Modern mosque lamps: electricity in the historic monuments and tourist attractions of French colonial Fez, Morocco (1925–1950) Colette Apelian* During the French Protectorate, administrators enacted laws to preserve pre-twentieth- century Moroccan cities for Western tourists’ appreciation. However, as residents’ desires for contemporary technology grew, officials also sanctioned the modernization of some inhabited historic monuments. In at least one city (madīna), Fez, the struc- tures included centuries-old religious boarding schools, the medersas in French lan- guage documents. The following article draws upon the administrative records of conserving and modernizing the Fez madīna to explore how the installation of elec- tricity in its medersas resulted in technology and styles that blended and expanded the legal definition of Fassi Moroccan visual character. Inhabitants’ responses and redefini- tions are additionally considered. This article therefore brings into conversation the histories of technology and French colonial urbanism while augmenting each discourse with analysis of local actors and innovation within a madīna under aesthetic regulations. Keywords: modernization; preservation; mosque lamps; medersa; French colonial Not long after its creation, the French Protectorate government in Morocco (1912–1956) passed legislation and created an administration to protect pre-twentieth-century cities, mudun, or madīna in the Arabic singular and madinas in many French language docu- ments. At least three laws passed between 1912 and 1914 decreed that monuments, zones, and sites with historic, picturesque, and artistic character and interest would be preserved through formal classification and aesthetic ordinances. Protectorate officials determined the ordinances in subsequent regulations for each city. 1 In the new capital of Morocco, Rabat, the Protectorate government created the Service des Beaux-Arts (SBA) – later the Inspection des Monuments Historiques (IMH) – and placed this administration in charge of enforcing protective laws, and classifying and restoring monuments it deemed historic and artistic in character. At the local level, Services Municipaux represen- tatives helped inspect and communicate SBA policies, announcing their successes in gov- ernment publications. 2 Administrators who helped them enforce laws included local SBA and IMH inspectors, and an official from the Bureau Economique, at least in Fez (‘Fès’ in French transliterations of the Arabic ‘Fās’), one of the largest and oldest of the pre- modern Moroccan madinas. 3 Nearly all of the built environment of this madina and the majority of its surrounding lands remained under SBA and IMH jurisdiction and restric- tions for the duration of the French Protectorate. Postcolonial scholarly studies express a different view of Protectorate preservation than that presented by French officials. Protection is typically characterized as attempts *Colette Apelian Colette Apelian teaches art history in the Arts and Cultural Studies Program, Berkeley City College, Berkeley, CA. Email: capelian@peralta.edu History and Technology Vol. 28, No. 2, June 2012, 177–207 ISSN 0734-1512 print/ISSN 1477-2620 online Ó 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2012.694208 http://www.tandfonline.com