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Le Corbusier draws Plan Obus for Algiers: a sinuous motorway-habitation over the Casbah’s colonial city

From the early 1930s Le Corbusier produced Plan Obus and related Algiers schemes: a gigantic curving viaduct of housing over the city, business districts, and a contempt for the existing Casbah fabric as a planning obstacle. In the causal graph this event strengthens Forced-Displacement Scale, a driver that strengthens People Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence (IDMC) — a worsening welfare path.

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From the early 1930s Le Corbusier produced Plan Obus and related Algiers schemes: a gigantic curving viaduct of housing over the city, business districts, and a contempt for the existing Casbah fabric as a planning obstacle. He did not pour the viaduct. Displacement is the path: a living African-Mediterranean city as a slab to be spanned. Archival locator: Fondation Le Corbusier — English portal at https://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/en/ (opens in a new tab) (Fondation Le Corbusier). Independent locator: Britannica — Le Corbusier at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Le-Corbusier (opens in a new tab) (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Context

Paris’s Plan Voisin is another map. Jane Drew and Chandigarh are later, other continent.

Shared responsibility is part of Le Corbusier draws Plan Obus for Algiers: a sinuous motorway-habitation over the Casbah’s colonial city. Naming Le Corbusier does not delete co-authors, institutions, or later transmitters. The lag from 1932-01-01 to any measured indicator is not treated as zero. Alternative explanations — weather, other armies, later statutes, or independent cultural change — remain live where the sources do not close them.

Why it matters

A famous unbuilt colonial motorway-city is a displacement path. High confidence on the drawings; later Algerian independence is not 1932.

Who was responsible

Contribution type and responsibility level for each recorded actor — not sole-author shorthand.

  • Le Corbusier

    Person

    Direct responsibility

    responsibility level 0.4 · verified

    He drew the Algiers schemes across the 1930s. Colonial administrations did not fully build them. Direct as planner of an unbuilt colonial megastructure.

What changed

Fact → Driver → Indicator. Relationship strength orders the paths; it is not the observed indicator movement.

Evidence

The sources behind this fact and its verification state.

Verified2 sources on file
  1. 1.Britannica — Le CorbusierEncyclopaedia Britannica · High credibility · verified
  2. 2.Fondation Le Corbusier — English portalFondation Le Corbusier · High credibility · verified
What the sources establish

Fondation Le Corbusier independently archives the Algiers plans. Britannica independently treats his North African urban schemes. MoMA and scholarly urban history independently discuss Plan Obus as a colonial megastructure on paper. No unique Casbah-household census of unbuilt harm is invented.

Established: Plan Obus as his 1930s Algiers scheme. Not established: municipal adoption, or a unique demolition tally. Conventional 1932. Not UNESCO. Not 1941 Vichy as this title.

Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, museums, and adaptations are not converted into extra lifetime acts.

If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

Confidence is stated on the impact path, not hidden in adjectives. Mixed effects of Le Corbusier draws Plan Obus for Algiers: a sinuous motorway-habitation over the Casbah’s colonial city are separate paths.

The contribution type is direct. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.

Causal path

How this event connects to drivers and indicators in the graph.

  1. ActorLe Corbusier
  2. contributed toFactLe Corbusier draws Plan Obus for Algiers: a sinuous motorway-habitation over the Casbah’s colonial city
  3. strengthensDriverForced-Displacement Scale
  4. strengthensIndicatorPeople Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence (IDMC)

Cite this page

Factrail. (2026). Le Corbusier draws Plan Obus for Algiers: a sinuous motorway-habitation over the Casbah’s colonial city. Factrail. https://factrail.ai/facts/lc-plan-obus-algiers

https://factrail.ai/facts/lc-plan-obus-algiers

Accessed 15 October 2026.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed

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