Its plans drawn up in the 1930s by Le Corbusier, a so-called Cité Radieuse, named Obus, was to be built around an eighteen kilometre-long block of flats in Algiers. The project never actually saw the light of day, but it is this dystopian city, superimposed on reality, that provides the setting for Superstructure by Sonia Chiambretto and Hubert Colas.