The house had been a family home, then offices, then nothing for years. When the work began, the white stone façade was grey, the wrought-iron balconies rusted, and the patio’s orange tree was still standing.
Everything was recorded before anything was touched: the mouldings piece by piece, the carved cedar doors, the cement tiles, the zellige of the fountains. The four-metre-twenty ceilings stayed; the partitions added over the decades came down.
What was missing was remade exactly by Algerian craftsmen: joiners, ironworkers, plasterers, zellige masters. What could not be was left as it was, with its marks; you can still see them on a step of the main staircase.
There is one thing we did not have to remake: the view. It was there in 1912, and it is there tonight, when the first candle is lit in Chemâa’s dining room.
An article signed by the house