Casablanca developed from the medina and the first basin of the port, mainly from 1920. It is the urbanist Henri Prost who drew the first extensions between the years 1917 and 1922. When this one leaves Morocco in 1923, the bulk of Casablanca’s structure is defined.
In the 1950s, the architect Michel Ecochard ran for 6 years the planning department of the French protectorate and drew a new expansion plan and organization of the city.
The medina is the historic heart of the city. It is surrounded by a wall and eight doors, the best known, the gate of Marrakech is at the southern entrance of the old city. Very close to Bab Marrakech is the clock tower, in front of the Bab es Souk door. The café of La Sqala overlooks the harbor entrance. It was originally a Portuguese fortified point in the wall.
East of the medina unfolds the Art Deco district which was the European quarter of the city under the French protectorate. It houses several monumental compositions that give a particular character to the city: the administrative square, the Arab League Park, the broad boulevards planted with palm trees, etc.
To the west of the medina is the prized district Burgundy and, by the sea, the great mosque Hassan II and embankments to be built soon. A little further, the corniche, its restaurants, and beaches, in front of the hill of Anfa place of residence of the most affluent categories.
The heart of the city, including the Medina, the center of business, most hotels, and foreign consulates, is bounded by the Boulevard Zerktouni marked in the middle by the two towers of the Twin Center designed by the architect Ricardo Bofill.
For ordinary people, Casablanca is the art-deco city par excellence. Yes, but under this generic and generalized term, it hides a variety of representative movements of twentieth-century architecture.
The first buildings to be erected outside the enclosure of the medina are naturally of neo-Moorish style. A style invented and widely distributed, decades ago, in Algeria and Tunisia. Much appreciated today, for its picturesque and romantic side, the neo-Moorish was strongly fought by Lyautey, Prost, and company. He was reproached for being content to flatten elements of the Islamizing decor (semicircular or broken arches, azulejos-like earthenware panels, cement mosaic, and other green tiles) on buildings with a volumetric and classical European circulation, in order not to say ordinary. The Excelsior Hotel on the United Nations Square is a perfect example. To counter this taste of neo-Moorish, the Lyautey team and their followers have set out to create a new style and completely qualified as neo-Moroccan. Lyautey himself set the rules, it was to draw inspiration from the traditional architecture of the Makhzen cities in terms of the sobriety and whiteness of the facades, as well as the principles of the movement of people and the air, the diffusion of the light of the houses with patio. To this, it was necessary to add the systematic use of the elements of the Moroccan traditional decorative vocabulary: refill, the ceiling in cedarwood, ironwork and other glazed green tiles.
A TOTALLY NATIONAL STYLE
But little attached to the tradition he was, Lyautey was nonetheless keen on modernity. Hygiene, comfort, convenience, simplicity, and functionality were recurring terms in his speech. In Casablanca, the most beautiful jewels of the neo-Moroccan architecture are the buildings-monuments grouped around the place Mohammed-V (former Administrative Square): the Tribunal, the Consulate of France, the Wilaya, the Post Office, and Bank Al -Maghrib. At the same time, developers have built neo-classical buildings straight from the French Riviera and the Riviera, also called “Louis XV pastry”, About the decorative elements, somewhat heavy, adorning the facades: Bacchus heads and garlands carved in cement, cornices and other friezes, etc.
Snubbed by aesthetes, this type of architecture still pleases the general public. In the mid-twenties, Casablanca will wave the wave of art deco. Large parts of the city will be stamped very popular around the world but will be developed on an exceptional scale in Casablanca. Better, next to an art-deco with an international character, will develop a particularly deco-deco art-deco, integrating, with happiness, Moroccan decorative elements especially zellij. The most beautiful example of this art deco is the Glaoui building – named after the Pacha of Marrakech who was the owner, at the entrance of Boulevard Mohammed V.
From the end of the twenties, buildings in Casablanca with nude and smooth facades, cubist volumetry, simplicity, and elegant depiction emerge. This so-called functionalist style, with Bauhaus accents, will also spread in the White City. The exceptional island-building called Assayag, rue Hassan Seghir, is a great sample. Soon large vessels, all curved lines of long long balconies, punctuate their proud the great boulevards of the city. The style ” liner” or “streamline ” will be adopted, especially for large towers like the Liberty Building, nicknamed “seventeen floors”, then one of the highest in Africa, still today marks the spirits, not his elegant slender figure.
In the fifties, sixties, and seventies, a bold and provocative new style prevails in Casablanca: brutalism. Rid of any decorative element, this style glorifies concrete – often delivered in rough form – by subjecting it to futuristic forms. It would be wrong, reading this summary, of the main architectural movements that have left their mark on Casablanca, that these are different styles that coexist, indifferently, next to each other. Very often, they interpenetrate freely, such art-deco building has kept art-nouveau and/or neo-Moroccan aspects; such a functionalist has strong art-deco hints, etc. So much so that the architecture of Casablanca has been repeatedly described as” mixed architecture “.
The architectural styles of Morocco
Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca
Originally, the most common architectural style in Morocco was Arab-Islamic where the exterior decor is concentrated at the door. Since 1920, the influence of European architectural movements has dominated Morocco, especially in the economic capital. We still find today many buildings of various styles such as neoclassical, neo-Moorish, cubism, art deco, and Arab-Andalusian. Going through Art Nouveau, Bauhaus, functionalism, and more. Selektimmoa.ma has decided to present you with some architectural styles of Morocco that are as rich in beauty as in history.
Neoclassical
The neo-classical architecture dates from the nineteenth century European, and it concerns a handful of buildings downtown. It is characterized by its columns, balconies, and loggias, decorated with floral decorations, garlands, and carved medallions.
Moorish Revival
The neo-Moorish style mainly concerns buildings that are located outside the old medina. The inspiration for this style goes back to the 19th century with the achievements of some North African countries such as Tunisia. The Excelsior Hotel is a representative example of the neo-Moorish style it is characterized by the use of broken arches, azulejos on the facades, pergolas, green tiles on the roofs, and awnings
Art deco
The Art Deco style is a new era for architecture during the mid-nineteenth century. The change concerns not only the decor but also the forms that become geometric and stylized. This style breaks definitively with classical ordinances and realistic ornamentations. In some buildings, the zellige is most often used to replace the ceramic tiles that cover the buildings of Europe at the same time.
Andalusian Arabo
Present throughout Morocco, Andalusian Arab architecture sometimes dates back to the Almohad period (11th century). Its influence on contemporary architecture in Morocco, even in the four continents of the globe, is still felt today in some constructions.
New Moroccan
This style was born thanks to Lyautey’s desire to combine Moroccan art with tradition and modernity. Also called “official architecture”, the neo-Moroccan is very close to Turkish architecture. It can be found in the medina of Casablanca in various places.
Functionalist
This modern movement, called functionalism, appeared in the late twenties in Morocco. He comes from cubism known through constructivism in the USSR and Bauhaus in Germany. This style is mainly characterized by its bare and smooth facades and cubist volumetry.
The architectural heritage represents a boundless wealth for our kingdom and even for the rest of the world. In fact, several buildings are part of UNESCO’s final list of the world’s architectural heritage.
In addition, Morocco is among the first countries in the world to have adopted the Art Deco style in architecture, whose Casablanca Medina abounds. They attract tourists from around the globe, to admire our heritage.
According to UNESCO, Casablanca (Morocco) was an experimental laboratory of 20th-century architecture.
The city is characterized by a high concentration of avant-garde art deco, functionalism, and modernist buildings. In Casablanca, the know-how of traditional arts mingled with modern architecture and international trends in decorative arts of the early twentieth. The buildings were decorated with modernity and comfort at the time still rare in Europe: bathrooms, WC, garbage chutes, elevators, and underground parking.
Like other big cities in the world such as Brasilia, Casablanca has a wealth of architecture worthy of major cities of the twentieth century.
Neoclassical
The architectural trend of the XIX th century Europe for some structures in the center where one can observe balconies, loggias, and columns, decorated with garlands, floral decorations, and carved medallions. Mainly focused are the initially significant buildings constructed out of the old medina, somewhat inspired by North African achievements in the XIXth century (Tunisia, Algeria), such as the Hotel Excelsior, considered by the use of pointed arches, tiles (tiles) on the pergolas, facades, green tiles on the awnings and roofs.
Art Deco Style: In 1925 Decorative Arts Exhibition
The decor and forms become stylized, and geometric, rid of realistic ornamentations and classical ordinances.
Functionalist style
Since the 1920’s, the new Cubist movement has been present in the Casablanca. The form of the modern look of the city will be these buildings with their bare facades.
Public buildings
They have taken the decorative basics of conventional architecture: friezes, arcades, and panels covered with green tiles, carved stone, zelliges, and wooden ceilings. However, they stand out obviously from the neo-Moorish design because of the straightforwardness of rational design and volumes. The design will be suggested by the authorities of the Protectorate, to be precise, by Gen. Lyautey who’s very devoted to the exterior sobriety of the local constructions.
Architecture
The 1920s: Original style, characteristics of the first years of the Protectorate
The image of a “new city” conveyed by pioneers and settlers at the beginning of the century attracts many architects from Casablanca to many different origins. At the beginning of the 20s, there are 3 times more architects in Casablanca than in Tunis. In general, whatever approach they decide to adopt, will be largely influenced by Moroccan art and crafts. The architectural modernity to which they have all been addicted will be counterbalanced by the use of traditional ornamentation. The use of Moroccan decorative arts will be combined with Art Nouveau a. Art Deco motifs giving birth to an original style, characteristic of the first years of the Protectorate. Therefore, the decorative pluralism of the facades of large buildings that emerge in the city center is the rule: ornaments made of cherubs, fruit baskets, or heads of lions mix harmoniously with friezes in zellige, stucco or Cedarwood balconies as evidenced by the hotel Excelsior, the building-passage of Glaoui, or the administrative buildings of the city center.
The large colonial villas, sway between the Parisian mansion and that of the Riviera with their terraces and verandas. But those that grab the attention of critics, and that we will see regularly cited in architectural magazines, are the neo-Moroccan villas, as the villa el Mokri today demolished, Moroccan decorative elements and the layout reminiscent of Parisian mansions. The arrival of a new generation of architects at the end of the 1020s, trained to new principles, will lead to the gradual abandonment of the use of applied decorations.
The 30s: The neo-Moorish style
With the 30s, the time is stripping: comfort and modernity are the keywords of architectural creation thus sweeping the neo-Moorish style and ornamental profusion.
The new generation of architects who landed in Casablanca at the end of the 1020s had only one obsession: to put into practice the modern theories learned on the benches of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. From then on, the work on the volumes replaces the one on the decorations which give way to the balconies, to the bow-window saving space, and the facades of the buildings, which are constantly gaining height, are bare. Luxury buildings, or those of current production, take into account the concern for comfort that animates the Casablanca bourgeoisie and all are equipped with elevators, garbage incinerators, garages, and bathroom apartments. Seal works of art, and luxury buildings in the city center will be named after their sponsor, thus referring to monuments in this “new city”. But it is in the villas that the architects leave all their ingenuity where they experience the latest discoveries in terms of housing and comfort. Highly impressed by the profusion of constructions, international critics will all agree to describe Casablanca as the capital of modern architecture.
Between 1910 and 1960, Casablanca was a field of experimentation in the field of architecture. Since then, the particularly rich variety of styles has coexisted and enriched the architectural space of the city.
Among the different architectural influences of this period, we find among others the Arab-Andalusian style, art nouveau, art deco, cubism, the modern movement, and brutalism.
The decorative pluralism making the rule on the facades of the new city during the first decades (ornamentations made of cherubs, fruit baskets, zellige friezes), left place in the 30s to a more refined architecture and functionalist.
The architects of that time built modern taller buildings with balconies and oriels to save space. These luxurious buildings, equipped with elevators, garages, were named after their sponsor. As for the villas, the architects let their ingenuity go by experimenting with the latest discoveries in terms of living a. comfort.
This functionalist architecture preaching comfort, the minimalist, the lights and the bold perspectives earned Casablanca its image as a modern city.
Levy Bendayon Building
The construction of this building in 1928 by the architect Marius Boyer, inaugurates the modern movement that will characterize the 30s. Perceived as a strong trend of modern architecture in Casablanca, it takes again the concept of the building.
Moretti-Milone Building
Overlooking the United Nations Square with its eleven floors, the building built by Pierre Jabin, inaugurated in 1934 the constructed in height in the city center. The luxury of Me building resides less in its facade marked by Me large vertical and horizontal lines of its bow window than in the quality of its equipment, or the number of its elevators.
The villas of the 30s The Park District, an archipelago of greenery and calm, located near the city center, has been relatively preserved. In the rue d’Alger, the rue du Parc, and the boulevard Moulay Youssef, lined with magnificent palm trees, one can still contemplate some magnificent Art Nouveau or Art Deco villas of the 30s, even if most have given way to buildings of recent construction.
The 50s: Modernity is entering
The 1950s marked an era of economic prosperity that strongly influenced the architectural production of the time. Finding echo in the new generation of architects, the choices of the Casablancan bourgeoisie, strongly impregnated with American culture, relate to villas with Californian accents.
In ultra-modern style, the villas of the 50s are primarily marked by the personality of their architects. Personal works, they amaze by the boldness of their lines, and the architectural innovation they show. But this freedom of tone is not unanimous, a. the differences in style will accompany class differences: if the ultra-modern style seduces the very well-off classes, the petty bourgeoisie is built, in the neighborhoods of CIL, villas with a mixed style that reflect the outlines of southern architecture.
But the 50’s will above all be deeply marked by the invention of “habitat for the greatest number” set up by Ecochard and his team in 1950. The development of public housing programs gives birth to large groups cheap housing for Muslims, Israelites, and Europeans. Thus, for example, the housing city of the central quarries was to reduce the shantytowns while providing Muslim homes consistent with traditional habits: the city of el Hank, planned to relocate the 10,000 Israelites of the old medina, or the city of Bournazel (1954) for a very modest European clientele. At the same time, the proliferation of mass leisure activities led to the development of private clubs on the corniche, the construction of new cinemas, such as Lutetia in 1950, and the development of service stations and garages, of which Me Volvo garage in 1950 was an example. amazing architectural. The architectural culture of the 50s will continue after Independence until the 80s, when we will see the irruption of post-modern themes.
Villa Sami Suissa
The first building of its kind, the villa built by Jean Francois Zevaco in 1947, inaugurated the ultra modern style characteristic of Me post-war years. Judged revolutionary, Me villa, often cited in international architecture journals, has today become one of the emblems of the city.
Airbrush Tit Mellil
Nothing better than this monument illustrates the creative freedom shown by post-war architects. Built in 1953 by Jean Franmois Zevaco, the air terminal, with its raw concrete structure associated with its white walls, breaks with the architectural tradition of public buildings built until then.
Freedom Building
its 17 floors, the Liberte building, built in 1949 by Leonard Morandi, was considered “the first African high-rise apartment building experience.” Located on Zerktouni Boulevard, it is today one of the symbol of modern buildings.
Today, guided tours of the capital for an audience of architects a. urban planners from around the world are even organized by associations of enthusiasts of the architecture of the white city to discover the urban experiments of the time.
The Municipal Swimming Pool of Casablanca
The city of Casablanca lived, between 1910 and 1956, a real architectural revolution. It was a laboratory of experiences that welcomed several schools and schools of architecture including Art Deco or Bauhaus. This diversity of styles conferred an incomparable charm to Casablanca.
Among these architectural jewels figured the municipal swimming pool. This pool may not tell you anything, but during the first decades of the last century, it was considered the largest in the world.
Everything begins at the beginning of the 20th century: Aïn Diab beach is the favorite place of Casablancais and Europeans of the time. The ideal site benefits everyone considering the proximity of the city center. Despite its idyllic appearance, this beach is dotted with rocks.
In 1928, an architect, Albert Laprade, presents his project of the municipal swimming pool to public works of Casablanca. It consists of building a large complex on the coast including a racetrack, a town hall, a school and a church. But this project is not retained.
This does not prevent the architect Maurice L’Herbier to take it back. In 1931, this project began to take shape and the construction lasts three long years. July 14, 1934, the seaside center, in other words the municipal swimming pool, is officially inaugurated. The site is named Georges Orthlieb, named after a civil controller, regional chief and president of the municipal commission of Casablanca.
On 5.7 hectares, the first basin measures 480 meters long and 75 wide. It is surrounded by a rest area of 3.6 hectares; the second, Georges Louis Basin, is intended for swimming and waterpolo competitions; the third, popular, is for associations, schools and the military.
This municipal pool has long been the pride of Casablancais. Its history has unfortunately ended, a few years later, after the independence of Morocco. The site fell into oblivion and was completely abandoned by the inhabitants of the white city. Now, it is only a distant memory of a generation that has experienced the architectural splendor of Casablanca.
In the 80s, on the site of this marvel of yesteryear was built another wonder of the present: the majestic Hassan II mosque, the third largest mosque in the world.
The Vox Cinema
The Vox cinema was located at the end of Place de France. It was one of the monuments built by the great architect Marius Boyer in 1935. It was the largest cinema in Africa. It was destroyed in the 70s. Today in a frightening context where the Casablanca cinemas close in turn,
the duty of memory sends us back to this Moroccan pride destroyed by stupidity and aberration.
Inaugurated in 1935, the Vox cinema is one of the major works of the architect Marius Boyer. Conceived as an isolated building, as a monumental addition to Paris-Morocco stores (which no longer exist), it was one of the largest cinemas on the African continent. According to Michel Caillou, a specialist, it was an “enormous” building that projected on the ground “its cubic mass”. It could accommodate no less than 2,000 people. An absolute record. It was a movie monster that could also serve as a huge theater, opera and especially for theaters. He had three balconies superimposed (a rare case in the architecture of the genre) in a room that marked especially by its sobriety. One of the major points of innovation that had been the object of the monument today destroyed, it was his indirect lighting. A find for the time that testified to the avant-garde character of the architect and the city of Casablanca already in the thirties could boast of having one of the largest cinemas in the world. Another highlight of this monumental architecture: the ceiling which was retractable and which allowed, at the same time, in the absence of air conditioning at the time (still a genius find) to enjoy the coolness of the Casablanca summer evenings.
About the history of the neighborhood Alhbas in Casablanca / Habous. The birth of the history of Khalid.
On March 13, 1917, Sultan Moulay Yusuf signed an honorable contract through which the so-called “ Bahair Karazim ” lands would be lost to the administration of confinement.
A donation of 41,600 square meters by Mr. Haim Ben Moshe Ben Dahan and his associates to the Sultan will be the main nucleus through which the royal palace will see the light under the supervision of the Italian architects Pertuzzio from the same year in 1917. Then, the next will be the construction of “ Darb al-Hajeb al-Tohami ”, “ Darb al-Sayyidna ”, “ Darb al-Habbous or al-Habbas ” and then the court or court of al-Basha under the supervision of Edmon Brion and August Cadet, the latter who will become the supervisor. The only one on this workshop after 1935.
The construction of the neighborhood of Al-Habbas with all its colors and facilities will gradually last from 1918 to 1955. This long period of workshops of this size will require the purchase of five new hectares of new heirs by Bin Dahan.
This new and traditional city, so to speak, was able engineered thanks to the sophistication and expertise of its engineers to combine what is social and societal where it was directed primarily to a special segment and predetermined, and that is a population with a modest and limited income, then culturally and geometry where the geometry Its unique courtyards and organized shops and its exotic paths, which, when frequented or wandering, give the visitor the labyrinth of the shape of the maze in its alleys, which was characterized and characterized by most of the ancient cities of Morocco.
Labyrinth-like paths, small courtyards and closed houses on the old Moroccan style of this neighborhood and you will express this small city that respected the conservative character of the families of Morocco, Habous and as I want him to be a piece of space-time where life is organized in an original authentic way and unique.
Al Ahbas Neighborhood:
1918 – 1950, a long time, a legendary neighborhood.
Located in the southern region of the city of Casablanca, this neighborhood is not the result of coincidence, but came as a result of an idea formulated by “ Samuel Biarney ” Director of the Department of Habbas in 1916 in parallel with the first civilized scheme developed by Henri Prost for the city of white start since the year 1915.
this neighborhood is part of the enterprise idea demographic expansion, which began to know the city of Casablanca in multiple directions, especially the southern region and called the then Fort Provost to have been mainly include many of the prisoners Germans long first World war camps, Location located outside the scope of the then circular street and the name Z is currently the ‘resistance street’.
The location of Al-Habbas is a unique location from the geographical point of view of the city where it is located on the plateau “ Mers Sultan ” and adjacent to the national road “ Madyouna road ” and to the railway line, we also note that the land allocated for the construction of this neighborhood, was in The property of a rich Jewish merchant, named Haim Ben Dahan and a friend of Samuel Bjarne, was presented in the form of a gift to the then-Sultan Moulay Youssef.
After this donation, Sultan Moulay Yusuf will order the division of these 41,600 square meters of land into four fragments of varying magnitude so that the first will be dedicated to the construction of a royal palace which is located to this day, the second called “ Darb Sedna ” allocated to accommodate the manpower of the palace and the third will be called After the “ trail of the brow Thami ” and also dedicated to the workers of the palace, which will be demolished in the early eighties of the last century in the framework of the expansion and maintenance witnessed by the Royal Palace, an area that was compensated by the gardens of the Royal Palace currently an area of four hectares and then finally the fourth area and Is the neighborhood of Habbas or the district of Habbous as Stalh it has all glittery.
Beginning in 1916, Henri Prost, who was in charge of urban planning during the French Protectorate in Morocco, will assign architect Albert LAPRADE to draw up a special plan for the Habous neighborhood, which was not completed, which led to the assignment of young French engineers, A. Cadet and E. Brion, to accomplish. An integrated plan is available on all the necessary facilities of a neighborhood next to the Royal Palace and unique characteristics combining the Arab-Islamic culture manifested in the form of approved architecture in addition to rare manifestations of urbanization and urbanization in the period of the beginning of the twentieth century of drinking water in homes and sewage channels and trying to develop it Wanga E to the fullest during the continuous expansion known habs district over a period of more than thirty years of construction and construction.
As a result of the rapid economic and demographic development that the city of Casablanca knew, it became necessary to find solutions that are mainly to accommodate the inhabitants of the shantytowns that were spreading at light speeds on the marginal areas of the city. However, the neighborhood will know a strong competition to win a house not only for what it planned for. The inhabitants of the poor shantytowns are still inhabited, but even by the rich and merchants of the city from the Fassi, Rabatian families or their counterparts, especially for their obsession with the accuracy of the architecture, which succeeded in highlighting the advantages of both A. Cadet and E.Brion. , Marks U, Rabat, Salé and many other cities, something that combines what is authentic and contemporary at the same time and moment.
Royal Palace
The most important building of the Mers Sultan plateau is the Royal Palace, which was built in 1917 by the brothers Pertuzzio, in addition to a group of Andalusian gardens under the supervision of garden expert Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, which gave the Royal Palace a clear and respectable priority. With the rest of the buildings built in this new city or neighborhood Alhabbas.
The palace of Al-Habbas is today the secondary residence of the king after the main residence in Rabat, where he was known to receive a group of important international figures from heads of state and famous international figures, to be the most important event known to this palace is the reception of Pope Jean-Paul II in 1985 by the late King Hassan II.
Mosque of Youssoufia (Mosque of Moulay Youssef) A. Cadet & E. Brion 1921:
Al-Yousifi Mosque is more than just a mosque. To build a new city, which includes a special taste represented in the neighborhood of Al-Ahbas, which gave the opportunity for the sultans of the twentieth century Morocco to restore the glories of construction for the successive families of the rule of Morocco from the Almohad and Almoravid and so on, through the religiousization of the neighborhood Building mosques, especially in the form of Almohads.
The Mandarine Mosque, or Moulay Youssef Mosque, was inaugurated in 1923 by the same sultan whose name bears this mosque.
What gives this mosque a taste and a special engineering form is its beautiful silo, which is not to say a replica of the silo of the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakech, where it refers to the era of Almohads, where the Moroccan urban has been magnificence and beauty and uniqueness, especially in the way of building the silos of mosques, because it is in custom Moroccan architecture The silo is the first and most important to give the mosque its unique and unique through the decorations and the strength of the beauty of Moroccan traditional research industry.
The attempt to imitate the Koutoubia silo was never a coincidence, of course. The mosque, built since 1196, was restored by A. Cadet, which made it a reference to his deep and obvious fascination after the construction of such a mosque, the Moulay Youssef Mosque.
Mosque of Mohammed bin Yusuf (Mohammed V) Mosque of Mohammadi 1934–1936 A. Cadet
Only two years were enough for the construction of the Mohammed V mosque with its traditional shape and an area of 4,210 square meters, which is very similar to that of the villagers in Fez. After its inauguration by the young sultan on June 12, 1936, it will become the largest mosque in the white city. The mosque next to it, the mosque of Youssoufi, glorified its place in the hearts of the inhabitants of the neighborhood and the inhabitants of Casablanca, especially in the first period of French protection in Morocco.
For the construction of this architectural masterpiece had A. Cadet once again the need to draw from the heritage of Almohads especially to distinguish this era of brilliance and highness in the construction of mosques.
We note especially that the silo of this unique mosque explicitly not in terms of architectural or aesthetic, during which the engineer A. Cadet employed most of the techniques of zellig, engraving and gypsum that characterize the traditional Moroccan industry, especially in a silo up to 56 meters long, the longest and most beautiful compared to the silo of the Moulay Mosque Youssef next door, just a few dozen meters away.
Years later, the mosque of Mohammed V or the Mohammedan Mosque will become the main and private qibla for the worshipers because of the beauty of its decoration and the value of the scholars who used to visit it and worship people in the five daily prayers or even on Friday sermons also throughout the year.
Basha Court, Casablanca (Al Ahbas):
The court is considered to be the main and most valuable building of the Habbous district, on the one hand for its large pyramidal hexagonal or quadruple-shaped roofs in the traditional Moroccan green zigzag. Ideally referring to the history of Arab-Islamic civilization in Andalusia.
The Basha Court in Al-Habbas has a history of many characteristics, it is the only building in the era of French protection in Morocco, which opened its workshops for construction during the Second World War, eleven years was enough for A. Cadet to accomplish this wonderful masterpiece.
It is also worth noting that in a critical period such as World War II, due to the lack of abundant building materials such as iron and cement, A. Cadet will decide to take on the adventure and challenge of constructing this building in a very traditional way with traditional local building materials but of very high quality. excellent: stone steel yellow from bin Sulaiman area or Bouskoura, tiles, and Alqurmod from the city of Fez, marble also from the valley does, wood trees Aerar from Atzer forests and Khenifra, cast Safi and other variety of materials from all over the country …
Basha Court was during A .Cadet architect in the literal sense of the word where he k Maestro is a team with all its manifestations, forms and peculiarities and what distinguishes it is that it has attracted “ teachers ” Moroccans from Fez, Marrakech, Safi and many other cities, forming a team of traditional workers who have worked together for a very long period of thirty years.
In order not to forget, the main objective of building this building, which can not be said or described, is that it is “ truly a unique architectural masterpiece ”, in order to be a court for Moroccan Muslims to separate them in their worldly affairs, and as a venue for the reception of personalities by Pasha Casablanca compensated. Thus, the court of Dar al-Mashur in the old city, which became little capacity.
The Basha Court is currently a building that houses one of the eight districts of Casablanca, the headquarters of the “Casablanca Settat” council as well as the advisory office of the Royal Palace.
