Between all of the end of year uni work, we squeezed in a field trip to Casablanca, Morocco. The trip was designed to be incorporated into the studio, as a contrast city to Edinburgh. In terms of city rankings, Edinburgh and Casablanca are Gamma cities, they have strong ties to the surrounding region, looser ties globally and are key financial centres. They also both had large housing developments built post WW2. So, the trip in pictures:
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| Arid landscape between Marrakesh and Casablanca with stone wall courtyard houses |
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| One of the post WW2 housing developments. Many were designed to provide similar living arrangements to traditional village housing. These estates further out of town were designed bot Moroccans, while the inner area of the city was reserved for European settlers/colonisers. |
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| Lots oh the older 1940s-70s housing stock has been informally modified, mostly by adding on 1-3 storeys. Building out to create verandas on the street level is common. |
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| At the collective arts centre (former abattoir site), lots of graf art amongst other things. The arts collective was created as a mixed arts space for studios and gallery space, performance space for theatre, music and dance. Workshops are held by a variety of organisations for people of all ages and is designed to add arts education into the community, as arts are not a part of mainstream school curriculum. |
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| The best stencil graf art I think I've ever seen. |
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| In one of the main arts spaces |
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| Abattoir buildings |
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| Old machinery tracks |
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| Ventilation |
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| Main arts space with installations |
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| Casablanca is a city of white buildings. |
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| In the habbous |
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| The administrative centre with the catholic church in the background. The administrative buildings are all designed along traditional courtyard house design. The church also uses more Moroccan style techniques - the stained glass is set straight into the walls and not lead light. |
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| The Nouvelle Medina. Another post WW2 housing estate. This one has been heavily altered, the original layout was squares of 8mx8m half of which was courtyard, half two roomed house. The courtyards have been built in and several storeys added to each square, ground floors converted into workshops and businesses. Its quite a good example how infrastructure is appropriated and modified as need requires through self organisation. It is interesting to note that the areas where this happened transitioned from housing only to mixed use. |
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| Downtown. This is the area of town was designed Parisian style with wide boulevards and narrower feeder streets - good for creating beautiful vistas lined with high standard architectural designed apartments, and for mobilising an army during civil unrest. |
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| There are pockets of informal slum housing throughout the city, this is on the outside of the old Medina wall, about 300m away from the multi million dollar Hussein II Mosque. Morocco, like many developing nations has no middle class. |
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| Inside the Mosque |
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| The craftsmanship is amazing in it detailing. |
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| Mint tea |
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| Outside the mosque |
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| Spice market in the old Medina (which, by the way is mot that old. Rebuilt after fires destroyed it in the 1950s) |
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| Waiting for the train at Marrakesh station |
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| One of the many white art deco buildings. |
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And I got a lovely week of sunshine. I love living in Scotland, but I am realising as the days grow shorter that I am just a bit solar-powered, and need regular sun fix. Am enjoying the crisp blue sky days and crunchy frost though.
Thats all for the moment, there are another 1500 or so pictures - some of which I might post at a later date. For now its back to the final assignment of the semester.....
