The Maret Building (french: Immeuble Maret) is located at 128 Muhammad V Boulevard in downtown
Casablanca
Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...
,
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
. It was designed by
Hippolyte Joseph Delaporte
In Classical Greek mythology, Hippolyta, or Hippolyte (; grc-gre, Ἱππολύτη ''Hippolytē'') was a daughter of Ares and Otrera, queen of the Amazons, and a sister of Antiope (Amazon) , Antiope and Melanippe. She wore her father Ares' Zo ...
and built in 1932, during the
French protectorate. Its architecture is a prominent example of the fusion of
Neo-Mauresque and
Neoclassical architecture with
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
touches. The Maret Building features a colorful ''
zellij
''Zellij'' ( ar, الزليج, translit=zillīj; also spelled zillij or zellige) is a style of mosaic tilework made from individually hand-chiseled tile pieces. The pieces were typically of different colours and fitted together to form various pa ...
''-covered dome.
Architecture
The Maret Building has 7 floors including a ground floor. Its architectural style is a fusion of
Neo Mauresque (
Moorish Revival
Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of Romanticist Orientalism. It reached the height of its popularity after the mid-19th centur ...
),
Neoclassical, and
Modern
Modern may refer to:
History
* Modern history
** Early Modern period
** Late Modern period
*** 18th century
*** 19th century
*** 20th century
** Contemporary history
* Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century
Phil ...
architecture. A series of horizontal wavelike concrete curves spread out across the main
façade
A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'.
In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...
from the rounded corner of the building. On the 6th floor, there is an arcade that gives contrastive emphasis to the floor below, which is partly covered with Moroccan ''zellij'' ceramic tiles. The tiles are multicolored, but the predominant color is turquoise; it is reminiscent of
Antoni Gaudí
Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (; ; 25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect from Spain known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, ''sui generis'' style. Most are located in Barcel ...
's work. The corner of the building is crowned with a ''zellij''-covered dome.
References
{{Morocco-struct-stub
Buildings and structures in Casablanca