The administrative square: Casablanca gives itself a centre

A city that grows fast must, at some point, give itself a centre. In Casablanca it would be an esplanade lined with public buildings — the administrative square, conceived as part of Henri Prost's plan.

The institutions take their places

From the very first years of the French Protectorate (1912–1956), a dahir established French courts in place of the consular courts that had been operating since the eighteenth century under the system of the Capitulations. The Palais de justice took its place on the square, flanked by two buildings intended for the military: the officers' club and the hôtel du commandement — the latter has since become the consulate building.

Marius Boyer's Hôtel de ville

In the mid-1930s, Marius Boyer raised the Hôtel de ville there, today the residence of the Wali. The building bridges the eras: its silhouette recalls the Doge's Palace in Venice, while its fifty-metre clock tower plays the part of a minaret of modernity. The horizontal ribbon windows, the decoration and the planning borrow from Arab-Andalusian art, mixed with Art Deco.

Inside, two large canvases by Jacques Majorelle — “La place Jemaa el-Fna à Marrakech” and “Fête au pied de l'Atlas” — adorn staircases designed in the spirit of the ocean liners.

The square is completed in 1937

The composition was rounded off by the Banque du Maroc, built by the architect Edmond Brion and delivered in 1937 — the same Brion who would, in the same decade, put his name to the Bendahan building in the Assayag district.

Not far off, a park and sports grounds complete the ensemble. Casablanca now had a monumental centre, a few minutes from the towers of the boulevard Hassan Seghir.

Source: Jean-Louis Cohen and Monique Eleb, “Casablanca. Mythes et figures d'une aventure urbaine”, Éditions Hazan.