A monographic Study of the Military Forts Of the city of Bejaia and an analysis of their building systems

Abstract

Béjaïa City had known during the different dynasties, many forts that had lasted up to the French colonization an oven up to nowadays. Most of these forts are from Spanish building and had sometimes been restricted, this, according to some building of medieval and ancient time. During the Spanish conquest in 1509 under Pierre De Navarre, three great edifices were built. A fortress was built in “the Star Castel”, (a castle from medieval period), which was called “the Imperial fort”, nowadays called “Moussa Fort”. Secondly, he restricted “the Abdel-Kader fort”, an ancient, fort. He also fortified the ancient citadel, neigh boring the sea, near the naval dockyard, On the Roman port seat. These military forts are quite different in their architectural typology, but present a lot of similitude in their building systems, thus, we can notice, the use of bricks, dried stones and mortar lime. Each material of construction has specific physical, chemical and mechanical characteristics. This specificity is the result of the nature of geological resources and their modes of manufacture. The objectives of this study are the identification and inventory of various construction systems and the characterization of their materials of construction. Through this study, we determined the physical, chemical and mechanical characteristics and the mineral composition of clay bricks, jointing mortars and coating mortars (plaster).