Ceramics
Moroccan ceramics are a delight, and excellent value – a decorative tajine may cost you Dh150 to Dh400, depending on size and decoration. Different regions have their own colour schemes: Meknès ceramics tend to be green and black, Fassi pottery is blue, Safi offers black-and-white Berber patterns, and Tamegroute makes a distinctive green glaze from oxidised copper. Salé is strong on yellow and turquoise, geometric patterns and intricate dot-patterned dishes. Marrakesh specialises in monochrome ceramics in red, graphite or orange instead of elaborate decoration. Many rural areas specialise in terracotta crockery, with plain, striking shapes and Berber good-luck symbols painted in henna.
Plain terracotta cooking tajines are oven safe, fine for stovetop cooking and cost less than Dh80. Wrap them well to guard against breakages on the trip home.
Zellij
To make a Moroccan fountain, grab your hammer and chisel, and carefully chip a glazed tile into a geometrically correct shape. Good job – now only 6000 more to go to finish your water feature. Then again, you might leave it to the Moroccan mosaic masters to spiff up your foyer with glittering zellij end tables, entryway mirrors and fountains of all sizes. Fez has a reputation for the most intricate, high-lustre zellij, and the historic fountains around town dating from the Middle Ages are convincing advertisements for Fassi masterworks.
The Art of the Islamic Tile, by Gerard Degeorge and Yves Porter, celebrates the splendours of ceramics across the Middle East, from Istanbul to Fez.
Brass, Copper & Silver
Tea is a performance art in Morocco, requiring just the right props. As if tea poured from over your head wasn't dramatic enough, gleaming brass teapots and copper tea trays are hammered by hand to catch the light and engraved with calligraphy to convey baraka on all who partake. Pierced brass lamps and recycled tin lanterns add instant atmosphere – and if all else fails to impress, serve your guests a sliver of cake with an inlaid knife from Morocco’s dagger capitol, Kelaâ M’Gouna.
Most ‘silver’ tea services are actually nickel silver, and should cost accordingly – about Dh50 to Dh250 for the teapot, and usually more for the tray (depending on size and design).
Lots of the ‘amber’ you’ll see in souqs is plastic. Genuine amber will have a faint incense smell when you light a match near it, and a slightly waxy feel.
Jewellery
Not all that glitters is gold in Morocco, since many Berbers traditionally believe gold to be a source of evil. You may see some jewellers with magnifying glasses working a tricky bit of gold filigree, but most gold you see in the souqs is imported from India and Bali. Sterling will be marked with 925, and is often sold by weight rather than design. Morocco’s mining operations are more concerned with phosphates and fossils than with precious gems, but you will see folkloric dowry jewellery and headdresses with semiprecious stones, including coral, agate, cornelian and amber.
But Moroccan mâalems don’t need precious materials to create a thing of beauty. Ancient ammonite and trilobite fossils from Rissani make fascinating prehistoric amulets, and striking Berber fibules (brooches) in silver are Tiznit’s speciality. Layered wood, nickel silver and brightly coloured enamel make groovy cocktail rings in Marrakesh, and desert Tuareg talismans in leather and silver are fitting gifts for a man of the world.
BUYING SUSTAINABLE SOUVENIRS
Used tyres don't biodegrade, and burning them produces toxic fumes – but when cleverly repurposed by Moroccan artisans, they make fabulous home furnishings. Tyre-tread mirrors make any entryway look dashingly well-travelled and inner-tube tea trays are ideal for entertaining motorcycle gangs. For the best selection, visit the tyre-craft mâalems (master artisans) lining the south end of Rue Riad Zitoun el-Kedim in Marrakesh.
Woodwork
The most pleasingly scented part of the souq is the woodworkers’ area, aromatic from the curls of wood carpeting the floors of master-carvers’ workshops. These are the mâalems responsible for the ancient carved, brass-studded cedar doors and those carved cedar muqarnas (honeycomb-carved) domes that cause wonderment in Moroccan palaces. Tetouan, Meknès and Fez have the best reputations for carved wood ornaments, but you’ll see impressive woodwork in most Moroccan medinas.
For the gourmets on your gift list, hand-carved orangewood harira (lentil soup) spoons are small ladles with long handles that make ideal tasting spoons. Cedar is used for ornate jewellery boxes and hefty chip-carved chests are sure to keep the moths at bay. The most prized wood is thuya wood, knotty burl from the roots of trees indigenous to the Essaouira region. Buy from artisans’ associations that practise responsible tree management and harvesting.
Architecture
Stubbed toes come with the territory in Morocco: with so much intriguing architecture to gawp at, you can’t always watch where you’re going. Some buildings are more memorable than others – as in any developing country there’s makeshift housing and cheap concrete – but it’s the striking variation in architecture that keeps you wondering what's behind that wall or over the next mountain pass. Here are some Moroccan landmarks likely to leave your jaw on tiled floors, and your toes in jeopardy.
Deco Villas
When Morocco came under colonial control, villes nouvelles (new towns) were built outside the walls of the medina, with street grids and modern architecture imposing strict order. Neoclassical facades, mansard roofs and high-rises must have come as quite a shock when they were introduced by the French and Spanish.
But one style that seemed to bridge local Islamic geometry and streamlined European modernism was art deco. Painter Jacques Majorelle brought a Moroccan colour sensibility to deco in 1924, adding bursts of blue, green and acid yellow to his deco villa and Jardin Majorelle.
In its 1930s heyday, Casablanca cleverly grafted Moroccan geometric detail onto whitewashed European edifices, adding a signature Casablanca Mauresque deco look to villas, movie palaces and hotels, notably Marius Boyer’s Cinéma Rialto (1930) and the Hôtel Transatlantique (1922). Tangier rivalled Casablanca for Mauresque deco decadence, with its 1940s Cinematheque and 1930s El-Minzah Hotel – the architectural model for Rick’s Cafe Americain in the 1942 classic Casablanca. Mauresque elements can be seen in cities all over Morocco.
Top Deco
Villa des Arts, Casablanca
Jardin Majorelle, Marrakesh
Cinéma Rif, Tangier
Plaza de España, Melilla
El-Minzah Hotel, Tangier
Fondouqs
Since medieval times, these creative courtyard complexes featured ground-floor stabling or artisans’ workshops and rented rooms upstairs – from the nonstop fondouq flux of artisans and traders emerged cosmopolitan ideas and new inventions. Fondouqs once dotted caravan routes, but as trading communities became more stable and affluent, most fondouqs were gradually replaced with private homes and storehouses. Around 140 fondouqs remain in Marrakesh alone, including historic fondouqs near Pl Bab Fteuh, several lining Rue Dar el-Bacha and one on Rue el-Mouassine featured in the film Hideous Kinky. In Fez, an exemplary fondouq dating from 1711 underwent a six-year renovation to become the spiffy Nejjarine Museum of Wooden Arts & Crafts.
Eight of the world’s leading Islamic architectural scholars give you their best explanations in Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning, by Oleg Grabar et al.
Hammams
These domed buildings have been part of the Moroccan urban landscape since the Almohads, and every village aspires to a hammam of its own – often the only local source of hot water. Traditionally they are built of mudbrick, lined with tadelakt (satiny hand-polished limestone plaster that traps moisture) and capped with a dome that has star-shaped vents to let steam escape. The domed main room is the coolest area, with side rooms offering increasing levels of heat to serve everyone from the vaguely arthritic to the woefully hung-over.
The boldly elemental forms of traditional hammams may strike you as incredibly modern, but actually it’s the other way around. The hammam
is a recurring feature of landscapes by modernist masters Henri Matisse and Paul Klee, and Le Corbusier’s International Style modernism was inspired by the interior volumes and filtered light of these iconic domed North African structures. Tadelakt has become a sought-after surface treatment for pools and walls in high-style homes, and pierced domes incorporated into the ‘Moroccan Modern’ style feature in umpteen coffee-table books. To see these architectural features in their original context, pay a visit to your friendly neighbourhood hammam – there’s probably one near the local mosque, since hammams traditionally share a water source with ablutions fountains.
Historic Hammams
Hammam Dar el-Bacha, Marrakesh
Hammam Lalla Mira, Essaouira
Douches Barakat, Chefchaouen
Hammam Bab Doukkala, Marrakesh
Archaeological excavations, Aghmat
Kasbahs
Wherever there were once commercial interests worth protecting in Morocco – salt, sugar, gold, slaves – you’ll find a kasbah. These fortified quarters housed the ruling family, its royal guard, and all the necessities for living in case of a siege. The mellah (Jewish quarter) was often positioned within reach of the kasbah guard and the ruling power’s watchful eye. One of the largest remaining kasbahs is Marrakesh’s 11th-century kasbah, which still houses a royal palace and acres of gardens, and flanks Marrakesh’s mellah. Among the most photogenic northern kasbahs are the red kasbah overlooking all-blue Chefchaouen, and Rabat’s whitewashed seaside kasbah with its elegantly carved gate, Bab Oudaïa.
Unesco World Heritage designations saved Taourirt kasbah in Ouarzazate and the rose-coloured mudbrick Aït Benhaddou, both restored and frequently used as film backdrops. To see living, still-inhabited kasbahs, head to Anmiter and Kasbah Amridil in Skoura Oasis.
In 2009, Dh230 million was set aside to restore ksour and kasbahs, with top priorities in Er-Rachidia, Erfoud and Rissani.
Ksour
The location of ksour (fortified strongholds, plural of ksar) in southern Morocco are spectacularly formidable: atop a rocky crag, against a rocky cliff, or rising above a palm oasis. Towers made of metres-thick, straw-reinforced mudbrick are elegantly tapered at the top to distribute the weight, and capped by zigzag merlon (crenellation). Like a desert mirage, a ksar will play tricks with your sense of scale and distance with its odd combination of grandeur and earthy intimacy. From these watchtowers, Timbuktu seems much closer than 52 days away by camel – and in fact, the elegant mudbrick architecture of Mali and Senegal is a near relative of Morocco’s ksour.
To get the full effect of this architecture in splendid oasis settings, visit the ksour-packed Drâa and Dadès Valleys, especially the fascinating ancient Jewish ksar at Tamnougalt and the pink,gold, and white ksar of Aït Arbi, teetering on the edge of the Dadès Gorge. Between the Drâa Valley and Dadès Valley, you can stay overnight in an ancient ksar in the castle-filled oases of Skoura and N’Kob, or pause for lunch at Ksar el-Khorbat and snoop around 1000-year-old Ksar Asir in Tinejdad.
Caravan stops are packed with well-fortified ksour, where merchants brought fortunes in gold, sugar and spices for safekeeping after 52-day trans-Saharan journeys. In Rissani, a half-hour circuit will lead you past half a dozen splendid ancient ksour, some of which are slated for restoration. Along caravan routes heading north through the High Atlas toward Fez, you’ll spot spectacular ksour rising between snowcapped mountain peaks, including a fine hilltop tower that once housed the entire 300-person community of Zaouiat Ahansal.
Pick up a copy of Tahir Shah's The Caliph's House for a rollicking account of his project to restore an old Casablanca mansion, starting with exorcising the resident djinns before the builders would start work.
ENDANGERED MONUMENTS: GLAOUI KASBAHS
The once-spectacular Glaoui kasbahs at Taliouine, Tamdaght, Agdz, and especially Telouet have been largely abandoned to the elements – go and see them now, before they’re gone. These are deeply ambivalent monuments: they represent the finest Moroccan artistry (no one dared displease the Glaoui despots) but also the betrayal of the Alawites by the Pasha Glaoui, who collaborated with French colonists to suppress his fellow Moroccans. But locals argue Glaoui kasbahs should be preserved, as visible reminders that even the grandest fortifications were no match for independent-minded Moroccans.
Medersas
More than schools of rote religious instruction, Moroccan medersas have been vibrant centres of learning for law, philosophy and astronomy since the Merenid dynasty. For enough splendour to lift the soul and distract all but the most devoted students, visit the zellij-bedecked 14th-century Medersa el-Attarine in Fez and its rival for top students, the intricately carved and stuccoed Ali ben Youssef Medersa in Marrakesh. Now open as museums, these medersas give some idea of the austere lives students led in sublime surroundings, with long hours of study, several roommates, dinner on a hotplate, sleeping mats for comfort and one communal bathroom for up to 900 students. While other functioning medersas are closed to non-Muslims, Muslim visitors can stay overnight in some Moroccan medersas, though arrangements should be made in advance and a modest donation is customary.
The only fully active mosque non-Muslims are allowed to visit in Morocco is Casablanca’s Hassan II Mosque. It can hold 25,000 worshippers inside (and another 80,000 outside), so you won’t be cramping anyone’s style.
Mosques
Even small villages may have more than one mosque, built on prime real estate in town centres with one wall facing Mecca. Mosques provide moments of sublime serenity in chaotic cities and busy village market days, and even non-Muslims can sense their calming influence. Towering minarets not only aid the acoustics of the call to prayer, but provide a visible reminder of God and community that puts everything else – minor spats, dirty dishes, office politics – back in perspective.
Mosques in Morocco are closed to non-Muslims, with two exceptions that couldn’t be more different: Casablanca’s sprawling Hassan II Mosque and austere Tin Mal Mosque nestled in the High Atlas. The Hassan II Mosque was completed in 1993 by French architect Michel Pinseau with great fanfare and considerable controversy: with room for 25,000 worshippers under a retractable roof and a 210m-high laser-equipped minaret, the total cost has been estimated at €585 million, not including maintenance or restitution to low-income former residents moved to accommodate the structure. At the other end of the aesthetic spectrum is the elegant simplicity of Tin Mal Mosque, built in 1156 to honour the Almohads’ strict spiritual leader, Mohammed ibn Tumart, with cedar ceilings and soaring arches that lift the eye and the spirits ever upward.
Muslims assert that no Moroccan architecture surpasses buildings built for the glory of God, especially mosques in the ancient Islamic spiritual centre of Fez. With walls and ablutions fountains covered in lustrous green and white Fassi zellij (ceramic-tile mosaic), and mihrabs (niches indicating the direction of Mecca) swathed in stucco and marble, Fez mosques are purpose-built for spiritual glory. When vast portals are open between prayers, visitors can glimpse (no photos allowed) Fez’ crowning glory: Kairaouine Mosque and Medersa, founded in the 8th century by a Fassi heiress. Non-Muslims can also see Morocco’s most historic minbar (pulpit): the 12th-century Koutoubia minbar, inlaid with silver, ivory and marquetry by Cordoba’s finest artisans, and housed in Marrakesh’s Badi Palace.
In addition to ancient fortress walls, 3m- to 6m-high border barriers wrap the Mediterranean towns of Ceuta and Melilla. Spain and Morocco dispute their sovereignty, and local architecture does nothing to resolve the conflict: the Spanish point out Andalucian elements, which Moroccans as will certainly remind you, developed under Almohad rule.
Ramparts
Dramatic form follows defensive function in many of Morocco’s trading posts and ports. The Almoravids took no chances with their trading capital, and wrapped Marrakesh in 16km of pink pisé (mudbrick reinforced with clay and chalk), 2m thick. Old Fez is similarly surrounded. Coastal towns like Essaouira and Asilah have witnessed centur
ies of piracy and fierce Portuguese–Moroccan trading rivalries – hence the heavy stone walls dotted with cannons, and crenellated ramparts that look like medieval European castle walls.
Medinas: Morocco’s Hidden Cities explores the shadows of ancient Moroccan walled cities, with painterly images by French photographer Jean-Marc Tingaud and illuminating commentary by Tahar Ben Jelloun.
Riads
Near palaces in Morocco’s major cities are grand riads, courtyard mansions where families of royal relatives, advisors and rich merchants whiled away idle hours gossiping in bhous (seating nooks) around arcaded courtyards paved with zellij and filled with songbirds twittering in fruit trees. Not a bad set-up, really, and one you can enjoy today in one of the many converted riad guesthouses in Marrakesh and Fez.
So many riads have become B&Bs over the past decade that 'riad' has become a synonym for 'guesthouse' – but technically, an authentic riad has a courtyard garden divided in four parts, with a fountain in the centre. A riad is also not to be confused with a dar, which is a simpler, smaller house constructed around a central light well – a more practical structure for hot desert locales and chilly coastal areas. With several hundred riads, including extant examples from the 15th century, Marrakesh is the riad capital of North Africa.
Lonely Planet Morocco Page 89