MAROCCO

GLOBUS

MOROCCO

Our partner institution in morocco was the INAU [l’Institut National d’Aménagement et d’Urbanisme] in RABAT, where we met with their 3rd cycle students.

TOUR PROGRAMME.

CASABLANCA

The name of morocco's biggest city with 3.6 million inhabitants is probably still better known for the films made in 1942, rather than for this word city. the city's pride is the new HASSAN II built in 1994 mosque although the minarett - the second largest in the world - was only finished in 2019. our interest, however, were the various 'classical' and famous social housing estates, dating back from periods when housing was still rather high on the polical agenda of many progessist stated in the world.

DAL LAMANE

Dar Lamane represents a successful example of a culturally sensitive mass housing project for low-income families. the four-story height which defines the entire project uses prefabricated elements for walls, beams, stairs, floors and arcades in combination with cast-in-place construction. Materials and labor were all local. The complex provides housing for 25,000 people, in 4,022 units, and was completed in 30 months, two full months ahead of targeted time, with a construction cost 15 percent less than estimated. Particular attention has been paid to the problems of safety and security especially with respect to children. the project was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1986.

Source: The Humanity Development Library and Agha Khan Award.

HABOUS QUARTER [1916]

HABBOUS was the first workers' settlement to built in the 1920s in casablanca. The local materials, domestic architecture, low density brought a better success than expected and already in the 1930s first signs of gentrification appeared. When we visited the neighbourhood in 2009, it was still quiet and residential with a healthy mix of services and everyday trade. but in the meantime tourism has conquered the more easy accessible strrets. Fortunately, tourists don't like to walk much. therefore, in the more peripheral sectors the original pace could still be preserved.

CITE VERTICALE: QUARTIER SIDI OTHMAN [1955] hentsch & studer

the SIDI OTHMANE quarter was also developed in the 1950s by the swiss architects Hentsch and Studer, bringing the CIAM movement to morocco. The building was intended to house local inhabitants rather than European expats, and that intention guided the architects in their design, which reflected a number of ethnographic assumptions about the Moroccan populace. Like in the Candilis building residents increasingly altered the construction, but also at the borders of the zone homeless people constructed entirely new shacks, which were finally destroyed by the police in 2016.

CITE VERTICALE [1952] candilis & woods

The VERTICAL CITY bears the name in distinction from the low-rise workers city on the same plot of land next to it. iwas designed by the two architects CANDILIS and WOODS who met while both working for LE CORBUSIER on cité radieuse in marseille. considering the expected hot climate, they allowed for horizontal ventilation in between the floors. They also provided for enclosed living-balconies taking into account the islamic culture which was considered non-compatible with the european balconies.
When we visited the site in 2009, these two unique features had visually disappeared because residents had bricked-up balconies and horizontal spaces in need for mere enclosed living space.

CITE HORIZONTALE

HORIZONTAL CITY is not the official name of this part of the neighbourhood but the model could be found also in other countries. One of the first to propagate the concept was the italian planner adalberto libera who ycould also realize such a settlement, which is TUSCOLANO NEIGHBOURHOOD in rome [1950-54] .

CASAMEMOIRE & MAMMAGROUP

when we prepared the trip to casablanca, we were advised by CASAMEMOIRE , a group of modern heritage interested professionals with y lot a knowledge but little time. But they still run a website with photos of interesting buildings which may serve as a starting point.

in the meantime a group of young architects, MAMMAGROUP, came together with the same passion and turned their interest into a profession and now organize guided architectural tours through their city, and also prepared an architectural map of the city. The key person is called IMAD DAHMANI and you may even listen to an interview with him - or look at their slides accompanied by some music .

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RABAT

INAU

RABAT ist moroccos capital city, but with about half a million inhabitants much smaller and provincial. architecture is mostly french style but the kasbah - the old centre - is quite pittoresque,

south of the kasbah, informal dwellings built by the popular sector are streching towards the coastline - or maybe not anymore. When we visited rabat, there was being planned an 11km long marina, SAPHIRA, for a clientele completely incompatible with the current native population living there. we saw the beginning of a corrugated fence enclosing the squatter residents....

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TAMESNA NEW TOWN

TAMESNA is one of four NEWTOWNS founded in morocco in the 2000s . together, the 4 projects were expected to accomodate more than 1 million residents. accoding to study undertaken by JEUNE AFRIQUE, the residents tha actually moved there, feel trapped: they did not finde the promised infrastructure, the cost of dwellings worked out more expensive than advertised [Khalid Madhi - 2019]

the building typology follows the international real estate developer's products. Only in one of the TAMESNA's quartes, the architects have tried to reinvent the traditional moroccon townscape with pedestrian internal access, arches and domes in one of the sectors name the KASBAH. Stragely enough, these dwellings became popular becasue they were cheaper than the standard houses [€520/m2] - and because they are easy to rent out to europeans who like the authentic flair [boussad aiche, para 38].in TAMESN

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MEKNES

MEKNES is mostly visited by tourists for the proximity [30km] of the ruins which once were the roman town of VOLUBILIS - moroccos oldest town.

but the city of MEKNES is also highly attractive. the medina with its narrow pathways is encircled completly by a 10km long city wall and contains several SOUKS and mosques. another benefit is the low incidence of tourism - hardly any foreigners stays here overneight.

both, volubilis and meknes are UNESCO reconized WORLD HERITAGE SITES.

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FEZ

FEZ is an ancient city which tended to be less visited than Casablanca and Marrakesh, but culturally has probably more to offer than the two other ones. When we visited FEZ in 2008, a big restauration project was already going on in certain parts of the town, but more recently the state with support of world bank has multiplied the former efforts. But the expected effect of higher incomes from tourism has sadly worked out as well, and with the opening cheap flights the number of tourists visiting the has multipied by 10, surpassing 1 million in 2018!.

we were received by the FEZ URBAN DEVELOPMENT OFFICE which was extremely helpful in organizing our visits. We were guided by the architect aziz chaouni who later was commissioned to supervise the renovation of the al-qarawiyyin university library which claims to be the oldest operating library in the world. the same office is now also extending its services to the rural areas, which may help to reduce the classical urban development gap.

urban development book

MARAKESH

MARAKESH has the largest traditional medina of morocco, and its entry square Jemaa el -Fna Square was proclaimed a Masterpiece of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. since about the turn of the century, tourism and foreign investment have started to flush into the city - especially the medina part. line in most of such cases, there have been clearly identifyable winners and losers - the latter mostly belonging to the less economically active population in the historic city. This process has been neatly anlysed in an urban economic study commissioned by interamerican development bank.

official urban development planning in marakesh was not equipped to deal with the rapid growth of the cities population since the 1950s. as a result, a large part of the city popualtion lives in informal settlements as well desribed by Lat Hassou Mohammed in his paper 'Urban growth, territorial and social reorganization in Marrakech' which can be downloaded from academia.

TAMANSOURT NEW TOWN

TAMANSOURT is one of 4 moroccos new towns founded in the first decade of the 2000s. although being the most successful one to tell by the number of present residents [about 50,000], it is now generally considered a failure and owners wanting to sell their house cannot find interested buyers.

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