Taubman College Jazairy’s article featured in New Geographies 6
Assistant Professor El Hadi Jazairy‘s article “Hassi Messaoud Oil Urbanism” was featured in New Geographies 6 publication titled, Grounding Metabolism. The history of Hassi Messaoud could be read as a mediation of the relations of resources, population, and security in the sovereign’s organization of territory, the contradictions of which are formalized on the extraction site.
Hassi Messaoud refers to both Algeria’s largest oil field and the township that developed in relation to the hydrocarbon industry in the Sahara desert. Since oil was first discovered in 1956, central authorities have changed the administrative status of Hassi Messaoud, with every generation of urbanism responding to a persisting territorial question: What is the appropriate form of settlement of an industrial site that plays a strategic importance to oil flows and ensures a large part of the national economy? The article was co-written with Rania Ghosn, partner at DESIGN EARTH and graphic collaboration for the essay was provided by Alexandra Chen (M.Arch. ’15).
The New Geographies publication is produced by the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Visit the Design Earth website to read the article. For more information on the New Geographies 6, visit the Harvard University Press website.
