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ABSTRACT
In the context of today’s increasing acceptance of Casablanca’s twentieth century architecture as ‘cultural heritage’, this paper assesses the value of the projects providing ‘housing for the masses’ which were put into effect by Michel Ecochard and his team at the beginning of the 1950s, especially at Carrières Centrales in Hay Mohammedi. Truly an icon of modern architecture, this under-recognised project – significantly transformed by its occupants – now paradoxically arouses the curiosity of a large number of student architects and other specialists. This essay is an attempt to reflect that interest by showing how this many-faceted project is worthy of being considered as ‘cultural heritage’. It deals first with the project’s founding principles and the debates within CIAM that it provoked. Then the paper looks at the transformation and adaptations made to the project by its inhabitants acting within their particular socio-political context. Finally, we show the influence of the Carrières Centrales project on later housing projects within Morocco as well as internationally, including the lessons it can bring to bear on more recent urban questions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Written in Athens in 1933 during the fourth congress of modern architecture, the Athens Charter summed up the principal points of modern architecture and urbanism.
2 The ninth meeting of CIAM was held at Aix-en-Provence in France 19–25 July 1953.
3 The Groupe des Architectes Modernes Marocains was formed under the influence of two architects, Michel Ecochard, the head of the urbanism service, and George Candilis. It was made up of the most active architects working in Morocco at the time (Azagury, Tastemain, Jaubert, Basciano, Delanoé, Zevaco, etc.).
4 ATBAT-Afrique (Ateliers des batisseurs) was a study group created by engineer Vladimir Bodiansky with Le Corbusier and Jacques-Louis Lefebvre to supervise the technical studies and the projects designed by Le Corbusier. In 1951 George Candilis and Shadrach Woods, who had just built a housing unit in Marseille for ATBAT, were founding, along with Vladimir Bodiansky, l’ATBAT-Afrique in Casablanca, an organisation that until 1954 would create many projects in Morocco, Algeria, and France.
5 In 1953 150,000 of Casablanca’s 500,000 inhabitants were living in slums or ‘bidonvilles’. The word ‘bidonville’ was first used in Casablanca in the 1930s to refer to neighbourhoods of huts on the periphery of the city made by rural migrants from raw materials like cut-up cans or ‘bidons’.
6 ‘Separate development’ was an urban principle that spatially separated different communities for the purpose of preserving Morocco’s specific cultural characteristics. The colonial administration consistently maintained and developed this policy, initiated circa 1912 by Resident General (effectively governor) Hubert Lyautey, and it continued to be upheld despite efforts to change the policy made by many architects and urban planners such as George Candilis and Michel Ecochard during the second half of the twentieth century.
7 Carrières Centrales was named after the quarrying jobs held by those who lived at the site. After independence, the area was renamed Hay Mohammedi in reference to King Mohammed V.
8 The Justice and Reconciliation Commission (L’instance Equité et Réconciliation) was created when Mohammed VI succeeded to the throne, intending to address the injustices committed during the ‘Iron Years’ of the reign of his father King Hassan II.
9 During the Oran workshop in 2017, I had the chance to visit ‘La cité du lac’ development built by the ATBAT-Afrique architects. I was greatly astonished when I saw that these buildings, like those built at Carrières Centrales and occupied by a population identical to that in Casablanca, had been in comparison very little changed.
10 Casablanca’s application was partially spurred by that of Rabat, a city whose application dossier does include some colonial buildings.
11 During the 1953 meeting of CIAM in Aix-en-Provence, in parallel with the Carrières Centrales project proposed by the Moroccan group GAMMA, another noteworthy project was presented by the Algerian team led by architect Roland Simounet who proposed an original approach to building a city for former bidonville residents based on the analysis and understanding of the bidonville Mahieddine and the way of life of the people who lived there. This approach departed from the functionalism of Le Corbusier’s ‘machines for living’ by taking into account the cultural aspect when designing new urban architecture.
12 Stem is a suspended interior street, introduced into the housing project of Le Corbusier. It did a better job than traditional passageways of connecting housing to buildings serving other functions (commerce and other urban facilities). The ‘Web’ offered a more intense ramification of uses than Stem’s linear model.
13 Derb Jdid is a quarter situated to the west of Casablanca, today better known as Hay Hassani.
14 Le carré bleu is a publication founded in 1958, still published every three months in three languages (English, French, and Italian) and circulated internationally.
15 Like Sascha Roesler who published Habitat Marocain Documents. Dynamics between Formal and Informal Housing (Roesler Citation2015) or Tom Avermaete who published Colonial Modern: Aesthetics of the Past, Rebellions for the Future (2010) and Casablanca Chandigarh: A Report on Modernization in collaboration with Maristella Casciato (Citation2014).
16 Le carré bleu was created in 1958 following the last International Congress for Modern Architecture in Helsinki.