The gardens of the Maghreb during the Ottoman period

History, heritage and symbolism

Several accounts bear witness to the fertility and abundance of gardens around North African cities in the Ottoman period, without for as much indicating a marked divide with the medieval period. Similarly, the florilegium of so-called Orientalist paintings, together with mapping developed by military engineers during the French conquest, confirm the important role of gardens in the medinas of the Ottoman period.
Algiers Tunis, Oran, Béjaïa, etc. were all described as magnificent and prosperous cities. They all offered perfect conditions for the development of an urban centre, such as those mentioned in the Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldun: sufficient water supply, fertile soils for agriculture, surrounded by excellent pastures, dense forests providing timber for construction and heating, and the proximity of the sea, facilitating the importation of foreign goods.
This conference will offer a presentation on the typology of Algerian gardens in the Ottoman period, their organisation, their ingenious water features and the plant species that adorned them. An outline of Algiers during this period will gradually emerge through the testimonies of the authors and travellers of the time, together with the artists who immortalised the area. The relevance of this pictorial and literary interpretation lies in the understanding of the social distribution of these gardens, designed as garden systems. The role of water and of Waqf-land in the conservation and transmission of this natural heritage which is now endangered.

Farid Hireche is an Algerian landscape architect. He has developed a number of landscaping projects in partnership with architects (universities, hospitals, parks, etc.) A territorial biogeography and sustainable development graduate from the Sorbonne Paris Nord University, he also studied landscaping at the National Graduate Landscaping School in Versailles. He has also focused on landscapes as heritage, a theme presented over his PhD thesis developed at the University of Orléans, within the POLEN laboratory. His research focuses on cultural landscapes associated with water and the historic gardens of Maghreb. He has written several articles and a reference book entitled, Petits Paradis d’Algers, while disseminating his research via conferences and symposiums in North Africa and across the globe.
He teaches a module on the garden art of Arabo-Andalusian countries at the National Graduate Landscaping School in Versailles.
He founded the Collectif Maghreb du Paysage, naturally born from the current situation facing North African landscape architects, in an aim to establish them on the institutional and societal scene of landscape preservation and sustainable development in the Maghreb. Its aims are centred on a pragmatic threefold approach: training young landscape architects, obtaining recognition for landscape architecture and the Maghreb convention on landscape.