htc.Workshop February 6, 2008, 2-5pm

Colette Apelian, Berkeley City College

Lamps in Local Character:  Electrifying the Historic City of Fez, Morocco during the French Protectorate

Despite French colonial urban codes enacted to preserve the "local character" of Fez during the early Protectorate, contemporary records housed in French and Moroccan archives reveal deliberate and officially sanctioned modernizations of the Fez madina from approximately 1912 to 1956. Using the archive documentation of electrification as evidence, this paper seeks to identify and describe hybrid "European" and "local" or "Fassi Moroccan" solutions and vistas. The primary goal of this paper will be to examine how the electrification of Fez can be situated within the context of early modern electrification efforts and/or definitions of culturally hybrid designs, in general.