André Studer and Jean Hentsch, site plan for the cité verticale at Sidi Othman, 1954. gta Archives/ ETH Zurich (André Studer)
Cité Verticale Jean Hentsch and André Studer designed and built a cité verticale for the neighbourhood of Sidi Othman between 1953 and 1955. Inspired by the ATBAT-Afrique proposal, Hentsch and Studer’s scheme first envisioned a pyramid-shaped building that would capture the spirit of a “modern casbah” and strive to “accommodate the customs and habits of inhabitants coming in from the countryside and from the mountains.”1 This reinterpreted casbah would be composed of vertically stacked dwelling cells that not only fulfilled housing
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needs, but also the need to recreate the patio courtyards as they existed in traditional Muslim homes. However, the projected pyramid-shaped building by Hentsch and Studer was deemed impossible due to law enforcement concerns (police access), and was eventually reorganized into large blockshaped buildings. The architects conceived their building so that “each dwelling will have a ‘traditional’ patio, that is, a patio open to the sky and protected from public view, which functions as the centre of the dwelling and which can
1
Hentsch and Studer explanatory note. gta Archives, 126–024. Author’s translation.