The Casablanca Clock Tower (, ) is a

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...

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 ...

. Located in United Nations Square, the tower is a 1993 reproduction of one of the oldest French-built structures in the city. The original tower was built in 1909 by the French commander

Charles Martial Joseph Dessigny Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...

, and designed by Le Capitaine du Génie Bouillot, as an identical copy of one he had built in

Aïn Séfra Aïn Séfra ( ar, عين الصفراء, lit. ''yellow spring'') is a municipality in Naâma Province, Algeria. It is the district seat of Aïn Séfra District and it has a population of 47,415, which gives it 11 seats in the PMA. Its postal c ...

when stationed there previously. It was demolished May 1948. The current tower is an almost identical copy rebuilt nearby in 1993.

History

The French Army commander

, then head of the French department of public facilities in the recently bombarded and occupied Casablanca, ordered the construction of the tower. It was completed between 1908-1910, before the

Treaty of Fes The Treaty of Fes ( ar, معاهدة فاس, ), officially the Treaty Concluded Between France and Morocco on 30 March 1912, for the Organization of the French Protectorate in the Sherifien Empire (), was a treaty signed by Sultan Abd al-Hafid ...

in 1912, which officially established the French Protectorate. This original tower was one of the first things built by the French colonists in Casablanca and in Morocco. It reached a height of 20 meters, like another built under Dessigny's command in

in the

Algerian Algerian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Algeria * Algerian people This article is about the demographic features of the population of Algeria, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, econo ...

Atlas Mountains The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. It separates the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name "Atlantic" is derived from the mountain range. It stretches around through Moroc ...

when he was stationed there. The clock tower carried great symbolic significance, as it was a symbol of French power and the dawning of a new order. The original Casablanca Clock Tower, ostensibly demolished in 1948 due to structural fragility, faced its fate not just for its condition but also because it obstructed the burgeoning traffic in Place de France. It was reborn in 1993, positioned 45 meters away and rotated 45 degrees counterclockwise from its original location — a detail that resonates with its past, exactly 45 years after its demolition, adding a layer of historical intrigue to its reconstruction.

Description

The tower imitates the form of a

minaret A minaret (; ar, منارة, translit=manāra, or ar, مِئْذَنة, translit=miʾḏana, links=no; tr, minare; fa, گل‌دسته, translit=goldaste) is a type of tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques. Minarets are generall ...

, and like most Moroccan minarets, the tower is square-based. The tower features 4 round mechanical clock faces, one on each side of the tower. The numbers on these clock faces are in

Roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...

References

{{Reflist Clock towers All stub articles Buildings and structures in Casablanca