What’s special about the Medina of Tunis? According to people who actually live there!
Growing up in the Medina of Tunis, walking around traditional houses and self-explanatory streets that express age, intimacy and culture, losing a bit of its charm as most people attempt to modify it without a real thoughtful reflection of their architecture philosophy and identity. All this meditation about the Medina lifestyle has always ended up with the main question:” what is special about the Medina?”
I’ve Always wondered if people born and raised in Paris see the place the same way as those visiting France for the first time. It was one of the most important questions I asked myself. Until I realized that I probably experience a similar situation when a friend asked me what it’s like to live in Medina.
People in La Medina value privacy. When you enter a house, you’d find an empty hall at first. Where a visitor could wait without actually entering the house and with no view of what’s inside. If you continue, however, you’d get to the very spacious roofless courtyard known as the center of the house “Patio”. Doors and windows opening to it on every side. That’s where the rooms are and that’s how each house gets enough air and sunlight. That’s important to know because passing by the outside, you’d only see walls and the big entrance doors and occasionally small windows.
These houses are often adjacent, which makes the rooftops connected. It shows how people were connected and unified through their roof. Rumors said that this was one of the strategies to resist the french colonization in the past. However, I find it odd as it makes the house feel much less secure.
Taking a closer look, you’d notice that in traditional Medinas in our country, houses are often gathered around a mosque and a Souk. Tunis’s Medina is no exception. Mosque Al Zitouna is the biggest and most visited. Close to it, you’d find the Souk split into different streets with each gathering different craftsmen dealing in the same trade. One street for those who specialize in traditional desserts. One for shoemakers, one for Chachia makers, one for jewelry sellers… A hierarchy of jobs that goes from the center of Medina “Mosque Zitouna” outwards.
All streets and alleys of Medina are intertwined, sometimes it’s even like a maze, perhaps purposefully. When I get lost, I just keep going until I get to a main street that I recognize. It’s not like getting lost there is bad after all, it’s such a calm place with beautiful views.
The walls are often painted with calm colors (white or slightly yellowish). The floor is made of light grey stones. The domination of light tones ensures a serene atmosphere. The wooden doors are iconic and have a very special touch, often being big and feel like a small gate with a distinctive color, arabesque decorative patterns, and heavy iron knockers shaped like hands. Cars and motorcycles rarely pass by there so the only sounds you’d hear are those of people chattering.
You’d often find children playing in some alley. They might give you the “stranger” look but they might not even pay attention because they’re used to visitors the same as all the inhabitants there. You might run into some old lady poking her head out of a door waiting for someone to pass by so she could ask them to get her some groceries from the store at the end of the street. If you do offer to help, she’d call you son/daughter, thank you warmly, and might offer sweets. You can also run into a group of architecture students sitting on the side of the street sketching a façade. You’d look up and it would seem like any other house at first, then you’d sneak a look at their drawings. Only then would you notice the beauty of the details that you somehow took for granted.
I could talk for days and it wouldn’t be enough to describe all the things I find special about that place. But are all those things enough for me to enjoy living there?
Do I like living in La Medina?
I like the Medina, but I don’t plan to keep on living here in the future. Seeing the beauty on the outside isn’t enough for me to overlook the other side of the place. Personally, I adore the way Medina’s architecture guaranteed certain unification and intimacy to its occupants, which was perfect one 300 years ago. But now, in 2020, these features strike my millennial spirit as too over-protectiveness, defensiveness in an age when we don’t really need that much of thick walls with small windows to ensure some kind of privacy. With 7 billion Facebook users, privacy has started to have different dimensions, some people might know more than they should about each other, and wall insulation isn’t to be blamed. In the Medina, all occupants used to know each other and stay very close and attached like one family, defensive towards the outsiders, thanks to the architecture dynamics. But now, the concept of privacy and unity has shifted in a way that it doesn’t really matter where you live.. the importance of your personal information is losing its charm.
To sum up, it is a really beautiful place that has its unique charm. I think living there can be a wonderful experience to understand and live the value of unity and intimacy. Visit the Medina and enjoy an educative experience about privacy, architecture and communication!
