GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE EXHIBITION GALLERY, THE GETTY CENTER MAY 19–OCTOBER 18, 2009 The city of Algiers, renowned for its white walls cascading to the Mediterranean, historically sheltered a diverse population. During the Ottoman centuries (1529–1830), it was home to Arabs, Berbers, black Africans, Turks, and kulughli (oﬀspring of Turkish soldiers and Algerian women). When the French occupied Algiers in 1830, this pluralism was enhanced by an inﬂux of European immigrants from southern Italy and Spain, in addition to French settlers. Under Ottoman rule, Algeria had been a semi- independent province of the empire, and its heyday was the era of the legendary corsairs of the sixteenth century, who expanded Ottoman power throughout the Mediterranean. French rule transformed Algeria. European norms and the French system of governance were imposed. The land was mapped, its peo- ples surveyed and classiﬁed, and dramatic interventions to urban fabrics enforced a new duality. In Algiers, the “Arab” city on the hillside, known as the Casbah, was separated from the “French” or European city that spread out in districts below and around the Casbah. This division, engraved into the spaces of Algiers, endured during the 132 years of French rule that ended with the War of Independence (1954–1962). Cover Image & Fig. 1 Charles Marville, Rue de la Marine, 1850s. Research Library, The Getty Research Institute (95.R.100)