At 1418 boulevard Hassan Seghir, three Art Deco towers have drawn one of Casablanca’s most recognisable silhouettes since 1930. The history of the Immeuble Assayag is inseparable from that of the man who conceived it: Marius Boyer, a central figure in modern architecture in Morocco.
From Marseille to the Beaux-Arts
Marius Germinal Boyer was born in Marseille on 12 September 1885, the son of Antide Jean Marie Boyer, a municipal councillor in Marseille, and of Pauline Jacqueline Blain. Admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1904 under registration number 5621, he stood out early for his rigour and his talent: a 3rd Medal in the history of architecture and, in 1910, the American Architects’ Recognition Prize for his design “Porte nautique et aéronautique” (a nautical and aeronautical gateway). That same year he became the first Grand Massier in the École’s history — the students’ elected head of the École, a distinction that says enough about his standing within the institution. His academic course closed in 1929 with a diploma awarded for a project entitled “L’habitation d’un colon aisé” (the house of a well-to-do settler), in the École’s 143rd graduating class.
Casablanca, testing ground for a new modernity
Yet it was far from Paris that Boyer produced the greater part of his work. Settled in Casablanca from 1919, he found in that city in full ferment a proving ground equal to his ambitions. His partnership with Jean Balois, from 1925 to 1929, was a particularly fruitful one: together they signed major works such as the Hôtel de ville of Casablanca, on the place Mohammed V, the villa El Mokri, built for the vizier El Mokri, and the cinema Le Vox, the first cinema in Africa. A pioneer, Boyer also founded in the 1920s the first Moroccan architecture atelier at the École des Beaux-Arts in Casablanca — the mark of a deep interest in local culture and of a constant wish to marry Moroccan tradition to modern aesthetics.
“Between the lines of my plans and the curves of my buildings, I have sought to weave a harmonious dialogue between Moroccan tradition and Western modernity, and so to embody the cultural bridge that Casablanca represents, a city of history and of the future.”
— Marius Boyer
The city that wanted to rise
The Assayag project was born of a collective ambition. In the 1920s the authorities were seeking to bring the port district and the business district together into a single continuous whole, and Éric Labonne, secretary-general of public works, was urging architects and contractors to build high. Casablanca was then dreaming itself vertical — and it was to that invitation that Boyer replied.
1930: three towers over the city
Built in 1930 on boulevard Hassan Seghir, the building imposed its silhouette on the city’s skyline from the first. The site, opened that year, called for two years of work: the whole was finished in 1932. Boyer conceived arcaded towers: three separate blocks (corps de bâtiment) divided by narrow gaps, which come together only at the seventh floor to form a single volume. Each keeps its own stairwell, and with it its independence. Everything here bears the architect’s signature: the great verrières, the tall glazed screens that light and ventilate the stairwells; the broad terraces open to the city; the subtle play of lines and curves proper to Art Deco. To explore this architectural vocabulary in detail, turn to the Design and architecture page.
A living legacy
Marius Boyer died in Casablanca on 25 December 1947. His file, held at the Archives nationales de France, bears witness to the scale of his contribution to architecture. As for the Immeuble Assayag, it is in no sense a monument frozen in time: a private residence, still lived in, it hosts exhibitions, film shoots and cultural events, and opens its doors to the public on special occasions such as the Journées du Patrimoine, Casablanca’s annual heritage open days.
To go further into the career of its creator, continue with the page devoted to Marius Boyer the architect; and to discover the building in pictures, the gallery awaits you.
Source: Jean-Louis Cohen and Monique Eleb, “Casablanca. Mythes et figures d’une aventure urbaine”, Éditions Hazan.