The edifice was designed in 1905 by the Parisian architect Marius Toudoire, the staff architect for the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM), who had also drawn the plans for the Gare de Lyon in Paris. Oran station was “the first station to be designed in the purest Oriental style” in Algeria[1]. By choosing this style, the private company and its architect undoubtedly hoped to gain the good graces of Algeria’s governor-general Charles Jonnart, a promoter of the Neo-Moorish style[2]. At the time, the colony’s rail system was being extended. In June 1908, when the work began, a model of the future building is on display at the offices of the Oranese newspaper, L’Écho d’Oran[3]
The station is made up of several Considère-system reinforced concrete structures
The main façade is the one with the most decoration. It offers a symmetrical composition, with two lateral porches and a central domed pavilion featuring three horseshoe arches opening onto the ticket-window room. The squinches are decorated with inlayed colored stones and ceramic tiles with white and blue leaf patterns. Carved wood awnings protect the window section
Much of the original interior decoration is still visible, notably the plaster molding. Conversely, the wooden latticework on the original ticket windows
The architect’s historicist references are local. Toudoire drew on the forms and decorations visible in the nearby town of Tlemcen to create this building in a distinctly neo-Moorish style. The same type of minaret with lantern and summit decoration can be found in most of the medieval mosques in the neighbouring town, and the ceramic decoration on the facade echoes that of the mihrab of the mosque known as Sidi Bel Hassan (14th century), as well as the profile of the capitals moulded here. The layout of the bays and the canted dome
A few years later, Toudoire drew much of his inspiration from the station’s façade to design the façade of the Galeries de France store in Algiers (the current National Public Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Algiers, MAMA): same wooden canopy, same pseudo-minaret, same ceramic decoration. The ceramist Ernest Soupireau who created the decor of the department store, as well as the large panel which adorns the facade of the Bejaïa mosque, could be the author of the ceramics for the Oran Railway Station.
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