BORJ SFAXIEN: UNIQUE ARCHITECTURE IN A BALANCED ECOSYSTEM

The Sfaxien space for millennia evolves like an ecosystem born from the complementarity between the city, the sea and its immediate environment; the J’neins, support for vernacular architecture in harmony with nature and in balance with the cosmos. This form of architecture, the fruit of the ingenuity of anonymous builders, presents an ancestral heritage rooted in its environment. In complementarity with the j’neins, it is expressed by underlying data and resident dynamics in symbiosis with the experience of the inhabitants. The traditional Borj therefore appears today as an architecture that is part of an endangered heritage. It calls for urgent intervention for its enhancement/conservation. The historical gravity and the cultural plot are more than ever summoned to understand the richness of this architecture in decline. The objective of this article is to highlight the relevance of this form of habitat as well as its pecularities as an architecture of “cooling” (occupied only in summer) inscribed in its territory. In the absence of a collective conscience and an unwavering will on the part of the public authorities, this architecture is doomed to massive destruction.