Wanderlust Travel Magazine (UK)
Short break: Casablanca
Take a walk through Casablanca’s streets and you’ll soon discover why local architects are on a mission to get this Moroccan metropolis Unesco-listed, says Sarah Gilbert
Past and present collide in this iconic African city along the Atlantic coast
The name Casablanca – along with its namesake film, shot in a Hollywood studio – may conjure up an aura of North African exoticism. The modern reality, though, is that this Atlantic coast city is Morocco’s commercial capital, a high-energy, cool metropolis.
But if it lacks the mystery of Marrakech and the fascination of Fez, the ‘White City’ certainly has no shortage of architectural gems. From 1912 to 1956, Morocco was under French rule and Casablanca was chosen as the base for the protectorate’s strategic port. The city grew rapidly and French urban planner, Henri Prost, was instructed to turn it into a city worthy of its position.
Prost sought the help of Europe’s top architects and as I walked along the Boulevard Mohammed V – dubbed the Moroccan Champs-élysées – I marvelled at geometric Neoclassical edifices rubbing shoulders with ornate Neomoorish facades, symmetrical Art Deco structures and sleek Modernist towers, all blindingly white against the cobalt-blue sky.
“What was achieved here couldn’t have happened anywhere else,” explained Rachid Andaloussi, co-founder of non-profit Casamémoire, a group of local architects with a mission to safeguard the city’s 20th-century architecture, and get Casablanca Unescolisted. “Two cultures met, mixed and expressed themselves in a unique way,”
There are new flagship projects too. Around the civic hub of Mohammed V Square, Marius Boyer’s Wilaya has been joined by the ultra-modern Grand Theatre of Casablanca, designed by a Pritzker-prize-winning architect, Christian de Portzamparc, in collaboration with Andaloussi. While the oceanfront Anfaplace has created a new zone on the Corniche, with apartments, shops and a hotel.
Visitors can also take in the monumental murals adding colour to several white-walled apartment blocks. Travel in July and watch artists at work for the Sbagha Bagha Casablanca Street Art Festival.