Tourism and activities in Casablanca

In the kindly shadow of the great mosque, the museum dedicated to it is an essential cultural stop for anyone wishing to understand the deep soul of this architectural masterpiece. A true treasure of memory and knowledge, it immerses you in the fascinating history of its construction, revealing the scale of an extraordinary project that mobilised, for years, tens of thousands of artisans, engineers and workers from the four corners of Morocco.

Through archive documents, models and visual displays, the museum retraces every stage of this extraordinary human and artistic adventure — from the first stone laid on the waters of the Atlantic to the triumphant inauguration of 1993. One then measures the sheer scale of the project, but also the millimetre precision and the passion that presided over its realisation.

The museum is also a journey to the heart of traditional Moroccan craftsmanship in all its splendour. Its collections present remarkable pieces that bear witness to the excellence of the Kingdom's arts and crafts: the majesty of zellige work, the finesse of stucco and cedar carvings, the elegance of copper and bronze work. So many ancestral skills passed down from generation to generation, here elevated in their most accomplished expression.

An intimate and enriching visit, accessible to all, that wonderfully extends the discovery of the mosque and offers a glimpse of all the richness of Moroccan cultural heritage — a stone's throw from Villa Blanca.

At the gates of modern and bustling Casablanca, the old medina is a journey through time, a fragment of history preserved within walls laden with memory. While the terrible earthquake of 1755 carried away a large part of its ramparts, the remains that survive today are enough to evoke the power and character of this thousand-year-old city, cradle of the Casablanca we know.

Crossing the threshold of the medina is to surrender to the pleasure of getting lost. Its narrow, winding alleys weave between colourful stalls, artisans' workshops where hands work leather, wood or metal, and grocery shops overflowing with flavours and aromas. Here, time flows differently. Voices mingle, the smells of spices blend into the salty air coming from the nearby ocean, and every turn holds a new surprise, an authentic scene of life, a smile exchanged.

But it is perhaps its architecture that constitutes the most beautiful enigma of the old medina. A subtle palimpsest of cultures and eras, it blends with astonishing grace the elegance of Arab-Muslim art, the ornaments of Art Deco and the Italian influences brought by the different waves of settlement that shaped the city. Carved doors, ornate mashrabiyas, façades in ochre and white tones — every building tells a story, every stone is a chapter in the incredible novel of Casablanca.

An essential stop from Villa Blanca, to touch the most authentic soul of the city.

Casablanca hides a secret that few travellers suspect before setting foot there: it is home to one of the most beautiful and vast Art Deco heritages in the world, comparable to that of Miami or Naples. An exceptional architectural legacy, engraved in stone and stucco, that eloquently tells the tumultuous and fascinating history of the white city through the 20th century.

It all begins with the vision of one man: Henri Prost, an urban planner of genius mandated by the French Protectorate in the early 1910s, who designed the first major extensions of Casablanca beyond the old medina. With rare ambition and a keen sense of aesthetics, he traced wide and airy boulevards, organised grandiose perspectives and laid the foundations of a modern city that would soon borrow from the most fashionable artistic currents of the time to forge its own visual identity.

The result, still visible today in every street of the city centre, is a permanent conversation between Western Art Deco and the motifs of Arab-Andalusian architecture. Rigorous geometry and generous arabesques, elegant ironwork and colourful zellige, bold bow-windows and finely chiselled mashrabiyas — Casablanca invented a style all of its own, which specialists call the neo-Moorish style.

The architectural walk stands out as an essential experience. Boulevard Mohammed V is its beating heart, with the majestic El Glaoui building (1922-1927), a masterpiece of elegance with finely ornamented façades. Not far away, the Hôtel Excelsior unfolds its neo-Moorish style with superb confidence, while the Central Post Office and the Courthouse impress with their assumed monumentality and the richness of their architectural details.

Whether curious or passionate about architecture, from Villa Blanca, let yourself be guided by the façades, look up, and read Casablanca as you would read a novel — a city written in stone, with a new page of its history at every street corner.