{"id":3041,"date":"2023-06-15T12:16:46","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T12:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imaneo-data.inha.fr\/?post_type=project&p=3041"},"modified":"2023-10-18T08:35:17","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T08:35:17","slug":"oran-railway-station","status":"publish","type":"project","link":"https:\/\/imaneo-data.inha.fr\/en\/project\/oran-railway-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Oran Railway Station"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":1213,"template":"","class_list":["post-3041","project","type-project","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","project_theme-dissemination-en","project_theme-nationalism-imperialism","project_theme-neo-moorish-in-the-maghreb","project_theme-sources-en"],"acf":{"projects":{"project_info":{"color":"#fdff7f","icon":1323,"location":"Oran, Algeria","year":"1910","architects":[319],"map":{"longitude":35.7026524241022,"latitude":-0.629283580754549}},"":null,"gallery":[520,526,505,523,529,511,502,508,790,532,517,514,2833],"history":{"projects_history_media":{"content_type":"Image Gallery","video_single":{"number":"","title":"","image":null},"gallery":[2538,793,796,799,823,817,805,811,814,829,826,832,835,844,847,841,802,850,853,856],"video_gallery":null},"content":"The edifice was designed in 1905 by the Parisian architect Marius Toudoire, the staff architect for the Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris \u00e0 Lyon et \u00e0 la M\u00e9diterran\u00e9e (PLM), who had also drawn the plans for the Gare de Lyon in Paris. Oran station was \u201cthe first station to be designed in the purest Oriental style\u201d in Algeria[1]<\/a>. By choosing this style, the private company and its architect undoubtedly hoped to gain the good graces of Algeria\u2019s governor-general Charles Jonnart, a promoter of the Neo-Moorish style[2]<\/a>. At the time, the colony\u2019s 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\u2019\u00c9cho d\u2019Oran<\/em>[3]<\/a><\/code>. Construction of the station was completed in 1910.\r\n\r\nThe station is made up of several Consid\u00e8re-system reinforced concrete structures<\/code>, erected on either side of the tracks[4]<\/a>. The main building presents two long fa\u00e7ades laid out in an L shape. The first, 84 meters long (on the Boulevard Mellah-Ali side), is for departures<\/code>; the other, 60 meters long, handles arrivals<\/code> and overlooks the Saint-Michel neighborhood (Ha\u00ef Sidi El Bachir). A 34.5-meter tower, similar in shape to the minaret of the great mosque of Algiers, stands at the angle of the L\u00e2\u0081\u00a3<\/code>\u00e2\u0081\u00a3\u00e2\u0081\u00a3. It bears a clock with four 3-meter faces, plainly visible from the street. The impressive size of the construction is further magnified by its position on the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heights.\r\nThe main fa\u00e7ade 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<\/code>. The small building housing the station restaurant\u00e2\u0081\u00a3<\/code>\u00e2\u0081\u00a3 is separate, but the composition of its fa\u00c3\u00a7ades matches that of the main building.\r\n\r\nMuch of the original interior decoration is still visible, notably the plaster molding. Conversely, the wooden latticework on the original ticket windows<\/code> has been replaced by more modest paneling, although it is still based on mashrabiya patterns.\r\n\r\nThe 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<\/em> of the mosque known as Sidi Bel Hassan (14th <\/sup>century), as well as the profile of the capitals moulded here. The layout of the bays and the canted dome<\/code> covering the cupola with its sculpted muqarnas<\/em><\/code> are also reminiscent of the great sanctuaries of the region, which are the subject of extensively illustrated works such as Georges and William Mar\u00e7ais, Les monuments arabes de Tlemcen<\/em>, Paris, 1903.\r\n\r\nA few years later, Toudoire drew much of his inspiration from the station's fa\u00e7ade to design the fa\u00e7ade 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 Beja\u00c3\u00afa mosque, could be the author of the ceramics for the Oran Railway Station.\r\n