Reading the colonial space through non-normative resources: An educational experience in the construction of meaning

Abstract

The urban space is the place of exercise of a plurality of actors who draw it and give it meaning. What is given to perceive is not an object frozen in time and does not have a unique reading scheme. Here we relate a pedagogical experience of analysis of the colonial urban space of the city of Mostaganem. The aim of the operation with architecture students is to exploit, in the absence of a reliable archival basis, unusual supports for an interpretative approach to the evolution of colonial space. The data are collected outside the usual educational practices to create a coherent methodological approach that can be reproduced subsequently. These are mainly romantic stories, life stories and old postcards. Our experience is dual: first, we describe the context of the study, namely the evolution of the city of Mostaganem, while being based on the characteristic supports previously quoted; then we report an account of the method supposed to objectify the use of subjective materials in the reading of the city.