Michel Écochard

Michel Écochard (11 March 1905 - 24 May 1985) was a French architect and urban planner. He played a large part in the urban planning of Casablanca from 1946 to 1952 during the French Protectorate,[1] then in the French redevelopment of Damascus during its occupation of Syria. He was also trained as an archeologist.[2]

Michel Écochard
Born(1905-03-11)March 11, 1905
DiedMay 24, 1985(1985-05-24) (aged 80)

Education

Michel Écochard graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in 1929. His training there had inclined him toward modernist ideas of industrialised construction. He was also trained as an archeologist,[3] and was fascinated by Mediterranean vernacular architecture, which was popularised in Paris around that time by Auguste Perret.[4]

Career

Syria

Écochard began his career at a fairly young age. In 1930, when he was only in his twenties, he began his first public works restoring historic buildings in Damascus, which was then under French colonial rule.[5] He a member of the French reconstruction team that restored the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, the Mosque of Bosra, and the Azm Palace, the last having become a property of the French.[4]

Eastern Mediterranean

Écochard's first solo project in the colonies was the Museum of Antioch, in which he combined ancient Syrian architectural elements with modernist design. Écochard was a firm believer in the value of historical monuments, an outlook that he maintained while working on the town plan for Damascus. His design for the town ensured protection of its many historical monuments.

Military service

He served in the Forces Françaises Libres.[6][7]

Beirut

In 1943 he worked on the first master plan for Beirut.[4]

Morocco

He served as the director of the French Protectorate in Morocco's Department of Urban Planning from 1946 to 1952.[8] He changed Casablanca's urban plan from Henri Prost's radio-concentric system—like Paris—to a linear system, with expanded industrial zones stretching east through Aïn Sebaâ toward Fedala.[9][10][11] There was a focus on managing the city's rapid, rural exodus-driven urbanization through the development of social housing projects.[12]

1953 CIAM

At the 1953 Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), Michel Ecochard presented, along with Georges Candilis, the work of ATBAT-Afrique—the Africa branch of Atelier des Bâtisseurs founded in 1947 by figures including Le Corbusier, Vladimir Bodiansky, and André Wogenscky. It was a study of Casablanca's bidonvilles entitled "Habitat for the Greatest Number."[13][14] It argued against doctrine, arguing that architects must consider local culture and climate in their designs.[15][16][17] This generated great debate among modernist architects around the world and eventually provoked a schism.[15][18][19]

GAMMA

Ecochard's collective of Modernist architects was called Groupe des Architectes Modernes Marocains (GAMMA), and initially included the architects George Candillis, Alexis Josic and Shadrach Woods.[16][20] In the early 1950s, Écochard commissioned GAMMA to design housing that provided a "culturally specific living tissue"[21] for laborers and migrants from the countryside.[22] Sémiramis, Nid d’Abeille (Honeycomb), and Carrières Centrales were some of the first examples of this Vernacular Modernism.[22] This was the first time the French Protectorate built housing for the colonized rather than the colonizers, and it did so to suppress the Moroccan Nationalist Movement, particularly after the 1952 protests following the assassination of the labor unionist Farhat Hached, which were centered in the bidonville of Carrières Centrales (now Hay Mohammadi).[23] The Moroccan GAMMA architect Elie Azagury, with whom he clashed on whether Moroccans could live in high-rises, was critical of Écochard as "an active instrument of the French colonial power."[24] Ecochard's 8x8 meter model, designed to address Casablanca's issues with overpopulation and rural exodus, was pioneering in the architecture of collective housing.[25][26]

Lebanon

In the later 1950s, he returned to Lebanon and created urban plans for Saida (1956-1958) and Byblos (1959-1960).[27] From 1960-1964, he conducted various studies of Lebanon.[27] He produced a masterplan for Beirut and its suburbs in 1963/64, recognizing the need to integrate it into a regional and national strategy.[28][27]

Other places

Throughout his career, Ecochard also made plans for Pakistan,[27] Sabendé[27] and Fria in Guinea,[29] Martigues, Dakar, Martinique, Damascus, Tabriz, Corsica, Mashhad, Muscat, and Tehran.[27]

Works

Publications

References
  1. Fabrizi, Mariabruna (2016-12-07). "Understanding the Grid /1: Michel Ecochard's Planning and Building..." SOCKS. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  2. Fabrizi, Mariabruna (2016-12-07). "Understanding the Grid /1: Michel Ecochard's Planning and Building..." SOCKS. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  3. Fabrizi, Mariabruna (2016-12-07). "Understanding the Grid /1: Michel Ecochard's Planning and Building..." SOCKS. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  4. von Osten, Marion. "Michel Ecochard". Trans-cultural Modernism. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
  5. Aggregate (2012-04-29). Governing by Design: Architecture, Economy, and Politics in the Twentieth Century. University of Pittsburgh Pre. ISBN 978-0-8229-7789-6.
  6. "Faire une recherche - Mémoire des hommes". www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  7. "Michel Ecochard - Les Français Libres". www.francaislibres.net. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  8. Fabrizi, Mariabruna (2016-12-07). "Understanding the Grid /1: Michel Ecochard's Planning and Building..." SOCKS. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  9. Munoz, Sylviane (1983). "Spéculation et répercussion des influences politiques sur l'urbanisme dans la zone française du protectorat au Maroc". Cahiers de la Méditerranée. 26 (1): 105–123. doi:10.3406/camed.1983.941.
  10. Rochd, Nabil (1990). "Une métropole portuaire d'Afrique du Nord : Casablanca. Explosion urbaine et planification". Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine. 46 (1): 113–118. doi:10.3406/aru.1990.1515.
  11. Dahmani, Iman; El moumni, Lahbib; Meslil, El mahdi (2019). Modern Casablanca Map. Translated by Borim, Ian. Casablanca: MAMMA Group. ISBN 978-9920-9339-0-2.
  12. "Casablanca 1952: Architecture For the Anti-Colonial Struggle or the Counter-Revolution". THE FUNAMBULIST MAGAZINE. 2018-08-09. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  13. "TEAM 10". www.team10online.org. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  14. Rouissi, Karim (2019-11-17). "Housing for the greatest number: Casablanca's under-appreciated public housing developments". The Journal of North African Studies. 0: 1–26. doi:10.1080/13629387.2019.1692411. ISSN 1362-9387.
  15. "The Gamma Grid | Model House". transculturalmodernism.org. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  16. Dahmani, Iman; El moumni, Lahbib; Meslil, El mahdi (2019). Modern Casablanca Map. Translated by Borim, Ian. Casablanca: MAMMA Group. ISBN 978-9920-9339-0-2.
  17. "TEAM 10". www.team10online.org. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  18. Pedret, Annie. "TEAM 10 Introduction". www.team10online.org. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  19. Chnaoui, Aziza (2010-11-02). "Depoliticizing Group GAMMA: contesting modernism in Morocco". In Lu, Duanfang (ed.). Third World Modernism: Architecture, Development and Identity. Routledge. ISBN 9781136895487.
  20. "Casablanca 1952: Architecture For the Anti-Colonial Struggle or the Counter-Revolution". THE FUNAMBULIST MAGAZINE. 2018-08-09. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
  21. P., N.; Ecochard, Michel (April 1956). "Casablanca: le roman d'une ville". Population (French Edition). 11 (2): 374. doi:10.2307/1524699. ISSN 0032-4663. JSTOR 1524699.
  22. "Adaptations of Vernacular Modernism in Casablanca". Retrieved 2020-04-15.
  23. "Casablanca 1952: Architecture For the Anti-Colonial Struggle or the Counter-Revolution". THE FUNAMBULIST MAGAZINE. 2018-08-09. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  24. Chaouni, Aziza (2014-07-03). "Interview with Elie Azagury". Journal of Architectural Education. 68 (2): 210–216. doi:10.1080/10464883.2014.943632. ISSN 1046-4883.
  25. "Habitat collectif méditerranéen et dynamique des espaces ouverts". resohab.univ-paris1.fr. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  26. Fabrizi, Mariabruna (2016-12-07). "Understanding the Grid /1: Michel Ecochard's Planning and Building..." SOCKS. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
  27. Verdeil, Éric (2019). Michel Ecochard sur l'autre rive de la Méditerranée (in French). Atelier Baie / Villes de Martigues. ISBN 978-2-919208-55-5.
  28. R. Stephen Sennott, ed. (2004), Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Architecture - Volume 1, A - F, New York/London: Taylor Francis Books, p. 129, ISBN 1-57958-243-5
  29. "Nouvelle cité à Fria". Archnet. Retrieved 2020-04-18.


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