A regional identity through a railway line : NorthTunis suburb and the TGM

Résumé En

The TGM (Tunis-Goulette-Marsa) is a railway line which connects Tunis withMarsa while passing by Goulette. The first electrified suburban line of theAfrican continent, bears officially the name of TGM since 1905, date of theinauguration of the first direct layout through the Tunis Lake. In fact well theTGM was at the origin of the Tunis extension of towards north creating in seafront, the most attractive suburbs of the capital. We propose to put the projectoron this railway line characteristics and the architectural specificities of itsstations, in an historical and contemporary aiming, in order to direct the Tunisianurban developers towards the interests of the railway heritage and to feed thecurrent reflexion on Tunisian urban space and the rail-bound transports.Indeed, to follow the evolution of the suburban railroad statutes contributes to anawareness of the city as a significant space. The reading of urban space is notlimited to architectural forms, it is also organized by its means of transports.Instead of getting lost in a total, general and reducing definition of the northernTunis suburbs identity, we will target the place of the railway identity of an areain its total identity.More precisely, we think that the Railway stations are urban entities which knewhow to generate their own temporal culture, and where it is urgent to study the“lifespan” of its identity impact. Line TGM is punctuated by stations whichpreserved the original néo-Moorish style with a repair in 1979, but today, aharmony loss with surrounding urban fabric is clearly perceptible. These stationsare directly active in the production of the suburbs regional identity but arelocked up and are not any more transformed to constitute a different universebeing used as developing reference. The TGM myth does not exist any more butonly in books. With the accelerated urbanization and use of cars, those whichtake it are stripped and do not have any idea of its history. This micro-regionalidentity can, through a particular form of development, overcome the challengesof urban developments which tend to asphyxiate it and destroy it.On a methodological level, it is a question to write an identifying monograph ofa space, on the one hand, by exploring its endogenous memory, and on the otherhand, by focusing on contemporary uses and practical. We will carry a newglance on urban, architectural, technical, economic and social potentialities ofTGM line and stations. We will emphasize the permanence of historical indiceswhich are continuously secreted.The results will consolidate the assumption that the railway line identity andarchitectural potential must be better taken into Tunisian urban space reflexions.The relations which we establish between railway identity, architectural identityand social identity, is a transverse reading which makes possible a better controlof increasing contradictions between the areas modernization and their urbanidentity.