URBAN HERITAGE AND SPATIAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN ALGERIAN CITIES-CASE STUDY KALAA BENI HAMMAD

Abstract

Urbanization in Algeria has always been a product of speed. In the wake of independence, priority has been given to responding to the population's housing needs. This has resulted in neighbourhoods being stoves in all cities. s lives ", lacking in spirit, beauty and even public structures that complement citizens' lives, This is in the absence of a national policy for the preservation of the architectural heritage of our cities and the attempt to resurrect it within the framework of so-called authenticity and contemporary in addition to being an effective factor in the development of local and regional development,(Françoise & David, 2011).

Apart from taking into account a cultural heritage in general and an urban heritage in particular, there exists a common human heritage from the perspective of the 1954 Hague Convention and its protocols later adopted which put under the command of the international community the responsibility of its safeguarding (M. Boumediene and A. Dilami, 2017) wherein the concept of cultural heritage has turned to be universal and is not confined to monuments of historical significance but spans to all movable possessions including antiques, documents and even writings. Algeria, bound by international agreements, did not waste time to implement a number of protective legal and legislatives acts in regard to her cultural heritage in general and her urban heritage in particular. It is important to state that in spite of these measures, a great deal of our heritage remains unattended. This neglect is coupled with lack of protection and absence of protective measures so that our heritage can be preserved. This has caused encroachment on historical monuments, large scale theft of countless archaeological artifacts, and the obliteration of many heritage testimonies that illustrate an epoch which witnessed the coming of many civilizations into Algeria. (Samiha Hanan Khawadjia, 2016)

Through what has been said, we shall now try to analyze in this paper, first of all, the existence of some gaps both at the level of legal provisions regarding the protective measures of the heritage, and at the level of the mechanisms of planning PUBLIC policy in Algeria that neglected the urban heritage II mediation policy and failed to formulate a policy with specific objectives toward the safeguarding, protection and utilization of the heritage for the benefit of the society and the national economy (Françoise & David, 2011). Next, we will perform a critical analysis of the most important laws that have dealt with urban heritage from the time of independence to the current time, after which we will present a field study for one of the archaeological sites of the Castle of Bani Hammad which is located at the Mâadid municipality, and how to preserve and protect them through a questionnaire directed to a sample of the population, and an interview is also done with a few specialists on this matter, and with the help of geographic information systems, (Arc gis) it is feasible to define the bounding area which should be preserved as well as the surrounding buffer zone.

At last, a vision is established to conserve our leisure heritage and sustain it for the future on the basis of a set of formed recommendations.