26 March is not an ordinary date for Nike. Since 2014 the brand has made it Air Max Day: the birthday of the Air Max 1, released on 26 March 1987, celebrated every year with launches and parties around the world. In 2025 the Casablanca edition was called “CASA powered by 8” — the 8 of the new Air Max Dn8 — and it took place under our feet, in the basements of the Assayag.
It was organised by Liquid Bridge, a Casablanca collective that describes itself as “a network of creative energies joining forces to connect generations, styles, narratives & stories via art & street movement”. A private night, by invitation: a form in the stories, to be filled in before the 21st. The announced programme: workshops, music and dance performances, graffiti, visual installations and mapping, games, food. The poster was by Khalid Ajdour.
A red dimension
The concept came down to two words — Red Dimension — and a single lighting decision: everything in red. The white vaults of the former plant rooms of 1930, the incinerator, the boiler room and the water tanks that became the cultural space Chez Marius, began to look like a set designed for the occasion. They were not designed for it, and that is their strength: coloured light on bare architecture is enough.
The central corridor became the spine of the night, the DJ at the far end, a strip of light along the floor. In the side galleries, installations: a pair of Dn8 hanging under a neon tube, a stack of CRT screens, a wall of mirrors, a projection people stepped in front of, graffiti on the pillars. “CASA” arrows stuck to the floor led from one room to the next — the plan of Chez Marius is not simple for anyone going down for the first time.
Why here
What this night says about the building comes down to a choice. The organisers of a global brand’s night, who could have picked any venue in Casablanca — hotels, warehouses, rooftops — preferred basements from 1930 built for machines. These rooms opened to the public in May 2023, during the Heritage Days; since then they have hosted exhibitions and gatherings. On 26 March 2025 they served as the stage for a brand night.
For a residential building, this is not a small thing. These rooms belong to the co-owners, who voted to open them to culture and who live upstairs. Every night out is a balancing act between the life of a venue and the life of a home. That is exactly what makes Chez Marius unusual among Casablanca addresses: it was born of a co-owners’ vote, not of a business plan.
The night
The photographs passed on by the organisers show what the programme promised: speeches at the microphone under the vault, a young and large crowd in the main room and the galleries, guests photographing themselves in the mirrors, a team in black “CASA” T-shirts on the stairs. We publish neither a list of participants nor attendance figures: it was a private night, and the organisers keep that count.
Two minutes in the red dimension
Alex Bego, who lives in the building and runs this site, filmed a walk through the rooms during the night. Two minutes twenty, without commentary: the corridor, the screens, the mirrors, the music.
See the photographs
The twenty-one photographs of the night, taken by Liquid Bridge, are gathered in an album in the Gallery, with the venue card and the film.
Sources: Instagram posts by Liquid Bridge (March 2025) and by the Résidence Assayag; video by Alex Bego; on Air Max Day, Nike’s own communication since 2014. Photographs: Liquid Bridge; video: Alex Bego.
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