North Africa

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An oculus: Villa Zevaco by Jean‑François Zevaco

[caption id="attachment_347560" align="alignnone" width="1600"] The Moroccan-French architect Jean‑François Zevaco designed a house for ...

Workers shovel sand into the back of trucks at a beach on Hamilton Beach, Sierra Leone. The sand will be used for concrete, a subject of discussion in Alia Bengana’s new graphic novel

Interview with Alia Bengana

Alia Bengana, architect and co-author of a graphic novel about concrete, speaks to The Architectural Review about the material’s four ‘enormous and entangled probl...

Contest site: Moroccan Oasis Retreat

Competition: Fes home and retreat, Morocco
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Abdel Moneim Mustafa (1930–)
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Centre of power: Egypt’s New Administrative Capital
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Outrage: Rampant coastal development in Egypt
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Lay to rest: Jardin d’Afrique in Zarzis, Tunisia by Rachid Koraïchi
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The Mediterranean hypersea: mapping troubled waters
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Interview with Kader Attia
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In practice: Aziza Chaouni on preserving Morocco’s cultural heritage
A 1375 atlas of the mediterannean region, drawn in colour on parchment

Experimental Saharanism: exploiting desert environments
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Cairo: demolition postcard
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Monument to Egyptology
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Competition results: Carthage National Museum winner revealed
Competition results: Great Green Wall affordable housing winners revealed

Competition results: Great Green Wall affordable housing winners revealed
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Retrospective: Salima Naji
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Nuclear powers: France's atomic bomb tests in the Algerian Sahara
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Women’s house in Ouled Merzoug, Morocco by Building Beyond Borders + BC Architects and Studies

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Revisit: Climat de France in Algiers by Fernand Pouillon

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Trading recipes: Egyptian kushari
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Housing Cairo: self-initiated urbanism
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Cultural capital: the ongoing regeneration of Algiers' Casbah
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All about Yves: Musée Yves Saint Laurent in Marrakesh, Morocco by Studio KO
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​Cairo’s Downtown: Omar Nagati on renegotiating Cairo through design
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Taroudant University in Morocco by Saad El Kabbaj, Driss Kettani and Mohamed Amine Siana
The architecture of volumes interspersed with patios and courtyards is based on the Moroccan archetypes of the rural ksar and the urban madrasa

Training Centre for Sustainability by Anna Heringer, Chwiter, Morocco
Art Deco City hall by Enrique Nieto, Melilla, Spain

The North African city of Melilla is a surprising and ornate melange of Spanish colonial heritage
Characteristic timber buttresses on a typical Casbah townhouse

The Casbah in context: World Heritage Site under threat
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Reinterpreting tradition: Hassan Fathy
A postage stamp of the Great Pyramids of Giza

The Great Pyramid, Reassessed
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A model village in Upper Egypt by Hassan Fathy

More essays and buildings in Africa

Since 1896, The Architectural Review has scoured the globe for architecture that challenges and inspires. Buildings old and new are chosen as prisms through which arguments and broader narratives are constructed. In their fearless storytelling, independent critical voices explore the forces that shape the homes, cities and places we inhabit.

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