Fès, la fabrication d'une ville nouvelle (1912-1956)

Combining history and the history of art, this volume uses the case of Fez to analyse all the mechanisms involved in the founding of a new city and those of its corollary - the transformation of an ancient city -, under the French Protectorate in Morocco between 1912 and 1956. It also highlights the differences between the urban ideal, a theory expounded a posteriori by the Resident-General Louis-Hubert Lyautey and his many collaborators, and the reality eventually built from scratch. This work, based on archival sources from all around the Mediterranean, some of which are unpublished, accords the same attention to the doctrines which underlie the city's transformations and to the protagonists who participate in these changes as it does to the context in which they occur. The author also demonstrates that a new city built in a colonial context is by no means the mere materialisation of a political doctrine, nor a city built by and for Europeans. It shows that, on the contrary, it is the achievement of a whole system consisting of a large number of stakeholders - local government, colonials and elected local representatives -, the result of dealings, agreements, disagreements and, above all, compromise, as much as it is the consequence of circumstances, geographical, political, social or economic contingencies, and even coincidences.