The M’zab Valley

Five fortified towns built on the rock of a limestone plateau between 1012 and 1350, by Ibadi Berbers who had lost an argument with the rest of Islam and came south into the desert to be left alone. El Atteuf is the oldest, then Bounoura, Melika, Beni Isguen and Ghardaia, which is the main town now. The plan of each is the same and it is a plan with an argument in it: the mosque sits at the summit, doubling as a fortress and a lookout, and the houses go round it in concentric rings, all of standard size and type, so that no family’s house is grander than another’s. Water is shared by a system worked out for a place where it barely rains. Le Corbusier came to look and took ideas away with him. UNESCO listed it in 1982 as an intact traditional human habitat perfectly adapted to its environment. Ghardaia Province, about 600 km south of Algiers.