Moroccan territory, a small part of which in the north and south was shifted to the Spanish protectorate rule upon the signing of the Franco-Spanish agreement from 27th November 19121 (Fig.  5.1). Even despite the very belated formal advent of European domination, colonial influences had already gradually penetrated Moroccan territory tens or even hundreds of years before the declaration of the protectorates. This took place in the form of economic and cultural activity, occasional military campaigns and the occupation of cities on the coast and along the eastern border. The infiltration that distinctly escalated over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century lead to direct colonial rule and took on aggressive characteristics. In this period, an economic and social transformation was

Fig. 5.1  Map of Morocco with marked divisions to the French zone (red) and the Spanish zones (yellow) and the Tangier international zone (blue). (Maroc: carte administrative (1937); Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE C-4689 (13)  The coastal city of Tangier was excluded from this division, as it became a demilitarized zone under the administration of an international committee in 1923. 1

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taking place simultaneously, which to a large degree was a reaction to external pressure. Because of an unsuccessful implementation, however, the reforms did not strengthen the country, but on the contrary ended up weakening it. As a consequence, Morocco was left with an even smaller chance to resist this pressure. The declaration of protectorates was thus only a formal confirmation of increasing European dominance and the end of a several-decades-long period in which the Moroccan sultans attempted to maintain independence by searching for a path among the colonial ambitions of individual European powers. The previous chapter has already mentioned the fact that the transformation of the intensity of colonial interference and the degree of infringement on Moroccan affairs (be it politically, culturally or militarily) in the individual phases of Moroccan history were also linked to the degree in which Europeans influenced architecture and urbanism. This is primarily evident in the coastal cities, while those in the interior developed highly independently from European influence. Before the declaration of the French and Spanish protectorates, there were thus two architectural-urbanist traditions in Morocco – the coastal and the inland tradition – which showed distinctly differing degrees of external influence. With the advent of the protectorate administration, which had a fundamental and undeniable influence on all aspects of lives of the Moroccans, crucial structures from the period of the independent Morocco were not removed. Namely in the first years of French rule over Morocco, an approach was taken that reflected French colonial experience, ideological anchoring and views of the purpose, reasons and future of the protectorate administration of Marshal Hubert Lyautey, the first General Resident of the French protectorate in Morocco. Lyautey not only became the head of civil administration, but was also named a supreme military commander, which allowed him to implement extensive changes without creating disputes and searching for compromise among the interests of the protectorate’s military and civil command. Lyautey’s approach was based on experience gained during his service in Indochina and Madagascar, but also reflected the mistakes that the French made in Algeria. Its primary pillar was to understand the protectorate administration as true protection and support of the territory, not as an attempt at subjugation. Apart from that, he also placed an emphasis on non-violent methods, understanding and respect for the local culture, efforts to cooperate with the local population, and primarily an indirect administration, i.e. rule via local elites, and the preservation of a number of traditional institutions and symbols, which would give legitimacy to the protectorate administration.2 The goal of this chapter is to analyse the transformation of public space in Moroccan cities as a consequence of direct colonial influence, i.e. to illustrate how the urban development of Moroccan urbanism projected the plans of the French colonial administration, its conception and ambitions in the early era of the protectorate. This chapter deals with the construction of European quarters and their specific layout as well as the emergence of new institutions and their respective

 For more on the method of administration in Morocco in the period of Marshal Lyautey, see Bidwell, 1973. 2

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seats. Relations between the established categories of the old, precolonial and the new, European and their consequent impact on the lives of natives is then analysed. Spatial relationships are analysed utilising the concept of neighbourhoods, defined as a zone of influence, usually comprising of several streets or house blocks. This leads to a multidimensional image of colonial influence on Moroccan settlements, their public life and spatial development, which, by extension, is reflecting the French colonial tactics used in the French protectorate of Morocco. This chapter deals exclusively with the developments in the area of Morocco that was under French administration. The primary reason for this is that the Spanish protectorate took up a significantly smaller territory, from which its largest city, Tangier, was also excluded. In comparison with activities associated with the French colonization of Morocco, which created an extensive and conceptual product, in the case of the Spanish protectorate the administration of territory was highly unsystematic and at the same time implemented on a significantly smaller territory, i.e. in a smaller number of cities. Despite this fact, traces of Spanish architecture are clearly visible on the territory of the former Spanish protectorate, but namely thanks to the fact that the north of Morocco had already been a Spanish zone of influence long before the formal declaration of the protectorate. In addition, Spaniards and Portuguese had carried out repeated military expeditions to the territory of northern Morocco since the fifteenth century that were associated with the occupation of individual cities. As a result of the Spanish administration of northern Morocco, typically Spanish layouts can be seen in the modern neighbourhoods of a number of cities (e.g. Tetouan – Fig. 5.2, Larache), i.e. a central, often round or oval square with wide streets with shaded walkways extending out in a star pattern.

5.2 Sources3 The advent of French rule is associated with new sources that can be used to study the transformations of Moroccan cities. The first group are sources aiding in understanding Marshal Lyautey’s view of various aspects of the protectorate administration and his plans for the controlled territory. This primarily includes his correspondence4 or interviews that have been richly elaborated upon in secondary literature.5 The stories of European travellers and their description of Morocco’s transformation once again play an important role. A new source of materials are tourist guides or contemporary books of an encyclopedic character, which were often published in cooperation with the Office des Industries d’Art Indigène au Maroc and present the transformation of Morocco with the goal of attracting foreign

 For a  complex list of  literature associated with  urbanism during the  French protectorate, see Jelidi, 2007. 4  See e.g. Lyautey, 1953. 5  See e.g. Maurois, 1933; Rivet, 1988, 1999; Scham, 1970. 3

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Fig. 5.2  Plan of Tetouan as it was documented in 1939 showing contrast between the precolonial medina (north-east) and the colonial quarters (south-west) with a highlighted location of the church (red). The so-called “Spanish layout” of the latter is clearly apparent, i.e. a central round/ oval square (in front of the church) with wide streets extending out in a star pattern. (Town plan of Tetouan, G.S.G.S. 4241 Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 115937, 2–43, 1943; Copied from Guide Michelin Maroc 1939; Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-­ Castañeda Library Map Collection)

tourists.6 A rich source of information, often with propagandist overtones, are the materials published by the protectorate itself, which present the achievements of the French colonial administrators.7 Maps and plans that were created by the protectorate administration and the French army are also an important source of information on the development of Moroccan cities.

5.3 Marshal Lyautey: Building the Protectorate by Building Cities The division of cities in the way that is still evident today in Morocco is the most visible and also most tangible legacy of Lyautey’s understanding of the protectorate administration and the practical implementation of his ideals, which often

 See e.g. Ricard, 1924, 1925.  See e.g. La Renaissance du Maroc: Dix Ans de Protectorat, 1922.

6 7

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overlapped into social engineering. The most typical characteristic of the morphology of Moroccan cities is the clear division of the precolonial and colonial (protectorate period), or the division of the archaic, traditional and undeveloped from the modern and European through the optics of Morocco’s administrators at the time. Still today in a number of Moroccan cities,8 the border between the medina – the precolonial core of the town – and neighbourhoods that were built in the time of the protectorate or in the period of independence is still evident. This reflects Lyautey’s effort to avoid mixing the original inhabitants with French immigrants, whom he saw as the bearers of a (primarily political) culture that he did not wish to use to indoctrinate Moroccans. On the contrary, he wanted to avoid the spread of the French protectorate’s ideas in Morocco and actively impeded or even banned the settling of Europeans on tribal territories. He primarily strove to prevent the voices of the new settlers from being more powerful than the voices of Moroccans (Bidwell, 1973: 24–25). Instead, he attempted to educate the new Moroccan elites, who would in time take on the roles of the French and lead the country themselves to prosperity. European and Moroccan lifestyles were considered to be incompatible, as Europeans could not be required to adapt to the demands stemming from Islam; at the same time, the French had come to Morocco to cooperate with the locals, not disrupt their living conditions. Water supply and sewer systems were considered to be unusable for the needs of the French, and new city quarters – villes nouvelles – had to be constructed, and were built in a modern style with railway stations and open spaces… (La Renaissance du Maroc: Dix Ans de Protectorat, 1922: 362). The preservation of the original appearance of the medinas theoretically encompassed a non-invasive approach to the local culture and civilization, which was not to be degraded via demolitions and forced rebuilding. Just as traditional institutions and symbols were preserved, the traditional structure of society was also to be conserved and along with it the layout of neighbourhoods, which to a certain degree is a material reflection of this structure. At the same time, however, the original medinas were meant to serve as open-air museums demonstrating the backwardness of the precolonial society. Adjacent to them or along their perimeter began the construction of colonial neighbourhoods built with a clear urbanist plan, garden cities with wide boulevards, dominant administrative buildings (the facades of which, however, intentionally confessed their inspiration from local architecture) and expansive parks, which served as a showcase of French colonialism, towering proudly next to the medinas with their narrow, dark and winding streets (Fig. 5.3). This method of presentation or level of emphasizing the contrast between the colonial and precolonial is exceptional within the territory under French rule (Cohen, 2006: 357) and can be attributed to Lyautey’s effort to gain the favour of Moroccans not through force, but investment. The French not only built imposing and grandiose neighbourhoods that served to represent France and the protectorate, they also built indigenous neighbourhoods, the construction of which was a reaction to

 The cities that were built or gained significance in the time of the protectorate are naturally exceptions. 8

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Fig. 5.3  Plan of development for Rabat emphasizing the contrast between the colonial and precolonial quarters of the town as it was documented in 1922. The plan is showing respective orientation of the precolonial parts (medina-white, Muslim cemeteries-purple, Jewish cemetery–dark blue, palace area and Chellah and Hassan tower historic landmarks-grey), colonial residential and administration quarters (red), parks (green) and European cemetery (orange). (Rabat: Plan d’aménagement de l’agglomération européenne: Rive gauche du Bou-Regreg; Section technique des plans de villes; Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE A-1380 (4)

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domestic migration from the countryside to the cities that was driven by the growth of job opportunities associated with French investments, primarily in coastal regions. In addition to the medinas and villes nouvelles, a third type of neighbourhood began to be designed before the end of the protectorate’s first decade, which offered a compromise between the two aforementioned neighbourhoods and offered a solution to the critical situation that the original inhabitants had found themselves in as a result of the conservation of the medinas. These were “new medinas”, which structurally respected the rules of the original medinas, i.e. taking privacy and the occurrence of specific architectural elements that were typical for each Muslim neighbourhood into account.9(Radoine, 2016) Because these neighbourhoods lacked the capacity to solve the crisis of housing for the villagers flocking en masse to the cities, bidonvilles – i.e. slums – became an integral part of Moroccan cities.

5.4 Presentation of Old and New Space The conservation of the medinas and the effort to preserve precolonial Moroccan culture (but in the way it was perceived by Europeans) became a form of imprisonment within city walls, which unavoidably led to stagnation. With the shift of power from the original centres to modern ones, the weakening of the influence of traditional institutions and the exodus of social and intellectual capital,10 the medinas became merely poor, overpopulated dormitories for the large number of immigrants from the countryside who were brought in to provide labour for the colonial industrial units. (Radoine, 2003: 461) Medinas ceased to be true cities, becoming only an addition to new ones and serving to strengthen the impression of the grandeur of the colonial neighbourhoods with which they contrasted. They were not forced to concede to new construction, but were at the same time denied modernization and natural development in order to become a tool of colonial representation and propaganda, proof of which can be seen in their use in the tourism industry from the beginning of the protectorate. Not only were specific buildings (often selected by Lyautey himself) marked as historical heritage and designated for renovation, they were also presented in tourist guidebooks with a foreword by Lyautey11 (Wagner & Minca, 2014: 6). This contrast was also strengthened by leaving the original walls intact, which created a significant visual and factual border between the new and old. The network of streets was not connected, and instead of the pre-protectorate and  See e.g. Cohen & Eleb, 2002: 214–226.  They were abandoned not only by the local elites, but also by Europeans, who in many cases had settled there before the creation of the protectorate and the construction of the new neighborhoods – e.g. in the Rue des Consuls in Rabat. 11  Lyautey’s forewords appeared in a number of books presenting French achievements in Morocco, such as the imposing work Les Merveilles de l’Autre France (Ricard, 1924) or the tourist guidebook from an edition of Les Guides Bleus (Ricard, 1925). 9

10

5.5  Spatial Layout

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protectorate functioning mutually in a visual, economic and functional manner and gradually blending together, two worlds existed next to one another. By passing through a gateway in the historical city walls, a visitor would abandon the world of the traditional, primitive and picturesque Morocco and enter a world of wide boulevards de la Gare, the spacious Place de France and modern, imposing structures; a city quarter that offered newcomers everything they needed and required to live. Modern neighbourhoods appeared over a short period of time and according to a plan with a clear goal (contrary to the hundreds of years of the medinas’ unrestrained and spontaneous formation). At the same time, they also differed in their use of new materials, primarily concrete12 (Cohen, 2006: 365), contained new types of structures (e.g. post offices, railway stations, banks), and also introduced new types of exterior space. Thanks to their (seemingly) oversized dimensions, the boulevards began to fulfil both the role of major streets and open spaces, affecting both movement and congregation practices. The transport of people and goods to the cities was made significantly easier, as newly built railway stations could be placed directly in city centres, while the interior area of a medina like the one in Fes still remains inaccessible by mass transport to this day. In terms of gathering, the boulevards and squares also began to play a significant role, as their proportions allowed for events such as demonstrations. The fact that the spacious boulevards allowed the dominant buildings (or the demonstration of colonial power) to impress passers-by is also a significant aspect. In contrast, the medinas were actively presented as picturesque open-air museums. This took place namely in the literature of the time, which was based upon the romantic ideas of the colonizers and told of polyphony and polychromy, the trotting mules hauling their cargo through narrow streets among stalls selling fish and dates, where the din of blacksmiths and snake charmers mixed with the odour of leather and fried foods and the fragrance of roses, wood and fresh mint (e.g. Mauclair, 1934: 9).

5.5 Spatial Layout The fact that the street plans of new neighbourhoods did not have to be linked with the street plans of the medinas (or could not have been thanks to the preservation of the city walls), French urbanists (namely Henri Prost)13 had a great deal of freedom in designing the new city quarters. They were limited only by the topographical relief (with an emphasis on the need to build railway stations and thus ensure connections to roads and railways) and the location of the medinas. For the ville  Concrete also began to be used to reconstruct buildings in the medina, where it complemented traditional materials. This inconsiderate approach often compromised the structure of buildings. (Radoine, 2016: 29) 13  Henri Prost’s stay in Morocco was planned for 1  year, but lasted ten times that; during this period, he prepared the plans for nine Moroccan cities, including the four Imperial Cities and Casablanca. (Wright, 1991: 98) 12

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nouvelle in Rabat, an extensive area located between the medina in the north, the palace area in the south, and the historical necropolis Chellah in the southeast was used. Although this area had been surrounded by walls since the Almohad period, it was almost exclusively made up of orchards, parks and gardens.14 It thus offered an ideal space for the implementation of the first of Prost’s great works (implemented from 1912 to 1941) – a new city of 770 ha (de Sousa Safe & de Alvarenga Pereira Costa, 2016: 52), which respected the distribution of several dominant precolonial monuments. According to this master plan, the open area became home to residential, administrative, commercial and historical zones, boulevards creating the main thoroughfares of the new city, parks, and the seat of the General Resident, located at the highest point, with a view of the whole city and the ocean and located opposite the monumental walls of the Marinid Necropolis.15 The kasbah-citadel located in the northern area of the city by the mouth of the Bou Regreg River flowing into the ocean retained its residential function, but at the same time became a tourist attraction with its newly created Andalusian garden (1915), café (in order to strengthen the picturesque character of the whole site, called Café Maure), with a view of the river and the adjacent city of Salé and two museums.16 A fundamental point of Prost’s plans was la séparation complète des agglomérations européennes et indigènes for political, economic, health, administrative and aesthetic reasons. (La Renaissance du Maroc: Dix Ans de Protectorat, 1922). The construction of a new quarter called Gueliz was begun in Marrakesh as early as 1913. Over the course of 10  years, the area west of the medina,17 where the French military camp was first located, was transformed into a modern neighbourhood. Thanks to the fact that Marrakesh is located on an expansive plane, protectorate planners were not limited by the terrain. On the contrary, the construction of Casablanca faced significant limitations. There the European quarter had begun to grow uncontrollably even before the declaration of the protectorate and, with regard to the enormous prices of land (and even of property that had already been built), the protectorate administration was unable to fundamentally change the given character of the city, which was chaotic and lacked open spaces. If the French did in fact interfere with the medinas themselves at the beginning of the protectorate, it was yet again to emphasize the contrast between the old and new and to utilize this for propaganda or economic purposes in the tourism industry.

 An exception, for example, is the al-Sunna Mosque located at the entrance to the palace and the Hassan Tower historical monument. Both these structures remained preserved within the composition of the new built-up area. 15  See Mauclair, 1934: 99–100. 16  See the tourist guidebook from the time  – Les Guides Bleus (Ricard, 1925: 217–218) or (Mauclair, 1934: 29). 17  Construction of the Gueliz neighborhood began 3 km from the medina and gradually came closer to it, covering a swath of palmeraie and orchards. 14

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A typical example is the transformation of selected structures (mainly palaces18 and fondouks, but also madrasas) in the museum of traditional arts and crafts, which served not only for presentation, but also to preserve and further develop necessary knowledge and help protect them from disappearing as a result of the advent of cheap and mass-produced goods.19 (Mauclair, 1934: 12) In addition, some historical palaces were transformed into official buildings, but they failed even in these cases to become the dominant element of the medina, as – similarly to precolonial times – it was impossible to judge from the façade how expansive the site located beyond the walls was within the continuously built-up area. Steps that were intended to further emphasize the historicity, picturesqueness and romantic vision were taken to conserve the medinas. One of these actions was the construction of the Bou Jeloud Gate in Fes, which in its style copied traditional architecture and, in its composition, offered an effective view into the medina, emphasizing its medieval character. Other gates built in Fes not long before the declaration of the protectorate had to be rebuilt, as their character embodied too many foreign influences, which from a French viewpoint disrupted the character of the medina – even the appearance of private residences was interfered with, if it was not sufficiently Fesian to the French. In order to prevent the modernization of the medinas, which would lead to the visual suppression of their medieval character, the obligation to acquire construction permission to carry out new construction and reconstruction in them was instated, establishing for the French what was or was not sufficiently Moroccan (Holden, 2008: 8–9). At the same time, from 1914 on, laws were passed that allowed for expropriation and regulations were adopted concerning the number of floors, height, built-up area or a ban on building in ways that would allow a view of the courtyard of the neighbouring house (La Renaissance du Maroc: Dix Ans de Protectorat, 1922).

 These palaces did not have to be historically or artistically significant; they were often relatively new buildings that played a political role in terms of their connection to the ruling dynasty of the time. (Holden, 2008: 6–7) 19  The benefit of French efforts to “protect” arts and crafts is disputable, as this took place in a highly directive manner while breaking the tradition of apprenticeship and dissolving a hitherto functional and well-tested system of quality control – see Radoine, 2016. At the same time, demand for production with utility rather than quality grew, thus placing greater pressure on more massscale production of artworks. The analysis of Moroccan art and the elaborate categorization and cataloguing of Moroccan artefacts was used in France to promote Morocco as a tourist destination and advertise the achievements of French foreign policy. Moroccan art was therefore presented at a number of exhibitions, for example in Paris’s l’Exposition d’art marocain (1917) and l’Exposition du Pavillon de Marsan (1919). See Ricard, 1922: 214. 18

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5.6 New Buildings New neighbourhoods were characterized by their different street network, formed by wide boulevards and the decorativeness of facades, but also by the imposing nature of the buildings, which not only visually dominated the new cities, but also fulfilled functions that were uncommon for the precolonial era. These buildings did not imitate but rather interpreted precolonial North African architecture, and used decorative elements on their facades that were hitherto typical for interiors or gates in combination with modern European architecture. Post and telegraph offices were examples of an institution seats that began to appear in Morocco with the advent of the protectorate. Their main offices were usually located in the newly built houses in the centres of the villes nouvelles, with richly decorated facades and monumental entrance portals (Fig. 5.4). In Marrakesh, the main post office was atypically located in the medina, but only on its border, closing off the central Jamaʿ al-Fna Square on one side. In order for the main post office building not to disrupt the character of the medina in Marrakesh, it adhered to the height limit of the surrounding buildings, causing it to seem more restrained than the main post offices in Rabat or Casablanca. In addition to the main post offices, affiliate branches were built in Moroccan cities that were often located in the medinas and mellahs; there, however, they blended in with their surroundings.

Fig. 5.4  The main post office in Casablanca (Taillis, Jean (Agence Rol)). Le bâtiment de la Poste, avenue d’Amade à Casablanca. (1921), Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, EI4-13 (boîte 42)

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The buildings of the national bank  – Banque d’État du Maroc (established 1907)  – tended to be in a style similar to the main post offices and were often located in their close proximity (Figs. 5.5, 5.6 and 5.7). While the buildings of the national banks in Rabat and Casablanca are some of the most popular modern architectural monuments, whose spatial investment (comparable only to mosques in precolonial times) makes the significance of this institution clear, the national bank in Marrakesh (just like the main post office) did not disrupt the panorama of Jamaʿ al-Fna Square and did not visually overshadow the surrounding areas. In addition to its relatively modest dimensions, this was achieved by giving the decoration of the façade a more moderate character while the ochre colour of the façade respected its surroundings. In light of the fact that Morocco has no continuous tradition of a Christian community, there were no churches there over the course of rule of the Muslim dynasties. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the presence of Christian missions strengthened, but their structures were rather inconspicuous. French rule began the construction of churches and cathedrals, which dominated the new neighbourhoods. The most architecturally significant examples are the Church of the Sacred Heart in Casablanca (1930, arch. Paul Tournon) and St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rabat (1921, arch. Adrien Laforgue, Figs. 5.8 and 5.9). These largest Moroccan churches were built relatively far from the medinas (Figs. 5.6 and 5.7), as it was not evidently the intent of the colonizers to express religious, cultural or political domination by making the monumental churches visible from the medinas and allowing them to permanently visually impact the inhabitants of the medinas or to visually compete with mosques and their placement. At the same time, these two churches are located neither on the main square nor the main boulevard of the city, a fact which relatively weakens their symbolic cultural or political significance or limits its appeal. Marketplaces also went through reforms. While in the medinas the main thoroughfares of the souks became mere tourist attractions for Europeans (tourist guidebooks recommended visiting them as early as the first decade of the protectorate and provided advice on what products to buy), Marché central, square or rectangular marketplaces lined with arcades or colonnades with permanent walled and tiled spaces for exhibiting goods were built in the new neighbourhoods, their main entrances imitating the gates in the walls of Moroccan medinas but often differing in the installation of accompanying clocks (Fig. 5.10). Clocks were an element that did not appear in public in precolonial Morocco but in the protectorate period served as a symbol of the French presence and the order connected to it. These decorated not only the railway stations and entrances to the markets, but demonstrated colonial rule in public space on clock towers. In the case of the clock tower in Casablanca (Fig. 5.11), the cultural appropriation of public space culminated in its placement directly at the entrance to the medina, which highlighted this symbol of foreign presence and dominance. However, this had a less aggressive and provocative effect than if, for example, a church had been built on a similar site. Similarly, Christian cemeteries could not be encountered in precolonial times, but began to form a necessary element of European settlement with the advent of the

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Fig. 5.5  Location of the main post office (blue arrow) and the building of the national bank (green arrow) in Marrakech in relation to the marked medina (including the mellah and the palace area). (Plan de Marrakech, Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241, Army map service U.  S. Army Washington D.  C. 109832, 9–42, 1943, Copied from French Map dated 1935, Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

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Fig. 5.6  Location of the main post office (blue), the national bank (green) and St. Peter’s Cathedral (red) in Rabat in relation to the marked medina (including the mellah). (City plan of Rabat-Salé, Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241, Army map service U. S. Army Washington D. C. 103033, 2–43, 1942, Copied from French map dated 1933, Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

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Fig. 5.7  Location of the main post office (blue), the building of the national bank (green) and the Church of the Sacred Heart (red) in Casablanca in relation to the marked medina (including the mellah). (Town plan of Casablanca, Provisional G.S.G.S. 4241, Army map service U.  S. Army Washington D.  C. 103026, 1942, Source: University of Texas Libraries, The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

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Fig. 5.8  St. Peter’s Cathedral, Rabat – front (2021). (Source: author’s archive)

protectorate and the growing number of settled Europeans. These cemeteries were located on the peripheries of cities without connection to Muslim or Jewish cemeteries. Despite the fact that fondouks also functioned as accommodation in precolonial times, modern-type hotels also became a part of cities with the arrival of Europeans. Similarly to other categories of residential architecture, hotels also reflected contemporary European trends (i.e. the end of Art Nouveau in Europe and the entrance of Art Deco) primarily in their internal organization, but also in their decorations and overall visual appearance.

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Fig. 5.9  St. Peter’s Cathedral, Rabat – back (2021). (Source: author’s archive)

While medinas developed and formed spontaneously without a predefined plan and according to a minimum of predefined rules, new neighbourhoods were created first on paper.20 Thanks to this, the dimensions and organization of open spaces could correspond to the function of the structures that were placed on them. Thus, in Casablanca, the national bank, main post office, city hall and court building are all located on the main square, the centre of which offered a view of the church spire and the park next to it. In Rabat, the main post office was located opposite the central bank on the main boulevard of the ville nouvelle in line with the court and the main railway station (linking Moroccan cities by rail was one of the key tasks of the protectorate21). The boulevard also offered vistas of the cathedral, at the front of which was a half-circular square allowing for this sacral structure to be admired from a smaller distance.

 Casablanca is an exception to a certain degree, as the European section began to develop in such a spontaneous way before the beginning of the protectorate that the purpose of the subsequent urbanistic plan was actually to limit additional development rather than to inspire it. 21  See Girod, 1914: 29–60. 20

5.7 Conclusion

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Fig. 5.10  Entrance to the Municipal Market, Casablanca (2011). (Source: author’s archive)

5.7 Conclusion We can infer from the types of structures that were built in modern neighbourhoods (i.e. churches or administrative buildings linked to French administration) that these spaces were built for European immigrants. Although purposeful segregation did not take place formally, exclusive European zones providing newcomers high (primarily hygienic) standards were created and were economically inaccessible (with

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Fig. 5.11  Clock tower, Casablanca. (Agence de presse Meurisse. Casablanca: vue de la ville et du quartier arabe. (1922); Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, EI-13 (2710)

the exception of elites) to locals – all despite the proclaimed helpfulness towards the original inhabitants and efforts towards peaceful coexistence, which would have primarily benefited the original inhabitants. These zones were also unwelcoming from a cultural standpoint, as they did not provide Moroccans with the infrastructure necessary for a life that agreed with the local culture, e.g. mosques and hammams. Not only did the sustained and conserved dichotomy between the medina and the ville nouvelle serve to demonstrate the contrast between the “original, backward” and the “new, European, progressive”, but also condemned a large part of the local population to become a living part of this contrast, as they had no opportunity to influence the sensory environment, especially visual appearance, of the new neighbourhoods or the precolonial medinas as a result of restrictive measures. At the same time, medinas and European neighbourhoods were mutually isolated to such a degree that even the monumental churches were located so as to prevent them from visually affecting the inhabitants of the medinas and, from a spatial perspective, creating competition with the mosques. While the centre of religious life remained in the medinas and became a part of the living museum, the centre of economic life shifted to new European neighbourhoods, modern offices and ports. The decision making in political issues shifted in the same way from the palaces in medinas to new administrative buildings in European neighbourhoods.

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References Bidwell, R. (1973). Morocco under Colonial Rule. Frank Cass. Cohen, J.-L. (2006). Architectural history and the colonial question: Casablanca, Algiers and beyond. Architectural History, 49, 349–372. Cohen, J.-L., & Eleb, M. (2002). Casablanca: Colonial myths and architectural ventures. Monacelli Press. de Sousa Safe, S.  M., & de Alvarenga Pereira Costa, S. (2016). Fringe belt analysis a method for confirming the establishment of the historical boundaries of Rabat. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis , Folia Geographica Socio-Oeconomica, 25, 39–62. Girod, A. (1914). Le Maroc. L’Évolution Économique. Holden, S. E. (2008). The legacy of French colonialism: Preservation in Morocco’s fez Medina. APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology, 39(4), 5–11. Jelidi, C. (2007). La fabrication d’une ville nouvelle sous le Protectorat français au Maroc (1912–1956) : Fès-nouvelle. Université de Tours. La Renaissance du Maroc: Dix Ans de Protectorat. (1922). Résidence Générale de la République Français au Maroc, Rabat. Lyautey, P. (1953). Lyautey l’africain 1 (1912–13). (P. Lyautey, Ed.). Plon. Mauclair, C. (1934). Rabat et Salé : trente planches en couleur d’après les tableaux de Mathilde Arbey. Laurens, Henri. Maurois, A. (1933). Lyautey. Plon. Radoine, H. (2003). Conservation-based cultural, environmental, and economic development the case of the Walled City of fez. In L. Fusco Girard, B. Forte, M. Cerreta, & P. De Toro (Eds.), The human sustainable city: Challenges and perspectives from the habitat agenda (pp. 457–477). Ashgate Publishing Limited. Radoine, H. (2016). French territoriality and urbanism: General Lyautey and architect prost in Morocco (1912–1925). In F.  Demissie (Ed.), Colonial architecture and urbanism in Africa (pp. 11–31). Routledge. Ricard, P. (1922). Art Indigènes et Musées. In La Renaissance du Maroc (pp. 211–215). Ricard, P. (1924). Les Merveilles de l’Autre France. Librairie Hachette. Ricard, P. (1925). Le Maroc. (M. Monmarché, Ed.) (Les Guides.). Librairie Hachette. Rivet, D. (1988). Lyautey et l’institution du Protectorat français au Maroc, 1912–1925. L’Harmattan. Rivet, D. (1999). Le Maroc de Lyautey à Mohammed V. Éditions Denoël. Scham, A. (1970). Lyautey in Morocco: Protectorate administration, 1912–1925. University of California Press. Wagner, L., & Minca, C. (2014). Rabat retrospective: Colonial heritage in a Moroccan urban laboratory. Urban Studies, 51(14), 3011–3025. Wright, G. (1991). The politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism. University of Chicago Press.

Part IV

The Iberian Peninsula

Chapter 6

Public Spaces in ‘Colonized’ Urban Iberia Monika Baumanova and Daniel Křížek Abstract  In the period between the eighth and sixteenth century CE, Iberian Peninsula experienced colonialism in a complex variety of forms. This chapter analyses a combination of archaeological, historical and architectural data that is available on the built environment of the period, in order to derive how this facilitated and catered for public interaction. While some urban contexts have been studied in detail, such as Madinat al-Zahra and Cieza, and hence their recorded morphology may be analysed, in living historical towns this has often not been possible. These towns, such as Granada and Seville, are analysed on the basis of the preserved street network in their historical cores as well as the distribution of urban quarters and major historical public buildings. The political shifts of the period oscillated between centralisation and fragmentation, which affected the appearance, type and distribution of public buildings. The discussion focuses on the architectural form, building material and urban layout of the public buildings and features that characterised the period, and on their symbolic role. The individual types of public religious, military and secular buildings are discussed in turn, highlighting how their public role might have been represented spatially. Keywords  Al-Andalus · Madinat al-Zahra · Granada · Courtyards, urban quarters · Semi-public spaces · Social power The Iberian Peninsula, and especially some of its parts in what is today Spain and Portugal, have a rich history of settlement and colonization tightly associated with urbanization, which were linked with shifts in the dominant belief systems as well as social organisation. Iberian towns were important centres of political and economic power throughout the past two millennia. This was also given by the fact that urban settlements were characterised by dense concentrations of people, in contrast to the non-urbanized parts of the Peninsula, which were repeatedly depopulated (Collins, 1995). As it is widely accepted, Iberian cities had an impact on European society for centuries, especially in facilitating contact with European ancient history and the heritage of its built environment, generally lost or disregarded in medieval The original version of the chapter has been revised: This chapter was inadvertently published without the contributing author’s names on the chapter opening page which has been included now. A correction to this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_8 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022, corrected publication 2022 M. Baumanova, Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_6

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Europe, and for spurring on the development of sciences and learning. Architecture played an important role in many aspects of urban public life and continues to find reflections in the functioning of the present-day society. The distribution and type of public space provides evidence of the processes such as co-habitation of various social groups, structuring and channelling people’s movement, or generating momentum for (re)defining access to power. This chapter addresses the public aspects of Iberian urbanism, and the way the materiality of the built environments, i.e. the architecture and layout of towns and buildings, facilitated and channelled public use of certain spaces and, by doing so, generated the (re)formation of urban society over centuries and in changing political circumstances. Urbanism has a long history on the Iberian Peninsula and played a part both in the periods of centralisation into larger political units and at the times of largely independent city-states. The towns represented places from where social power was drawn through aristocracy and its administration (Manzano Moreno, 2006: 479–490), as well as provided access to wealth through trade and work on building projects. Especially in the medieval and early modern era, throughout the most intensive struggles between the Islamic and Christian powers, the Iberian peninsula was not self-sufficient in terms of generating produce and providing subsistence for the inhabitants (Fletcher, 1993). Therefore, trade in the urban built environments was an important part of Iberian economy, and needs to be discussed in connection with places where it was conducted, such as markets or places for business negotiations. Public spaces and buildings of ecclesiastical nature were also key focal points for social gatherings. As political power changed hands, there were pronounced efforts to control religious buildings, attested by the Islamic actors building of mosques on top churches, and the Christians converting mosques to cathedrals and churches. This is most clearly exemplified by the Great Mosque of Cordoba, which was originally a church, then a mosque, before again becoming a cathedral in the sixteenth century (Ewert, 1968). The built environment hence represented a material manifestation of the otherwise intangible social processes. Using parallels with other Islamic and Christian communities, it may be questioned how public spaces associated with faith could have contributed to organising the urban space, serving as reference points in power negotiations and social organisation. This chapter describes how the period between the eighth and sixteenth centuries CE, which may be viewed as a time of colonization, consolidation and political shifts, affected the transformations of urban public space, its character and social roles. It is delimited by a time frame encompassing 800 years, which is represented by the encounter of pre-Islamic, Islamic and Christian rule with a varying degree of dominance and parallel influence, as well as with economic prosperity and decline, and alternating political centralisation and fragmentation. This historical experience on the Iberian Peninsula is a unique case study of socio-spatial dynamics on European soil. The analysis presented shows how urban space was actively manipulated to support claims of power and how it provided the local community with the tools for aspiring to coexistence and prosperity in a complex multi-cultural social setting.

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6.1 The History of Urban Centres in Iberia The study time frame is delimited by the eighth to the sixteenth century CE and encompasses events and periods, which cannot be easily classified as precolonial, colonial or postcolonial. Rather than labelling one group of people (such as the Visigoths, Romans, Moors or Christians) as ‘the colonizers’ and the period of their dominant political influence as the colonial era, this chapter strives to show how the Iberian urban past was continually transformed, assimilating, adding on, levelling or constructing features in the built environment. In order to do so, this paper focuses on those parts of the Peninsula, which experienced the shift to Islamic and later to Christian rule, drawing most case studies from the towns located in what is today central and southern Spain. The time frame is intentionally selected to encompass a long period, to allow following the changes that were introduced to the built environment, and analyse how these collated with known colonisation events in the social history. This paper concentrates on the types of buildings fulfilling any public functions, shifts in the urban layout, on spatial structure within buildings, and formation of socially relevant spatial units, such as urban quarters within the towns. The urban history of the time is intertwined with the local and external efforts to settle and claim control of parts of the Iberian Peninsula. The study period was preceded by the Roman tradition, also a colonial force, which provided strong urban foundations. The Roman provincial towns of Iberia were modelled on the examples of prosperous Roman towns, as attested by the running projects close to Cadiz or Cordoba (https://www.juntadeandalucia.es/organismos/culturaypatrimoniohistorico/areas/bienes-­culturales/actividades-­arqueologicas.html, 2021). Before the eighth century, the Roman urban development was continued by the Visigoth kings. In the Roman and Visigoth period, the capital of the region was Toledo in what is today central Spain, which featured many public buildings such as aqueducts, baths and markets. The character of urban space at the time, organised around the forum, was reminiscent of Rome and other provinces in the Roman Empire (Kulikowski, 2004: 23). The Visigoth rulers built on the networks of Roman public features that were continually used and maintained. The Roman tradition was, perhaps surprisingly contrary to the experience in Morocco (see Chap. 4 in this volume), also continued under the Islamic rule on Iberian Peninsula between 711 and 1492. The rule of the Visigoths ended with the invasion of the Berbers (or ‘Moors’ in some literature) from North Africa in 711, which was led on the orders of the Umayyad dynasty from Damascus. The Berber army gradually won over Gibraltar, then Toledo and finally claimed control over most of the Peninsula. The Berber armies were followed by an influx of Arab population. After the invasion, the eighth to ninth centuries were a period of recession punctuated by Viking raids, while the political power and architectural development shifted to Cordoba in an effort to centralise power over a relatively large territory. After a period of consolidation when the Islamic rule was established over most of the Iberian Peninsula, the tenth century was characterised by a steady economic growth and centralisation, and as attested by historical documents, this was accompanied by wealth drawn from trade,

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in which cities played a key role (Harvey, 1990). The growth of cities and establishment of many public buildings suggest that a lot of this wealth was in turn spent on urban development. In 1031, the caliphate of Cordoba was destroyed, to a large extent as a result of internal struggles and ongoing conflicts with Christian powers pressing from the north of the Peninsula. This way, the period of taifa city states commenced, and the fragmented power was characterised by the emergence of individual centres such as Seville, and others like Granada, Valencia, or Zaragoza. The different nature of power was reflected in diversification of the urban development, with new types of buildings and configurations appearing. Between 1080 and 1250, the Iberian Peninsula was a subject to invasions of fundamentalist groups from Morocco – first by Almoravids and then Almohads. The town of Seville was serving as the capital at this time, attesting the focus on religious architecture. Finally, the Nasrid amirate of Granada between 1250 and 1492 represented the last stronghold of the Islamic power, followed by the Christian monarchs claiming domination over the entire Peninsula (Fig. 6.1). Understanding the past role of urbanism on the Iberian Peninsula is both aided and complicated by the availability of data sources. To draw hard lines around the

Fig. 6.1  A map of Iberian Peninsula showing the location of the towns and sites mentioned in the text. (Map by the authors)

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geographical area relevant for the present discussion is as complicated today as it was in the past. For example, al-Bakri, writing in the eleventh century, listed various names and definitions for the region, ranging from Hispania, Hesperia to Iberia and al-Andalus. The name ‘al-Andalus’ used in Islamic sources is probably derived from a Visigothic name for land-lots (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 13), and often used when speaking about the time and regions under Islamic rule. For the purposes of this study, we select examples from across the Iberian Peninsula and focus on the urban centres that experienced periods of both Islamic and Christian rule, with architectural heritage reflecting these shifts. We then analyse the characteristics of the public spaces and their spatial distribution. Similarly to the other chapters in this volume, we distinguish public buildings and spaces as those, which primary function is not private or residential, but facilitates public access and serves social activities, both secular and ecclesiastical. For example, this definition includes open spaces where socialising or congregations of people were possible, or those that allowed access to members of the community apart from house residents, like reception halls. For the study of public presence in urban space and buildings, there is a number of indirect historical references preserved in the written sources referring to the period in question. However, most of these are not contemporary with the time when the buildings and towns were constructed, but they were composed only in the aftermath of events. The earliest historian writing about the urban society in al-­ Andalus was Ahmad al-Razi in the tenth century (Fletcher, 1993). Umayyad Cordoba, as a large centre under Islamic rule, was described by many later authors such as al-Bakri, Ibn Hayyan, al-Maqqari and Ibn Hawkal (Seybold & Ocana Jimenez, 2007). These sources nevertheless need to be read as tinted by the writers’ different cultural context and motivations. For example, Islamic poets and historians stressed the beauty and importance of urban centres during the ‘golden age’ of the Islamic states in the eleventh century CE, and this was also the focus of Maghribi writers retrospectively glorifying Iberian urban history in the centuries after the fall of Granada, the last stronghold of Islamic power on the Peninsula. From the perspective of the later Christian writers, the motivations and mechanisms of Christian reconquista were presented as an effort to retake the land that was once Christian from Muslim hands, although most likely the goals were quite different, motivated by economic control over land and its resources (O’Callaghan, 2003). Archaeological data are important in this region for showing how architecture and structure of space were manipulated as active components of material culture. Reflection on the tangible evidence is much needed to complement the preserved historical narratives, considering that what was written of building campaigns is not always accurate in historical description or reasoning. Unfortunately, the amount of archaeological information is also limited, given that past sites are now covered by modern development as in the case of Cordoba or Granada, where little of its original urban layout survives, especially in some quarters. Similarly to other parts of the world, archaeology on the Iberian Peninsula has for decades been driven by monument-­centred methodology, but some settlements have been studied in a greater detail and coverage (Bowes & Kulikowski, 2005: 10). Among the first sites

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where modern excavations started, and have been ongoing for almost a century, is Madinat al-Zahra, a palatial city close to Cordoba, for which there is detailed information available on the layout and development of various building types (Vallejo Triano, 2010). Archaeological research there revealed that the strictly delimited zoning of this urban space described by the historical writings, such as those of al-­ Idrisi, was not accurate, and in fact there were some public architectural features, like reception halls and baths, whose positioning increased the permeability of the urban layout (Fig. 6.2), as further discussed below. Furthermore, aerial archaeology and photogrammetry provide additional information on layouts and aid the documentation of the unexcavated remains. In the time period under study there was an ongoing struggle to achieve both a sustainable coexistence of various social groups and at the same time a dominance of some groups over others. As it has been argued, “peninsular unity has never been natural” (Fletcher, 1993: 13), and urban-making was actively employed to help achieve or disrupt the urban socio-spatial setting. In other words, it can be said that the urban spatial fabric was employed to serve multiple social mechanisms.

Fig. 6.2  A plan of the excavated extent of the palatial town of Madinat al-Zahra. The arrow shows the access direction to the town with a mosque positioned out of the gates to the south. The highlighted (ochre) outlines show the placement and multitude of public courtyards and reception halls. (The plan is produced by the authors and is based on Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992 and Bloom, 2020)

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6.2 Urbanization Processes From both historical and archaeological evidence, it derives that regardless of the character of the colonising forces, be they Islamic or Christian, occurring gradually as processes of cultural influence or fast as a military conquest, specific forms of urbanisation were always an integrated part of colonisation on the Iberian Peninsula. The building of towns or their transformation were taking place on several levels. New towns were often founded and developed with great investment in the speed and promotion of their growth. Also, the location of towns in the landscape was not haphazard, but depended on factors like access to trade routes. This may be exemplified by Seville, which was a port town, positioned on important trade routes. Seville became a capital late in the period of the Almoravid and even more so Almohad control, when political and economic accent was placed strongly on trade. These fundamentalist rulers from Morocco maintained direct contact with North Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar. On the other hand, later Granada of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries was located away from the major trade routes, but as the last stronghold of Islamic power on the Peninsula, it represented a case of defensible urbanism both in terms of building military defences and with its positioning in a valley protected by Sierra Nevada. Therefore, the political and religious authority as well as military needs or identity were reflected in the prominence of certain towns and their location. In a region which was in constant flux, the speed of building works appears to have carried meaning. The use of local stone and earth in most buildings facilitated quick development. It has been argued that the exceptional speed of building Madinat al-Zahra, a palatial city close to Cordoba, in the span of a few decades, was spurred on by the preferential use of local stone from the mountains above the town (Vallejo Triano, 2007: 5). The urban built environment contains evidence of the effort to build quickly from the time after Granada was reconquered by the Christians in 1492. In the Albaicín quarter, which represents the oldest preserved part of the city, 5 churches and monasteries all founded in the sixteenth century preserve to the present day. In fact, the majority of Islamic religious buildings in the Old Town of Granada were transformed into churches within decades after the Christian conquest. From the seventeenth century, the speed and density of development slowed down and spread into the outer quarters.

6.2.1 Architectural Style and Form Both the architectural form of buildings and construction methods played important symbolic roles in the period under study. As with Islamic towns elsewhere in the world, in case of Islamic al-Andalus the function of a building was not dictated by its architectural form (e.g. Bianca, 2000; Meier, 2016). Nevertheless, form bore strong connotations for identity. For example, the element of water was put on

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display in fountains, baths and pools (Orihuela Uzal & Rodríguez Moreno, 1996). When the inland town of Cordoba was conquered by the Christian monarchs, its most famous structure, the Great Mosque of Cordoba built between eighth and tenth centuries was proclaimed a cathedral in 1236. In the sixteenth century, a smaller structure within the choir was built to achieve a more catholic appearance and the outside of the building was extended (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 45, 70; Fletcher, 1993). The practice of converting former minarets to church towers and the building of churches on mosque sites is exemplified in Seville by the Giralda, or again in the Albaicín quarter of Granada (Roberson, 2007). Using architectural statements, references were made to times and places associated with political power. In this way, the Almohads of the thirteenth century were referring to the time of Cordoba caliphate two centuries after its demise or to the towns in the Near East as sources of power during the Cordoba caliphate (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 143). Because in al-Andalus building material changed with ruling dynasties and at times of cultural transformation, it was likely an important testament of power and identity – as it is the case in other cultural contexts around the globe. Buildings were most often constructed of sandstone ashlar blocks or of packed earth and lime mortar, with some features such as vaults, niches, and portico pillars made of brick. From the twelfth century, when power became fragmented in the period of taifa states and the Almoravid and Almohad conquests, stone was more frequently replaced with brick and rammed earth. In the Nasrid period in Granada, there appeared a specific building technique  known as tapial. This consisted of earth walls with lime mortar faces, and brick and stones at the base of walls (Sebastian & Cultrone, 2010). The buildings also incorporated wooden features like doors, beams as support of balconies, decorative corbels, ceilings etc. For roofing, ceramic tiles were used since the Roman times. Under the tiles, the roofing system relied on transverse wooden beams, limiting the width of the rooms to approximately 5 metres. However, as at Madinat al-Zahra, the parallel arrangement of rooms interconnected with arches on piers and columns facilitated the construction of large halls (Bloom, 2020: 56), which represented visually unbroken monumental and yet roofed rooms. As it has been mentioned above, the materials were usually locally sourced; for example in Granada, local earth, stone and wood such as pine and oak from the near mountain range of Sierra Nevada were used (Orihuela Uzal & Rodríguez Moreno, 1996). However, in some cases, selected use of imported material has been recorded, like cedar from Morocco or marble from Tunisia, which was not readily available in what is today southern Spain. In both Christian and Islamic-ruled regions of the Peninsula it was typical to employ builders and architects of a different religion. There was also a tendency for architecture to reach beyond the dominant belief system. Especially Islamic builders and decorators were valued, as it may be demonstrated at the monastery of Las Huelgas near Burgos dated to the thirteenth century, the Alcazar in Seville of the fourteenth century, or the fifteenth century Aragonese church towers (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 15). The Christian rulers and nobility employed the so-called mudejars, who were Muslims that lived under Christian rule. They specialised in building with brick, internal stucco, decorative masonry and glaze as well as elements of

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wood (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992). Under Islamic rule, Christian artists were sought after for paintings as at the Alhambra palace of Granada, and foreign builders, artists and architects were brought in from across the Mediterranean (Cómez Ramos, 2009). For example, for the Great Mosque of Cordoba specialists from Syria adopted architectural features known from local Visigothic and Roman buildings.

6.2.2 Urban Layout The urbanisation process created spatial infrastructure for social events and was characterised by acting on the layout and placement of buildings. Spatial organization repeatedly appears as a crucial factor in (re)defining the social order that was in a constant flux over the study period. Granada serves as an excellent example of these processes. As opposed to many other centres of the Iberian Peninsula, Granada’s layout does not represent a continuation of the orthogonal grid of the pre-­ existing Roman town. Its oldest quarter of Albaicín dates to the seventh century. Under the Nasrids in the thirteenth to fourteenth century, the growth of the Albaicín quarter was complemented by the establishment of Alhambra, which was a fortified palace but also had the features and size of an urban quarter (Fig. 6.3). The present extent of Alhambra quarter is misleading and lacks the numerous shops, workshops and simpler residences, which were not preserved after the Christian conquest in 1492 (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 188). The quarters of Albaicín and Alhambra were complemented by the Jewish quarter of present-day Realejo. Within, each of these quarters had a different structure, which however cannot be analysed in detail today due to the incomplete preservation of large blocks and spaces in all the quarters. Nevertheless, their different organization inherent to each is apparent in the street network and representation of public space. Albaicín has no major streets but it is characterised by short, winding streets, while Alhambra has two parallel axes Calle Real and Calle Real Baja. It was built on a slope opposite the old quarter Albaicín, separated from it by a river. This phenomenon associated with urban growth is also apparent in Seville of the tenth century. Here, a new quarter was established along with a new mosque, to facilitate the growth of the town, following the growth of the old quarter from the ninth century (Bosch & Terrasse, 2007). A similar process, when a new or additional town centre in the form of a new quarter is established in close vicinity but clearly separate from the old town centre is known in other Islamic urban contexts, such as the trade towns on the edge of the Sahara in West Africa. The phenomenon known as urban duality is usually associated with mercantile competition or with different sources of power (Baumanova et al., 2019). In the tenth century Cordoba, which was then the capital and seat of political power of the caliphate, the ruler Abd al-Rahman III moved its residence to Madinat al-Zahra 3 miles west out of Cordoba. Madinat al-Zahra was not a private country residence but a new centre of government (Fletcher, 1993: 66). Intensive

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Fig. 6.3  Present-day aerial view of the centre of Granada with the approximate distribution of urban quarters discussed in the paper (labels in white). Notice the rectangular street grid of El Centro and the winding streets of the old town of Albaicín apparent both on the satellite image and the inset historical map. The distribution of historical public buildings preserved from the transition period (fifteenth to seventeenth century) is highlighted by the symbols in black – crosses stand for Christian public buildings and crescents for Islamic public buildings. (Plan by the authors with the use of Google Earth Pro and Instituto Geográfico Nacional open source imagery)

archaeological research is still under way in the palatial city, only a smaller part of which has been excavated to date. Madinat al-Zahra was positioned to dominate the valley and to be visible (Vallejo Triano, 2010). In the opposite direction to the east of Cordoba, another palatial urban node of al-Madina al-Zahira built by al-Mansur was constructed as a rival to both the old Cordoba and Madinat al-Zahra. Therefore, in al-Andalus of the Islamic period, power negotiations and competition likely had a spatial dimension. The growth of towns and establishment of new ones were characterised by building a palace, munya, or mosques and residences in close vicinity as new seeds of urbanization around which new development sprung (Navarro & Jiménez, 2007). As such, the development of Andalusi towns represents an important case study of Islamic urbanism as well as a unique example of such growth in Europe. One of the reasons for this is the fact that urban growth was not characterised by enlargement in concentric circles or simple overspill beyond the town walls, but by the establishment of new quarters around public or semi-public buildings, especially mosques and palaces. This did not change from the tenth century Cordoba and Seville to the fifteenth century Granada. As will be discussed below, urban quarters also played a part in defining relationships among various religious communities.

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The efforts to claim new space were continued in the time of Christian dominance. This may again be exemplified by Granada (Fig. 6.3), where new quarters built by Christians were on an orthogonal layout, and structurally followed up on the Roman tradition discontinued in the neighbourhood of Alhambra. They also never really fully joined to the rest of the city. The new quarters that sprung up to the south of Albaicín and Alhambra, and known today simply as El Centro, were chosen for the site of the Catholic university founded in the seventeenth century. The old university was built in the vicinity of the old madrasa, the Islamic centre of learning, which originally stood on the outskirts of Granada (Isac, 2007). The distribution of historical public buildings in present-day Granada in the quarters of Albaicín, Realejo, and Centro, where the development dated to the Islamic and subsequent Christian rule, attests the efforts to control the religious public buildings as shown on Fig. 6.3. The 10 buildings dated to the period of the fifteenth to the seventeenth century are churches, cathedrals and monasteries, while the same number of preserved Islamic buildings are secular, including bath, bridges, gates, or palaces. Although the specific meaning of individual buildings and quarters changed over time and under different rule, the effort to use architecture for making religious statements and controlling social relations was continued. The urbanisation processes both reflected and were a product of social mechanisms. The different drivers of urbanisation may be well represented by some of the prominent towns. In the capital of the centralised caliphate, Cordoba, the construction efforts and wealth were invested in public buildings. Seville, the capital of the Almoravid and subsequent Almohad period, was as a port much more oriented to economic gain. Seville’s prominence was the only time when a port was the political capital of al-Andalus. With its positioning on the river Guadalquivir navigable even for deep-draught vessels, the importance of markets and ship-building strengthened the importance of the economic aspect of public life in the period of a fragmented political power. And finally, Granada, the capital of the Nasrids and the last stronghold of Islamic power on the Peninsula, grew into a complex setting of urban quarters with a structured spatial distribution of public power and cosmopolitanism expressed alongside military building efforts. As it will now be shown, the individual buildings, spaces and quarters played important roles in multiple aspects of public life in these towns.

6.3 Public Buildings and Spaces Most of the original layout of towns from the study period does not preserve or has been built over by modern development. There are some historical maps and descriptions, but generally layout plans are not available. All the more valuable are the results of the large-scale archaeological excavations such as those continuing for nearly a century at Madinat al-Zahra near Cordoba or at Alhambra in Granada, or the study of the historical “old town” cores, where the complexity of their street network preserves, although individual buildings have undergone change. The

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preserved isolated historical buildings and their placement also represent valuable evidence in assessing past life on the Iberian Peninsula. During the study period, religious, military and secular buildings all bear evidence of having played a part in public life.

6.3.1 Religious Buildings Perhaps the strongest public function was represented in the religious buildings, as it is the case in many Islamic regions (Insoll, 1999). During the Islamic rule, the mosques of the Iberian Peninsula did not have a standardized layout, although there were some features repeatedly appearing among the few examples for which we have archaeological data, such as the popularity of a nine-bay plan (Calvo Capilla, 2014). The design of the grandest mosques clearly carried weight as inspiration for the smaller or later mosques. After the Islamic conquest in the eighth century, a large number of mosques was built relatively at speed, with the earliest in Zaragoza and Elvira. The most important is the Great Mosque of Cordoba (Fig. 6.4), which started to be built in the eighth century on a square layout, with a courtyard and a prayer hall. Another preserved example is the mosque of Bab Mardum in Toledo. The larger mosques usually had an odd number of naves with the central nave the highest. The access to the mosque was probably important, as it is suggested by the preference for multiple entrances, which differed in orientation and grandeur. With its location by the Guadalquivir, the Great Mosque of Cordoba had a direct spatial relationship to the royal palace built next to it, which does not preserve, but actually pre-dated the mosque. The preserved Minister’s gate provided entry for noblemen from the direction of the palace and so this central public building allowed diversified access routes. The visual experience of religious buildings was clearly important as they represented the tallest and one of the most decorated structures in the cities. Judging by the example of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, the exterior of mosques was

Fig. 6.4  Photos of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, showing the outside (on the left) and inside (on the right) of the building. Photos by the authors

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originally rather plain, with the interior walls decorated, and the exterior decorativeness increased over time (Bloom, 2020: 20). The expanding architectural vocabulary over time included the horseshoe and multi-lobed arches, the use of mosaics, and decorative leaf, rosette and palmette forms. This tendency suggests that with the growing wealth and centralisation of political power, the impressive visual appearance of mosques played a greater role. The twelfth century and the conquests of the Almohads represented a break in visual preferences as the decoration became more repetitive and stylized (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 85). Also, minarets started to be built on a larger scale. The tradition of adding towers to mosques under the Almohads may be exemplified by the Giralda in Seville (Cómez Ramos, 2009: 25). So, from the twelfth century mosques became on one hand more austere, but on the hand more dominating in the urban landscape. After the Christian conquest, this later tradition of visual dominance was in fact continued, minarets were left standing and quickly converted to church towers as at Granada, Toledo, Archez, or Seville (Calvo Capilla, 2014). The importance of mosques was heightened by their positioning in the urban plan (Sordo, 1963), and they were represented in each of the quarters. As towns grew new mosques were established, as in the twelfth century Seville. The mosques were also converted to churches such as the Great Mosque of Seville, now the Church of the Holy Saviour. The public function of these buildings and their distribution in the cities did not change with the change of the dominant religion. The only place where the importance of mosques was downplayed might have been the palatine cities like Madinat al-Zahra near Cordoba, where central positioning was given to the reception halls and other representative spaces (Fig. 6.2).

6.3.2 Military Buildings Especially in the periods when power was centralised, such as during the caliphate of Cordoba, buildings with a public function could be found outside of towns dispersed in the countryside. These were mainly military structures. From the tenth century, castles and fortresses were built to protect the conquered land, such as Gormaz on a ridge above the Duero river, or the fortress in Siyasa, a historical deserted town in the vicinity of modern Cieza, where it was built in the first phase of the town’s construction (Navarro Palazón & Jiménez Castillo, 2007). The fortresses served the self-determination efforts of the local elites and to centralise power (Glick, 1995). Extensive reuse of Roman building remains and material in the landscape were typical for the castle architecture across the Peninsula, such as at the Conventual in Merida. In the castle of La Guardía de Jaén, walls dated to the times of Roman, Visigothic, Islamic and Christian times were identified, continually serving military purposes (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992). It is difficult to draw a clear line between the use of these buildings for the individual needs of local elites and for the public. However, they had important practical and symbolic functions in the broader

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landscape, such as providing refuge for people in times of military conflict and as monumental symbols of the reach of power that stemmed from the towns (e.g. Glick, 1995).

6.3.3 Public Space in Residential Buildings A similar semi-public role among residential structures may be associated with the munya or suburban villa. These probably served for congregations at hunting events and feasts (Ruggles, 2000: 35–52). They also served as extramural outpost around which the urban spread continued as at Madinat al-Zahra in the vicinity of Cordoba (Vallejo Triano, 2010). Best known examples of a munya are al-Rummaniyya and Casillas; in both cases, however, only remains of their walls preserve. The layout of munyas suggests a parallel with Madinat al-Zahra and other elite structures built for the highest officials of the court, especially with the double central entrance hall, flanked by square chambers (Anderson, 2007). Some inspiration with Roman rectangular villas may be identified in the organization around a court or double hall front (Anderson, 2007: 76). Contrary to the castles, which were maintained under different political regimes, munyas disappeared after the califate of Cordoba (Mazzoli-Guintard, 2000: 220), and hence they appear to have been important in the time of the strongest centralisation of power and economic prosperity. It was probably under the centralised political power when these grand houses served as seeds for the development of urban and public life. The palaces, serving as private residences of rulers and high-ranking officials of the administration also partially fulfilled public and urban-making roles (see also Insoll, 1999). These began to be built in the centuries following the Islamic conquest with most data coming from the tenth century CE, but continued in periods when power was fragmented after the fall of the Cordoba caliphate. Similarly to the castles, the construction of palaces was associated with a continuity of Roman traditions, as in the vicinity of Cordoba where the Islamic ruler incorporated the upkeep of Roman aqueducts, roads and bridges in new development (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 39). The importance of palaces as seeds of urban life and growth is further attested by other construction works that took place in their surroundings. When Abd al-Rahman became the ruler of the Cordoba, his palace on the banks of the Guadalquivir was one of the first monumental structures in Cordoba. Even the construction of the Grand Mosque next to it started only after the work on the palace (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 30). The growth of Cordoba was characterised by the saturation of the urban space spreading from the vicinity of the palace and mosque, suppression of street space and growth of buildings in height (Navarro & Jiménez, 2007: 141). Because of their capacity to attract urbanisation, the establishment of palaces represented tools of social power and influence. From the tenth century, when new palaces were established in the vicinity of Cordoba, the growth of the urban landscape created new centres of social and political gravity (Ruggles, 2000). The most important of them was the palace of Madinat

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al-Zahra built between 936 and 972. It was described by numerous historical authors such as al-Idrisi, who spoke of it being designed in three precise zones spread out on terraces. The highest north level was reserved for the ruler, the central zone without buildings served mostly for agriculture and leisure gardens (for comparison see: Ruggles, 2008), and at the lowest level there were barracks for the army, mosque to the south-east, residences and a market (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 63). As archaeological research has shown, in reality the zoning was not so clear (López-­ Cuervo, 1983), as some of the most decorative and monumental spaces were located on the middle, rather than on the highest terrace, perhaps in order to position them centrally. Historical records also do not speak about any changes in the design of the residences, suggesting that the construction realized a clearly defined vision; however, material evidence shows that already in the 950s, major sections of the palace were dismantled and rebuilt to include more monumental features such as porticos and a basilical décor (Vallejo Triano, 2007). Representative architecture frequently employed differently coloured building material, using especially alternating red and yellow patterns in the setting of bricks in arches. This decorativeness was visible on the outside and together with the positioning in the urban landscape it had important connotations for public perception. The insides of the palace were probably more secluded and accessible only to residents and a limited number of chosen people. The efforts to situate power in space are apparent in the fact that buildings associated with political power were built first, such as the palace, mosque and mint, together with a growing accent on their monumentality in the later stages of development. A significant effort was invested in appealing to the visual perception of spaces associated with demonstrations of power. It shows that the town shaped the tastes for the subsequent centuries and defined vocabulary for monumentality and decorativeness. This is attested by the documented reception halls like Salón Rico (also known as the Rich Hall in English) built in Madinat al-Zahra in the tenth century period of centralisation, or in Aljafería in Saragossa built in the end of the eleventh century in the period of fragmented political power (Ruggles, 2000), or late royal palaces of Alhambra in Granada. These examples show that representation was important both at times of centralised prosperity and at times of taifa kings who held limited power. Parallels with the dichotomy between residential and public architecture may be found within the buildings. At Madinat al-Zahra, there were large public spaces like House of Jafar and the Court of the Pillars. Organised around a courtyard and in a series of adjacent rooms they had the same layout like private residences (Vallejo Triano, 2007). Similar pattern may be identified at Alhambra, a complex of at least 6 palaces built between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries in Granada (Bloom, 2020: 152). Both private and public spaces, including the most monumental, recognised the same architectural vocabulary. Architectural features, which allowed building large roofed rooms, like the construction of rectangular rooms side by side and interconnecting them by the longer walls with lines of arches and columns, were employed both in mosques and in building reception halls, as at Madinat al-­ Zahra (Fig.  6.2). In smaller palaces, like Aljafería in Zaragoza or Castillejo in

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Murcia dated to the eleventh and twelfth centuries respectively, their smaller size supported the argument that their function was more private compared to Madinat al-Zahra (Bloom, 2020: 98). Nevertheless, no smaller effort was invested in the non-­ residential rooms and courtyards, making them grand and visually impressive. Most importantly, the smaller palaces also incorporated the parallel positioning of rectangular rooms, invariably used to dedicate great portion of space to build large halls. Their courtyards featured multiple ponds and water surfaces to accentuate the monumental and decorative features as well as lighten the large halls. The importance of courtyards for public life is also represented on the level of individual houses. These do not preserve in living historical towns. However, there are examples of houses from the site of Madinat al-Zahra, where all types of houses used in the later centuries across al-Andalus were represented. There were 17 residences excavated, often symmetrical with transverse rooms (Almagro, 2007: 30). Courts were usually square, with a form reminiscent of the Roman tradition and the eastern Mediterranean, although as opposed to these, the rooms were longitudinally arranged (Almagro, 2007: 35). The dimensions of courts suggest they fulfilled a service function for a greater number of people and as family social space. Also, their visual orientation allowed views of monumental buildings, which may be identified in towns across al-Andalus (Orihuela Uzal & Rodríguez Moreno, 1996: 229–232). In Siyasa, a deserted site in Murcia region from the Almohad period of the eleventh/twelfth centuries, the organization of the dwellings suggest the importance of social space represented by the courtyards around which rooms were arranged (Navarro Palazón & Jiménez Castillo, 2007). Although this site was a small town in a rural setting, just like in Madinat al-Zahra, frequently there were porticos which visually enlarged the courtyards. The largest house was centrally located within the cluster, with 10 rooms and 2 courtyards, more than double the size of the average house on this site. Even in this largest dwelling, the organisation of rooms and courtyards did not diverge from the scheme of three rooms surrounding a courtyard, itself separated from the entranceway by one anteroom (see Chap. 7 for more discussion). Even today, some elements of the Islamic period are still used in Spanish architecture. The most prominent is the arrangement of rooms around a central courtyard, the use of horseshoe arches dividing the inner space of houses into religious, recreational and administrative zones (Roberson, 2007: 253), or the use of decorative tiles azulejos in the houses and inside public buildings in southern Spain. Similarly to the residences of the rulers, the houses fulfilled a semi-public function, where the courtyard played a key social function.

6.3.4 Other Types of Buildings with Public Roles A specific type of public buildings is represented by public building projects and infrastructure. These may have been used as congregation spaces for selected groups of people or for the wider public and they served the enhancement of urban life and

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its comfort, and as monuments to influence and wealth. Among these, the town walls, which preserve to the present across the Iberian Peninsula, were particularly monumental, as at Cordoba, Seville or Valencia. Probably also under the impression of its town walls with 7 gates, Ibn Hawkal likened Cordoba to Baghdad. However, the walls at Cordoba were taken down when the town grew (Bosch & Terrasse, 2007). Generally, the town walls fulfilled a military role, and at times of decentralization, some towns walls even extended to connect up to a nearby fortress, such as at Denia or Almería. The walls were built of rammed clay and stone. From Cordoba, there is historical evidence for irrigation works, a prison, a mint of gold coins and barracks for the army or a chancery, which were undoubtedly built, served and used by a large proportion of the society. We do not know how work on these buildings was organized, whether tasks were allocated to groups or workshops, but they had an unmistakable architectural vocabulary and stylistic purpose (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992: 49), suggesting elite commissioning and their contribution to the stylistic identity of the towns. It is important to say that these types of buildings or their parallels were already built by the Romans and Visigoths, so this tradition was taken up and continued by the society under the Islamic rule. According to the study of Navarro and Jiménez (2007), the towns of al-Andalus typically grew in approximately 4 stages, namely their constitution which included the building of town walls, subsequent extramural expansion, saturation of the old town and lastly the establishment of new quarters. This is reflected well in Cordoban walls, which were surrounded by gardens, cemeteries and workshops (Seybold & Ocana Jimenez, 2007). Within the walls, there were multiple non-residential buildings, which fulfilled a semi-public function, such as the library of Cordoba from the eleventh century, which is unfortunately known only from historical sources (Goodwin, 1990) or a madrasa, an Islamic school, which only example is known from Granada (Bloom, 2020: 168). The baths, which also reused the Roman baths system, are mentioned in historical documents. According to Ibn Idhari, there were hundreds of baths in Cordoba in the tenth century (Christys, 2011: 15). They attest the important role of water for Islamic urbanism on the Peninsula. In Cordoba, buildings were constructed preferably in view of the Guadalquivir river. In the urban centres of the Cordoba caliphate, it generally applied that the nobler the house, the larger the pool, with reflections of this tendency detectable in smaller houses of the lesser nobility (Anderson, 2007: 72). In grand palaces like Alhambra or Madinat al-Zahra, pools and fountains were built as visually integrated to the reception halls and rooms, reflecting light as a mirror into the adjacent structures (Bloom, 2020: 55). View of natural features in the open space especially in association with courtyards and reception halls could have also been a status symbol, invoked in context with meetings and gatherings. This exclusivity is supported by the fact that non-elite urban space, however, was not associated with sceneries of nature.

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6.3.5 Open Spaces and Buildings The proportion of open space in the urban environment, consisting of streets and squares, can be potentially important for assessing the investment to space reserved to movement and congregation in the urban built environment. This is however difficult to establish, as even the historical cores of towns we see today are a result of the final stages of urban growth. If the towns of Iberian Peninsula developed through the stages listed above, including the saturation of the old town, an initially abundant open space was gradually built up with new houses that encroached on the streets and grew in height (Navarro & Jiménez, 2007). The many dead alleys seen for example in the historical quarters of Granada were hence a result of the later stages of urban development. In fact, Granada in the historical records is described as having limited streets and open space, which is seen today in the old town where few major roads leading to the market and the Great mosque preserve (Isac, 2007). Over time, the amount and extent of open space might have shifted from one part of the city to another. In Granada this may be exemplified by the Generalife, the garden quarter to the north of Alhambra, and in the much more open outskirts of the old quarter of Albaicín. An important part of open space was associated with trade in the form of markets or caravanserai. These spaces preserve in the urban environment only in isolated cases, such as Zocodover, the old square in Toledo, with the word derived from suq al-dawwab meaning cattle market. Judging by Toledo and Granada, these markets were seamlessly incorporated in blocks of residence, positioned on the main roads, which were not blocked with additional development and probably not associated with permanent built structures.

6.4 The Role of Urban Public Spaces in Managing Social Diversity Given the history of the Iberian Peninsula characterised by numerous shifts in power and religious control, public life inevitably bore features of coping with a large ethnic and religious diversity, and with the associated social phenomena of cooperation, coexistence, competition and conflict known from the written records (Hitchcock, 2008). It may be asked how the diversity and presence of various social groups in Andalusi urban settings were reflected in the spatial organisation of the towns. Major argument confirming the very mixed society of al-Andalus is the process of conversion to Islam after the conquest of 711. Based on the so-called Bulliet’s curve, which calculates the approximate conversion rates following genealogies of names, 50% of the population would be converted to Islam by 970 CE, and only after then Muslims would represent a majority (Fletcher, 1993: 37). This estimate correlates with the enlargements of main religious buildings, such as the mosque of Cordoba, which was enlarged several times between the eighth to tenth

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century, likely reflecting the growth of the Muslim population. Therefore, the conversion to Islam would have been slow and gradual. Already in the eleventh century the Christian efforts to regain the territories on the Peninsula would start to be successful, possibly signifying the reverse of the Islamisation trend in some towns especially in the north. As a result, the ratio of various social groups might have been oscillating in the timespan of a few generations and differences between the actual representation of religious majority and minorities might have been relatively small. In addition, among the Christians, there would have been people from outside Iberia especially in the trading towns, and among Muslims there would have been an oscillating number of Berbers from North Africa, who were perceived as intruders and often disliked by the Andalusi Muslims (Buresi, 2018: 158). The society was diversified in terms of social standing too, including a certain percentage of enslaved population. Slave raids on the northern coast of Iberia were described in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by authors like Ibn Battuta. The architectural record shows that apart from enslaved Christians in Muslim-controlled territories, enslaved Muslims were employed for work on public buildings in Christian towns, as at Santiago or Valencia (Blumenthal, 2009; Stella, 2000). It derives that for the whole study period, the population of Iberia was of mixed ethnic origin and with different religious beliefs. The relationships between these various social groups were dynamic and changed over time. For example, Jews and Christians were persecuted under the Almohads in Seville, but welcomed by Nasrids in Granada (Barrucand & Bednorz, 1992; Glick, 2005). Muslims were peacefully moved out of Seville by the Christians in the thirteenth century, when it was conquered by the Christian kingdom of Castile after centuries of Islamic rule. Muslims were mostly allowed to live in Christian territories under certain conditions, until in the seventeenth century they were expelled mostly to Morocco (Harvey, 2005). For the whole study period, there was a significant Christian and Jewish minority in the Islamic towns that was very active in trade. As an important part of the economic networks they acted as successful middlemen, connected to networks across the Mediterranean (Christys, 2011). Christians under Islamic rule were known as mozarabs and Muslims living in Christian towns were known as mudejars, or later as moriscos when they were forced to convert to Christianity. Both Christians and Jews paid higher taxes under Islamic law and hence it was economically desirable to harbour these communities and tolerate them in the Islamic towns. Evidence suggests that the urban environment was cosmopolitan and that people of a specific religious belief were relied on to provide connection to economic and social networks, or as craft specialists. Beyond the historical accounts, the aspects of a continuous presence of diverse social groups and negotiations of relationships between them may be expected to be materially represented in the built environment. For example, there are tombstones preserved in the churches of Toledo, which bear inscriptions in both Latin and Arabic. The presence of diverse communities is apparent in the features of individual buildings across the Peninsula. In regions controlled by the Christians, Muslim artists were employed to work on religious and secular buildings, using the

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vocabulary of Islamic architecture. For example, Muslim artists were used to build synagogues in Toledo, which was conquered in 1085 by the Christian forces and was by then long in Christian hands, or the fortress Alcazar in Seville and castle of Coca near Medina del Campo (Hitchcock, 2008). Muslim workmen were specializing in decorative stucco with vegetal motifs, geometric designs and brickwork (Bloom, 2020). Both Christians and Muslims hence participated in producing the architectural and sensory experience of the towns. Architecture was also used to manipulate the capacity of urban spaces for congregation of specific social groups. The fact that control of public space was important is demonstrated by the tactics the Christians employed after a conquest of a town formerly under Islamic rule, when the main mosque was taken over and converted to a church “to prevent mudejars from maintaining social cohesion by means of regular meetings”(Fletcher, 1993: 139). However, some smaller mosques often maintained their function, so possibly these were not perceived as buildings with a capacity to facilitate major social gatherings. Members of the individual urban communities, such as Jews, Christians and Muslims, frequently lived together in certain neighbourhoods and quarters, utilizing specific urban spaces to which they had access. Although the composition of the population was complex, internal and external frontiers between minorities were maintained and spatially enacted. The idea that quarters were units structuring the urban society is strengthened by the written sources, which for Cordoba list 21 such ‘suburbs’, each with multiple mosques (Christys, 2011: 16). There are records that quarters were sources of social power and as such they were manipulated in the urban politics. For example, there was a recorded conspiracy in Cordoba against the emir in ninth century and the suburb responsible was taken down on orders of the emir and converted to arable land (Fletcher, 1993: 44). In terms of urban structure and layout, urban quarters are hence key to understanding as they represent the distribution of social groups in the layout of the town. Both Jewish and Muslim quarters are known for its winding streets that preserve in the few old quarters surviving to the present such as the Santa Cruz quarter in Seville (Fig.  6.5). Based on the preserved street networks, it appears that Jewish quarters had numerous little squares of open spaces, while it is generally recognised that Muslim quarters had few. The numerous open spaces (many in identical positioning) are also recorded on the earliest recorded map of Seville from 1771 by Pablo de Olavide. It may have been the courtyards of Islamic houses that to some extent fulfilled the socialising function. The location of some other major Jewish quarters is known, such as Realejo in Granada to the east of the old quarter of Albaicín, or La Judería in Cordoba to the north-east of the Great Mosque. However, the study of their respective street networks or boundaries is very much complicated by the extent of later modern development (Christys, 2011: 15; Safran, 2013). In some towns, architectural evidence attests that Jews lived in multiple small neighbourhoods among the Muslims, as for example in Toledo, where 12 synagogues were distributed across the town (Fletcher, 1993: 94). Nevertheless, a pronounced presence of Muslims was relatively short-lived in Toledo. If the individual quarters

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Fig. 6.5  A view of Santa Cruz (encircled in grey), the old Jewish quarter in Seville. The dots show the relatively dense distribution of open spaces that preserves in the present-day town. (Plan by the authors with the use of Google Earth Pro open source imagery)

had a character given to it by the local population, then their different layout signifies the preferences of the residents for a particular socio-spatial organisation.

6.5 Conclusion The presented study shows the importance of analysing the transformation of Iberian towns in flux, as power changed hands and so did its definition, on the basis of the architectural vocabulary. The transformations of urban public space from the eighth to the sixteenth century reflect changes in the character of power. At the time of political centralisation, a variety of public buildings was built in Iberian towns, which catered for public needs and facilitated social interaction on multiple levels, such as in mosques, at markets or in public baths. There was also a system of nodes of lesser power like the munyas. In the times of decentralisation, however, power concentrated in different towns with economic focus on trade and accentuated architectural austerity. In the largest towns such as in Granada, public life was associated with social co-existence of various ethnic and religious groups. The built environment of the towns expressed the tensions as well as shared urban values of the different groups. On one hand, there were aspirations to a nucleated arrangement of urban quarters, which allowed sharing the town’s public spaces. On the other hand, political

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dominance of specific groups was expressed through architectural means, as in the aftermath of each conquest, whether Islamic or Christian, there were also efforts to take over the public buildings and modify their appearance. Over time, in elite urban landscapes and buildings from Madinat al-Zahra to Alhambra there was a growing accent on fragmentarisation of space and defining the hierarchy of rooms through the variety of their sizes and layout. There was also a clear distinction between private (residential) and public (reception, meeting) rooms. During the Islamic rule in al-Andalus, public spaces served as seeds of urban development in the establishment of new towns or quarters. The concept of catering for social needs as part of political strategies was universally represented in the distribution of public spaces, their upkeep and external decorativeness of architectural features. Semi-public spaces such as the courtyards played a very important role, because access to them was controlled, but their placement and external monumentality represented for example by gateways had strong social connotations. Even in residential buildings, public values were to some extent reflected in their layout, use of building material and outer decorativeness. The public features of urban life hence proliferated all layers of society. In the colonisation efforts characterising the period studied in this chapter, public buildings and spaces played a key role in aspirations to and demonstrations of power, in facilitating cohesion for the urban community and symbolising prosperity.

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Stella, A. (2000). Histoires d’esclaves dans la péninsule ibérique. Editions de l’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. Vallejo Triano, A. (2007). Madinat al-Zahra: Transformation of a caliphal city. In G. D. Anderson & M.  Rosser-Owen (Eds.), Revisiting al-Andalus: Perspectives on the material culture of Islamic Iberia and beyond (pp. 3–26). Brill. Vallejo Triano, A. (2010). La ciudad califal de Madinat al-Zahra: arqueología de su excavación (1a ed.). Editorial Almuzara.

Part V

Comparative Discussion

Chapter 7

Comparative Perspectives on (Pre)Colonial Urban Transformations

Abstract  The final chapter of this book takes a comparative perspective on the case studies and analyses provided in the preceding papers that focused on the East African coast, North-West Africa (Morocco) and the Iberian Peninsula from the precolonial to the colonial periods. The contribution of comparative approaches to historical archaeologies is  reviewed, while highlighting their relevance for the themes of urbanism and colonialism. The focus remains on the roles of the most important public features identified throughout the book, such as mosques, markets and streets, while offering comparative analyses of their social-spatial character and potential. The semi-public function as a component of specific spaces in otherwise residential or private buildings is analysed in detail. Reflecting on the importance of the courtyard house in Islamic towns, the social role of the courtyard is analysed with the use of space syntax on two contemporary sites at Gede, Kenya and Siyasa, Spain. The theoretical models of colonial urbanism and Islamic urbanism are discussed in reflection on their established characteristics and on the use of these concepts in urban studies and historical archaeology. Keywords  Comparative · Cross-cultural · Courtyard · Islamic urbanism · Colonialism · Archaeology of urbanism · Public space Experiences associated with colonial involvement have left their mark in historical urban trajectories in many parts of the world. With the focus on the East African coast, North-West Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, this volume has aimed to present a detailed view on at least a few, from the perspective of public space. While it is important to understand the unique nature of the local pasts and regional contexts associated with colonialism, in this chapter it is argued that comparative analyses bring an added value to the individual case studies. Comparisons of the transformations from precolonial to colonial urbanism in various parts of the world along with cross-regional comparisons, including reflections on the patterns that emerged in the urban built environment have a capacity to highlight the specifics of colonial influence on the local social histories (Storey, 2006). Furthermore, they also bring © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Baumanova, Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_7

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an increased understanding of how urban morphologies adapt to and reflect social change. Hence, this concluding chapter aims to identify and analyse the underlying parallels and differences in the past experience of the three regions discussed in this book, as they are reflected in the materiality of the built environment and spatial organisation associated with public access. In archaeology, the field of comparative urbanism has been recognised as especially useful with regard to studying towns of the Global South (e.g. Baumanova & Vis, 2020), where it has demonstrated that the characteristics of precolonial urbanisms preserved in the archaeological record are still represented in the present day world, and that colonialism has had considerable effects of on the organisation of urban space in each local context. It has been argued in several edited volumes of the recent decades that comparative analyses of urban pasts in various regions can shed light on questions like social mechanics (Smith, 2003) or the logic of their architectural structure and its relevance for understanding historical events (Clark, 2013). Furthermore, the long-term history of urbanism on continents like Africa, which entered the global studies of urban pasts only a few decades ago, enriches our historical experience, allowing us to re-evaluate the existing classification of urban settlements and their socio-spatial organisation (for example see Sinclair, 2018). The initially popular trait-list approach that entered archaeology with Childe’s (1950) study on ‘the urban revolution’ and then it was applied in classifications of urban settlements, was heavily based on Near Eastern and European case studies. This approach was gradually abandoned for lacking a capacity to accommodate the growing variety of global urban pasts recognised by researchers today. Nevertheless, new cross-regional comparisons have shown that broader encompassing perspectives are still meaningful, albeit with a different goal, which has shifted from detailed classification to understanding the nature and variety in urban transformations (Cowgill, 2004). Likewise, the goal of this volume has been not to provide an exhaustive description of urbanisms associated with colonialism, but rather to understand the nature and implications of the transformations associated with colonial interventions. Architecture and urbanism as interlinked with colonial histories are rarely subjected to archaeological considerations, mostly remaining in the domain of cultural heritage studies. In a number of postcolonial countries, such as in Africa, there is often a reluctance to actively protect architectural heritage associated with colonialism for the political connotations it carries (Rhodes, 2014). By striving to interlink the colonial with precolonial pasts, archaeological perspectives may do a great service and contribute to the much-needed debates on colonial history, to date dominated by urban studies, architectural history and social geography. While architectural studies provide us with information on the origin and intentions behind the construction of colonial buildings, and the studies of contemporary urbanism facilitate an understanding of social mechanisms in urban space, comparative analyses of material culture are one of the few ways how to achieve a synthetic perspective on the long-term socio-spatial dynamics. Archaeological perspectives are indispensable in applying such diachronic analyses, thanks to which change across time periods may be followed (Brunfaut & Pinot, 2017).

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During the era of modern colonialism of the nineteenth and twentieth century and often for a long time afterwards, colonialism was perceived as having brought urban ‘civilised’ culture to the regions that were backward and underdeveloped (for an overview see e.g. Robertshaw, 1987; Stahl, 2005). The sense of progressive development is apparent in the historical records referring to the modern European colonisation in Africa, as well as in the case of Omani colonists in East Africa or earlier on with Berbers and Arabs conquering the Iberian Peninsula. In a different context, such as that of Islamic rule over Iberia, the colonial period was presented as backward when the Iberian Peninsula was ‘reconquered’ by the Christian monarchs. Nevertheless, it was the Islamic rule of Iberia that brought an unprecedented development of urbanism, learning and economy, with which many parts of Europe could hardly compete at the time. The individual case studies presented in this book have reflected on the relative properties of change brought about by colonialism, highlighting that the matter is always complex. All the regions discussed in this book had established precolonial traditions of urban lifestyle associated with specific urban morphologies and dedicated public roles of architecture. The underlying complexity of urban socio-spatial transformation associated with colonialism may hence be revealed by looking for patterns. Comparison then facilitates the identification of change in individual contexts and allows us to estimate its relative impact in reflection on the precolonial traditions. While in some regions, precolonial urbanism is to a certain degree preserved thanks to intentional patronage of historical towns, such as in Tunis and Soussa in North Africa, where new quarters were built next to the old ones (Bloom, 2020: 278), in other regions colonialism utilised what was preserved from previous urban development as in Iberia, where earlier Roman structures were put to new use and incorporated into the growing cities of al-Andalus. Elsewhere, colonial development was associated with layering new urban planning on the old urban configurations, such as in East Africa, where it mostly remained unrealised in its full extent, but still heavily disrupted the precolonial logic of urban space. The regions studied in this book all experienced significant colonial involvement. What preserves in the living historical towns is therefore a result of entanglement of the precolonial and the colonial. However, the main aspects of the precolonial remain detectable and often very active in present-day towns. This discussion has centred on buildings and spaces associated with public functions, where members of the community residing in different houses were meeting and engaging in social transactions among themselves and with the visitors to the towns. While the individual chapters in this volume aimed to identify and describe the types of public buildings and spaces that were represented in the precolonial and in the colonial urban environment and how they were distributed across the urban layout, this chapter focuses on those that may be found in more than one of the study regions and compare their public function, appearance and spatial placement. Following the argument that “different logics of design in the construction of public events index social orders that themselves are organised in radically different

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ways“(Handelman, 1990: 7), the subsequent discussion reflects on the parallels and differences in the various types of spaces with a public function represented in the urban morphologies.

7.1 Public Features in Urban Space and the Impact of Colonialism Although it cannot be generalised, it may be stated that within a single region the urban built environment and the urban lifestyle with which it is associated differ significantly from the rural setting. In order to distinguish the urban context, older classification systems based on trait-lists stressed the importance of the presence of institutions, writing, organised religion and other factors (Cowgill, 2004). The trait-­ list approach was mostly abandoned in the 1990s, also thanks to the growing knowledge on urban forms in previously understudied regions of Africa and South America, which did not fit its definitions. Since then, demographic and functional perspectives have become favoured, and they are now used and studied by archaeologists, urban planners and historians of architecture alike. An important and rather universal aspect in this regard is the argument of population level and sometimes density, which is shared by urban settlements worldwide (Pauketat & Alt, 2019). The number of urbanites that is using and sharing the settlement means that there are more people gathering at publicly accessible places, servicing the religious, economic and political activities in the town. As opposed to the private or residential space, buildings and spaces associated with the public domain are shared. As it has been argued throughout this volume, in urban societies, public space has been universally important for brokering power, socialising, economic transactions, and for identity building (King, 2004). Religious buildings were universally represented as an important type of public buildings in the studied regions. Because all the discussed case studies were Islamic, mosques were the most prominent public buildings associated with religion. For example, on the Iberian Peninsula, mosques along with palaces were the first structures that started to be built after the Islamic conquest of 711. In each of the study regions, mosques had stylistic differences inherent to their architectural form, but in all of them they were monumental and often included elaborate architectural features such as domes. In East Africa, mosques represent the first structures built of stone in otherwise mud-and-thatch built environment. This is exemplified at Shanga (Horton, 1996). The size of mosques has often been recognised as significant for measuring the number of converts present in a population and the size of the congregation. In all the study regions discussed here, mosques have been identified in spatial context with palaces. These arguments, namely the established congregation of converts, spatial configuration associated with the seat of secular power as well as monumentality signify that mosques also served as a source of social power.

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Apart from these similarities, the positioning and distribution of religious buildings in urban landscapes represent further aspects important for understanding the changing spatial networks. For example, mosques of the Iberian Peninsula were not in a central position in the palatial cities like Madinat al-Zahra, but rather on the edge of the settlement. On the other hand, in Cordoba, the Great Mosque was built in the centre of the settlement and in a direct association with the palace. As argued in Chap. 2 for the precolonial East African coast, mosques were evenly distributed across the towns, often in spatial association with other monumental residential buildings. In North-West Africa, mosques were also distributed across the town, but they were not place close to the important seats of secular power or palaces, but rather they were frequently located next to a market (suq). This shows that in the precolonial period, the role of mosques in the urban socio-spatial configurations differed across the regions, but there were underlying similarities in their contextual placement. Specifically, precolonial East African coastal towns did not have markets, but with trade realised through houses, the palace-complexes were probably taking on their role as hubs of economic activity and power, similarly to the markets of Morocco. Judging by the closeness of religious and economic power identified in all three study regions, it appears that it might have carried more weight than the association between religion and politics. With colonial influence, the religious importance of mosques continued. To the extent that it may be possible to identify individual quarters in the historical town cores or the ‘old town’ as at Mombasa, it may be said that each quarter had a mosque. However, the spatial equilibrium was altered. As argued by Jan Pěchota in Chap. 5, in Morocco, the French colonial administration did not significantly alter the layout of urban quarters classified as indigenous in an effort to preserve them as ‘traditional’ urban units. On the other hand, new quarters built in their direct vicinity had completely different and distinctly European character with their regular right-­ angle street grid and protectorate administration, and did not respect the local precolonial principles. With European colonial involvement in coastal East Africa, Christian churches and missions were built on the waterfront and sometimes on gated grounds. This also did not directly affect the precolonial urban morphology in the quarters beyond the immediate waterfront. However, the new European development cut off the space associated with the mosques from the ocean, which they usually had in the precolonial era. It derives that the role of mosques as social centres of gravity did not change with colonialism, but their spatial distribution across the town as that of a network of religious congregations associated with economic hubs like markets, ports, of wealthy houses in the precolonial period was disrupted. An important part of public life in the case study regions, also associated with religion and commemoration, was played by tombs and mortuary architecture. These were identified in all the three regions and often invested with monumental architectural features. Comparison of their placement in the urban environment however displays important differences. In Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula, mortuary space were mostly kept in extramural setting, but in Morocco tombs were also built among residential buildings, near palaces and mosques, such as in Fes or Marrakech (Bloom, 2020: 258). In coastal East Africa of the precolonial period,

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tombs were an important part of urban space, and could be found next to mosques, houses and on open spaces. Although all the urban societies were Islamic, this may signify the different roles of mortuary architecture and commemoration practices in social transactions. In East Africa this was argued to be linked with fragmentised power between individual quarters and attesting local identity linked to ancestors (Baumanova, 2018). Contrary to mosques, the role of tombs in many cases diminish with colonial influence, as the practice of building monumental tombs largely disappeared. This trend was all the more apparent in areas where their symbolic importance extended to manifesting power or claiming space as on the East African coast. In all the case study regions, the towns were defined with the use of town walls, but in each context, they had different form and placement respective to the residential areas. The pre-Islamic Iberia had only sparse experience with town walls, but under Islamic rule, town walls grew into monumental structures that clearly fulfilled a military role in the protection of towns such at Madinat al-Zahra. Similarly in North-West Africa, the town walls were monumental structures and their gates also employed decorative elements, contributing to a memorable visual image of each town. On the other hand, in East Africa town walls run through the settlement, in some cases in several concentric circles and they were very low, not reaching above the height of approximately 1.5–1.8 metres, as discussed in Chap. 2. The role of Swahili town walls was clearly different and likely carried connotations in terms of access and sensory perception relevant for the urban society more than to the outside world. The purpose of precolonial Swahili town walls was largely lost in the later coastal towns under Omani and European colonial rule, as they were no longer built or fell into disrepair. The question whether and how the colonial development incorporated and put to new use the local precolonial features in the built environment may be further exemplified in Iberia and Morocco. These regions had at some point been influenced by the Roman world. For Iberia, the re-use of Roman buildings and features is typical for Islamic colonialism, especially in the case of Roman aqueducts. Roman statues were also recorded in Madinat al-Zahra (Bloom, 2020: 51). In Morocco, Roman urbanism also predated Islamic development, but in this case, the sites of Roman times were avoided and not incorporated into Islamic urbanism. Although difficult to explain on the basis of simple preference or economic interests, the difference is especially interesting in these two cultural zones that have maintained close contacts and levels of mutual exchange, and signifies a different approach to assimilating pre-existent cultural traditions. All the chapters in this book asserted that although houses were residential and hence mostly private structures, some of their parts played important public roles. The discussions of the individual regions identified that especially courtyards and spaces positioned immediately outside of the houses were used for social gatherings and interaction. Even though in all the regions we are dealing with the presence of an Islamic element, the use of courtyards as the ultimate public space within the private space of the house differs. This may best be demonstrated by their placement within the spatial network of a house and connectivity to the outside and within the

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house. On the Iberian Peninsula, few sites are known with archaeological evidence of regular non-elite houses. One of the few is a block of 19 houses excavated on the site of Siyasa (Navarro Palazón & Jiménez Castillo, 2007) mentioned in Chap. 6, where the recorded layout allows an analysis with the use of space syntax. This methodology discussed in the Chap. 1 is based on a transcription of all enclosed spaces (in this case rooms and courtyards) in a graph, which depicts how rooms in the house are organized in terms of depth of access (Hillier & Hanson, 1984). These properties of sensory experience would be relevant for any person moving around the house, whether a resident or a visitor. Considering the Siyasa houses, the average number of enclosed spaces in the majority of the houses was 4 or 5. Structurally, these were arranged in a layout depicted on Fig. 7.1, from which it derives that the courtyard was divided from the street by an anteroom and usually all other rooms of the house were accessible from the courtyard. Hence, all 5 rooms were distributed on 3 levels of depth. Even the largest house on the site located centrally in the house block was in fact composed of two 5-space house units linked together still using the same system of distribution. The enlargement of the house did not lead to a significantly increased depth of space or removing the rooms away from the social space of the courtyards. In the context of the precolonial East African coast, space syntax has been used for comparison of individual houses found along the coast (Baumanova & Smejda, 2018). On the precolonial Swahili site of Gede, Kenya, there is a preserved block of approximately 11 houses, some of which are not complete. The size of these 4- or 5-room houses is comparable to those of Siyasa. If they are analysed using space syntax (Fig. 7.2), it derives that there are some differences in the established distribution of rooms. The 5-space houses are usually arranged in 4 levels of depth, showing that most spaces in the interior of the houses are not directly accessible from the courtyard, but located behind it and further from the entrance in terms of movement. Looking at some of the larger houses at Gede, such as the house with 6 rooms and a courtyard shown on Fig.  7.2, it may be derived that the depth of the houses

Fig. 7.1  The layout of the house block at Siyasa on the Iberian Peninsula (on the left) where ‘C’ demarcates courtyards, and the space syntax graphs (on the right) showing the configuration of the rooms in the typical/average and the largest house represented in this block. The white nodes show the position of the courtyards inside the houses respective to the rooms. (Layout plan redrawn by the author and adapted following Navarro Palazón & Jiménez Castillo, 2007)

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Fig. 7.2  The layout of the Gede House Block (shown in bold outlines on the left) and the space syntax graphs (on the right) showing the configuration of the rooms in the typical/average and the largest house represented in this block. The white node shows the position of the courtyard inside the house respective to the rooms. (Layout plan redrawn by the author on the basis of data kindly provided by the Zamani Project team)

increased even more with a growing number of rooms. A comparison of the Iberian and East African houses with the use of space syntax shows that the role of the courtyards in the two Islamic regions might have differed. In context of houses, the positioning of courtyards was central in Iberia, but in coastal East Africa it was more reminiscent of an entrance space and more open to the outside. Another aspect that may be compared for these houses is the ratio of the total number of rooms to courtyards. This calculation is useful for determining the investment of space that was dedicated to courtyards. If the residential block of Siyasa of the Iberian Peninsula is compared with the house block at Gede of East Africa, which plans are provided on Fig.  7.1 and 7.2, we get the following calculation: Siyasa house block contains 90 enclosed spaces out of which 15 are courts, hence the ratio of rooms to courtyards is 6. Gede house block contains 42 enclosed spaces to 7 courtyards in the south part of block, where complete houses preserve to allow such calculation, giving the same ratio of 6. This same resulting ratio is all the more interesting because of the different configuration of rooms and placement of the courtyards respective to the rooms as derived from the conducted space syntax analysis. Public space in residential buildings may be differently represented also in the case of palatial structures. As it has been noted throughout this volume, palaces usually comprised of reception rooms, halls and courtyards, which were larger and more decorative, suggesting their social role for facilitating congregations and gatherings. Although building larger roofed halls was architecturally complicated, in Iberia the technique of parallel positioning of rectangular rooms abutting each other by the longer side facilitated the building of roofed halls. In East Africa, a similar technique was used in mosque construction.

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In the great houses or palace-complexes known from the precolonial Swahili urban context, the ratio of rooms to courtyards was above 10. This calculation is conducted here on the basis of preserved interpretable parts of the complexes discussed in a previous paper by the author (Baumanova & Smejda, 2018); the portions that do not preserve are disregarded in the totals for both rooms and courtyards. In Gede palace, the ratio is 43:4 = 10.7, and in Songo Mnara palace it is 63:5 = 12.6. There is also one exception to this pattern on the Swahili coast, the palace of Husuni Kubwa at the site of Kilwa in Tanzania, where the ratio is 15 (60 rooms: 4 courtyards). This palace probably had a more strongly represented residential function, it was used for a short period of time and, in fact, never completed (Baumanova & Smejda, 2018; Chittick, 1974). However, in Madinat al-Zahra in al-Andalus, which layout was discussed in Chap. 6, the ratio may be estimated at 62:10 = 6.2. This lower ratio signifies a higher the proportion of courtyards. It may then be stated that while in Iberia the houses and palatial complexes had a similar ratio of indoor courtyards to rooms, in East Africa that was not the case. This may have to do with additional public roles that were fulfilled by the houses on the Swahili coast of East Africa, e.g. as potential market places. While not frequently considered in context with urban space, the analyses presented in the individual chapters demonstrate the importance of natural elements in the urban environment, such as gardens, water courses and the sea. These features were incorporated in the public sphere of the built environment and clearly played an important role in the towns of all the analysed regions. For example, Marrakesh was surrounded by gardens and water courses since its foundation (Bloom, 2020: 145). As discussed in the respective chapters on the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco, light from the outside and commanding open views of gardens were an important part of constituting royal power. It has been argued that gardens and places associated with water served in medieval Seville as a ‘third space’ offering a space between rural and urban and representing an ultimate public space (Torres García, 2019). On the East African coast, some monumental tombs and mosques, as at Jumba la Mtwana, were built directly on the waterfront, visible from the ocean albeit not from a great distance, but more importantly offering the view of the ocean at public events associated with these places. One of the most important types of public space are streets, even more so in Islamic towns, which layout will be discussed below and which are usually depicted as composed of winding streets with few openings. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the streets in Islamic towns were famously described by Lord Cromer as wanting in symmetry, contradictory and reflecting in their shape the ‘winding’ nature of the Oriental mind (Cromer, 1908). Although no longer relevant in Islamic studies, the research presented here speaks for the need to continue reviewing this perspective, based on a simplifying view of street networks in Islamic towns as irregular, specifically by highlighting the local specifics and comparing the individual historical trajectories of Islamic cities. Streets represent “arterial routes, where judgments about whole place are made according to what is seen on these routes” (Rapoport, 1990: 173). The street network would also be an important evidence of spatial relationships defining the capacity for urban social interaction.

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Varied level of evidence exists for the street networks of the precolonial period. In North-West Africa, there is evidence of the existence of streets documented in the trading town of Sijilmasa (Messier & Miller, 2015). As discussed in Chaps. 5 and 6, the distinctive sensory environment including particular scents of the short, winding streets of precolonial medinas defined the local heritage of urbanism. They were viewed as so typical of precolonial North-West Africa that they were ‘protected’ from any change by the French protectorate administration. On the other hand, in East Africa precolonial urbanism was long discussed without reference to the potential street environment, because of the lack of streets recorded in archaeological research. Instead, previous studies have defined precolonial Swahili towns on the basis of territories, or ritual and economic practices (Wynne-Jones & Fleisher, 2016). That perspective might need to be updated with an enhanced capacity of recent research for mapping. For example, on the basis of detailed survey and 3D scanning of sites like Jumba la Mtwana in Kenya, discussed in Chap. 2, it may be suggested that there were streets, and that they significantly affected the organisation of space. Their layout was complex but nevertheless based on (near) right angles, contrary to the street networks known from Islamic North-West Africa. In Iberia, the original street networks do not preserve, but based on estimates of partial preservation in the historical core of Granada or the house block at Siyasa, it appears that the street network was composed of short, winding streets and open spaces. The impact of colonialism is very well visible on the evidence of street networks, and compared to the individual buildings discussed above, the impact of change in this aspect of urban morphology was rather profound. For example, in cities on the East African coast, a visitor to the European quarters on the oceanfront would experience a very different town compared to that of the locals. A major street running parallel with the coastline, such as Indian street in Mombasa, was a type of street that developed with colonialism. These streets lined with shops would have been a new element in the street network. Similarly, the boulevards built in colonial Morocco created a new category of streetscape, which facilitated movement but also allowed congregations of more people similarly to open spaces and squares. On the Iberian Peninsula, the Islamic cities incorporated individual structures but altered the pre-existent Roman streetscape. The new street networks developed around monumental structures with a public function like mosques and palaces. The forces of colonial development hence acted on the socio-spatial equilibrium established in the precolonial period.

7.2 Models of Urbanism A comparative study of the described regions may also bring new perspectives on the models of urbanism discussed in archaeology, architecture or geography. The classification of various urban traditions is associated with theoretical concepts that focus on space as divided by various material partitions (Jones, 2009), on its organisation and institutions represented by certain types of buildings and congregation

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spaces. All of these features dedicated to non-residential functions, that delimit outdoor space or furnish indoor space, make up the public domain of the urban worlds. As it has been argued in anthropology, the topological layout of towns, regardless of the density it takes, is important for cognitive processing, understanding space and associating it  with behavioural patterns (Janses-Osman & Wiedenbauer, 2004). Because of the relatively great number of people that participate in public activities in the urban context, the impact of shared experience of urban space is enhanced, so all the spatial configurations become more pronounced. The regional case studies in this volume are influenced by the developments in Africa. Even the urban history of Islamic al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula drew inspirations from northern Africa. In the theories of urban planning, several typologies have been suggested for explaining and understanding the logic of urban form on this continent. In the 1970s, a classification was put forward dividing cities in precolonial Africa in categories as spiritual, ceremonial, governance, refuge and visionary cities (Hull, 1976). This typology aimed to explain what held African cities together in terms of political and religious power. For the cities of the colonial period, however, the promoted typologies of urbanism were built on different categories, labelled as Black African, Islamic, post-industrial, and European (Winters, 1983). The latter typology, as the categories suggest, was heavily dependent on the cultural traditions associated with particular ethnic groups and became very popular in architectural history. In this mode, colonial design was explained as inspired by what was typical for the country of origin of the colonizers (Bremner, 2016). However, this approach could not explain the impact on the established precolonial urban tradition. The case study regions discussed here bore an Islamic element in their urban histories. In theoretical studies, the concept of Islamic urbanisms was strongly influenced by the work of Dale Eickelman (1981), which defined the Islamic city on the basis of Near and Middle Eastern examples and listed its public institutions as represented by the political seats, i.e. the palaces (dar al-imara) and/or citadels (qasba), the economic centres, i.e. the market (suq), and the religious building likes mosques, shrines and schools (madrasa). Even in Islamic cities beyond the Middle East, such as in the Islamic West and South discussed in this volume, the model of the Islamic city was found useful in archaeological, historical and architectural studies, because these listed types of buildings can usually be identified in most Islamic regions. As a result, the perspectives on Islamic urbanism have been heavily influenced by references to the regions from where Islam originated. The monumentality and decorativeness represented by some public buildings beyond the Near and Middle East, were described as referring to the Near Eastern models, like the Great Mosque of Cordoba to Syria, or the Swahili mosques to the Arabian Peninsula; only recent research begins to accentuate the temporal and regional context for such architecture (e.g. Bloom, 2020: 20). In some studies, it has been argued that nothing like public open space was recognized in Islamic cities, and that only mosques and markets served as the ultimate institutions of political, economic and ultimately male spaces for meeting (Hoteit, 1993). In assessing the morphology of Sijilmasa, a precolonial town in Morocco,

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based on large-scale archaeological excavations and historical studies, only religious and economic institutions were considered in the public sphere of the town (Messier & Miller, 2015: 175–176). In an architectural study, Bianca argued that in Islamic towns open spaces are in fact private and they do not play a part in movement around the town (Bianca, 2000: 202). Contrary to these views, on the basis of the analyses presented in this book, it may be argued that the theory of Islamic urbanism may be broadened to include religious, political, economic as well as parts of residential and military architecture. The distribution of places where any public or social function may be considered is potentially important for analysing their integration and configurational role in the urban morphology. In this vein, gardens, orchards, ports and walkways along water courses were also used in social transactions. In an Islamic setting, these open spaces served influential women (Rodríguez, 1998), just like the benches outside the house entrances or the courtyards. Another important concept in urban studies has been that of tropical urbanism and architecture. In this regard, the influence of climate and economic development have been the key concepts. Within this framework, urbanism of the Iberian Peninsula was linked with the concept of Spanish urban design characterised by a central plaza with main avenues radiating from it and with sidewalks sheltered from the sun (e.g. Torres García, 2019). This type of urban morphology, also adopted in Central America, may be rationalised as serving well in tropical climates and representing a well-ordered layout. This type of classifications reflects the modernist, rational perspectives on tropical urbanism as a potential product of international cooperation (Chang & King, 2011). Curiously, vernacular architecture in tropical setting, on the other hand, was considered incapable of change and relying heavily on precolonial traditions (Le Roux, 2004). As it was demonstrated in the chapter on colonial Morocco, French colonial administration strived to preserve the quarters classified as indigenous to maintain their layout and character, which was perceived as ‘traditional’. However, this approach does not actually allow a reflection on architecture in the tropics as it continually developed with time, but rather a top-­ down approach to promote the validity of modernist theories and an advancement of the imposed colonial morphology. Colonial towns were in turn inspired by the theoretical models of architectural development. In colonial Morocco, French administrators employed models of development improved with their experience from Algeria, as discussed in Chap. 5. Similar approach is known from regions beyond the scope of this book – the colonial towns in North America were inspired by theoretical ideals such as the ‘Great Model’ inspired by experience from European towns like London (Home & King, 2016). Following European models, the North American towns were built to feature a large central square with a range of smaller squares distributed in regular distances and on a right-angle grid, for example is Annapolis (Leone, 2005), Philadelphia or Charleston. On the basis of the studies presented in this volume, I propose that through focus on the transformations of urban morphology following the historical trajectory from precolonial to colonial periods and beyond, it may be possible to derive an

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underlying logic of particular urban forms associated with any form of colonialism. One way to undertake such analysis may be the consideration of urban quarters. Previous chapters have shown that urban quarters in the study regions played an important, albeit locally varied, role in negotiations of power. Quarters developed to divide the towns into smaller units following various principles. On the Iberian Peninsula, the town of Granada where the historical core to some extent preserves, the quarters represented political and economic spheres. In Morocco, the town of Fes had ethnic quarters including the Jewish quarter (mellah), and new quarters were established based on different occupational specialisations or by groups of newcomers, such as the quarter of Fes al-Jadid. The concept of neighbourhoods carried strong meaning in the colonial period, as discussed in Chap. 5. Although it cannot be determined if there were mainly political, ethnic, economic or religious reasons, it seems to have mattered where particular groups of people lived. In coastal East Africa, urban quarters were actively invoked in power negotiations, such as in Mombasa, which trend continued to the colonial period. However, in none of the discussed regions, the system of quarters supported actual segregation – the spatial segmentation was only effective as a working mechanism, where all spatial components play their part to achieve certain mechanics of urban social life. Because the quarters were maintained over generations, it may be presumed they were important to the urban environment and that the changes induced by colonialism to the systems of urban quarters must have had social connotations. As it derives from the analyses on the colonial development, one of the typical features of European colonialism in North-West and East Africa was the effort for segregation of indigenous population from the Europeans in the ‘modern’ quarters. In East Africa, this shifted the centre of  gravity disproportionately to the waterfront and disrupted the system of economic competition. In North-West Africa, it inhibited the capacity of the town to organically adapt and respond to change.

7.3 Conclusion This volume has aimed to show that the reach of urban spatial analyses in historical archaeology may be broadened with opening up multiple perspectives on the dynamics between the built environment and the urban societies. Especially, it has reflected on ways how the physical properties of the public component of the built environment facilitate, channel and limit social actions. The perspectives of historical archaeology have hence been used to gain an understanding of the impact of change in past urban trajectories associated with colonialism, as it is materially represented in urban morphologies. The representation of individual public buildings and spaces as well as their configurational placement should be given greater credit in archaeological considerations. On the basis of comparison of the individual regions for which various types of data are available, it derives that regardless of knowledge on the specific activities that took place in a given spatial context, it may be analysed how the properties of

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7  Comparative Perspectives on (Pre)Colonial Urban Transformations

built space limited, facilitated or channelled past social interactions and how their distribution in the urban layout catered for social needs. In terms of public interaction and congregation, both the specific form that public buildings and spaces had, as well as the logic of their placement potentially carry meaning. The historical trajectory of change in these aspects is significant for increasing our capacity to review and examine the relative impact of long-term phenomena like colonialism. This book aimed to some extent open the theme of colonialism in the European context, highlighting the need to view the theme from various perspectives to understand its many facets. Future research may achieve a broader consideration of colonial urban histories through research on more regions, with reflections on comparisons, and by looking for new analytical categories. Especially valuable in this regard would be the examination of more cases from the Near East, India, West Africa or the Americas. Likewise, the presented studies also contributed to the themes of Islamic, tropical or African urbanism, as well as merchant urbanism. Using these classifications as models may then still be useful, when their limits and variations facilitate further discussions.

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Correction to: Urban Public Space in  Colonial Transformations

Correction to: M. Baumanova, Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­031-­14697-­8 This book was inadvertently published without the contributing author’s names on the chapter opening page. The chapters have now been corrected. Chapter 4 – Jan Pěchota Chapter 5 – Jan Pěchota Chapter 6 – Monika Baumanova and Daniel Křížek

The updated original versions for this chapters can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­031-­14697-­8_4 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­031-­14697-­8_5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­031-­14697-­8_6

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 M. Baumanova, Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_8

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