Press and recognition

An Art Deco gem under scrutiny

Since it was built, the Immeuble Assayag has held a place of its own in the landscape of Casablanca. Its three Art Deco towers, its unmistakable silhouette and the signature of Marius Boyer make it a subject of study and admiration that never quite fades. Journalists, researchers and photographers return to this remarkable witness of Moroccan architectural heritage — to the tall glazed screens that flood the staircases with light, to the terraces open on the city, to those unmistakable lines and curves.

Part of that interest lies in the nature of the place itself: the Assayag is not a monument frozen in time but a lived-in residence, host to exhibitions, film shoots and cultural events. Nearly a century on, the building is still writing its own story.

What critics and scholars say

The passages below are quoted from the original publications, each one a click away. They make no claim to be exhaustive: these are the landmarks we were able to verify ourselves, source in hand.

"One of the first buildings in the world" to plan an underground car park

Invited by Médias24 to guide a walk through modern Casablanca, the architect Rachid Andaloussi — a founding member of Casamémoire, which he chaired from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2012 to 2019 — opens his itinerary with the Assayag:

"If we are to speak of the architecture of Casablanca, we must mention the Assayag building, on boulevard Hassan Seghir. […] it is one of the first buildings in the world whose design provided a basement for a car park, at a time when Casablanca had only a few dozen cars on its streets."

Visite guidée. Le Casablanca de… Rachid Andaloussi, interview by Hayat Gharbaoui, Médias24, 4 February 2022. Translated from the French.

In the same interview he ties the building to "the codes of the Bauhaus school" and compares its composition — what he calls an architecture of addition, adding up volumes and scales — to that of Louis Kahn.

"It would not have been tolerated in Paris"

The architectural historian Jean-Louis Cohen devotes a passage to the building in his study of Jewish architecture in Casablanca, published in the academic journal Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History:

"Even more daring is the Moses Asayag building, sponsored by another Jew from northern Morocco (1930-1932). With its ten floors, it would not have been tolerated in Paris at the time."

Jean-Louis Cohen, Casablanca la juive: Public and Private Architecture 1912-1960, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, no. 19, 2021, p. 23.

Cohen goes on to note that Casablanca's zoning rules were then "way more permissive than in France", and describes the three imbricated towers with their superimposed set-back balconies.

A lived-in building, listed A+

In May 2023 Le360 reported on the opening to the public of the basements turned into the cultural space "Chez Marius", during the Heritage Days organised by Casamémoire. The report gives the social measure of the place:

"Here, close to 130 flats house residents from several layers of society, from the wealthiest to the least well-off."

Qods Chabâa and Khadija Sebbar, Casablanca : un espace culturel dans les sous-sols de l'immeuble Assayag, Le360, 28 May 2023. Translated from the French.

Video report by Le360, May 2023 — Qods Chabâa and Khadija Sebbar. Video: Le360. In French.

Two voices of the building speak in it. Pierre Pilven, building manager (syndic): “They voted at a general meeting of the co-owners and gave us, in inverted commas, carte blanche to bring the place to life.” Ahmed Idrissi Kaitouni, president of the co-owners’ board: “We are a team of owners in love with this unique building. Our goal, beyond management, is to restore the building as it was built in 1930 by the great architect Marius Boyer.”

The same report recalls that the building "was listed A+, the highest category on the heritage list".

"A complete work of art"

A year after "Chez Marius" opened, the "Rétro-Verso" column of L'Opinion looked back at the building and at the tribute paid to Monique Eleb. In it, the paper published an interview with Pierre Pilven, building manager (syndic) and delegated administrator:

"Built by the architect Marius Boyer between 1930 and 1932, the Immeuble Assayag is one of his three masterpieces. The building is known for its volumes and masses and above all for the absence of decoration in its smallest details, because it is, in itself, a complete work of art."

Houda Belabd, Rétro-Verso : L'immeuble Assayag, là où le bon vieux temps est resté figé, L'Opinion, 7 May 2024 (interview "3 questions à Pierre Pilven"). Translated from the French.

The syndic also lists what makes the building work: no party wall between the flats, a refuse chute linked to an incinerator, a goods lift, a passenger lift, a fire escape stair and, in the basement, a collective car park and three water tanks that feed the water towers crowning each staircase and each duplex. These points are set out, with their sources, in our Technical dossier.

A note on counting the floors

The sources seem to disagree: Rachid Andaloussi stresses that "at the time, building eight storeys was a considerable thing", while Jean-Louis Cohen writes of "ten floors". Both are right. The building has ten levels above the ground floor: six storeys of flats, a seventh of studios, an eighth of garçonnières, laundries and maids’ rooms, then two levels of duplex penthouses. Andaloussi counts the eight storeys of the main body, below the duplexes of the towers; Cohen, the full height. See Design & Architecture.

References

Books and scholarship

  • Jean-Louis Cohen and Monique Eleb, Casablanca. Mythes et figures d'une aventure urbaine, Hazan, 1998, 478 pp. (ISBN 2-85025-624-2). The reference monograph on the city, the fruit of twelve years of joint research; reprinted several times and translated. Monique Eleb (1945-2023), a sociologist born in Casablanca, was its co-author.
  • Jean-Louis Cohen, "Casablanca la juive: Public and Private Architecture 1912-1960", Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, no. 19, 2021. Open-access academic journal; the Assayag appears on p. 23.
  • MAMMA — Mémoire des Architectes Modernes Marocains, Modern Casablanca Map, 2019 (ISBN 978-9920-9339-0-2). A map and guide to the modern architecture of Casablanca, published with atelier L'Observatoire.

Press

Records and open data

Resources

To prepare an article, a report or a piece of research, several pages of this site are a good place to start:

  • History — the building's course since it was built;
  • The architect — the life and work of Marius Boyer, a major figure of modern Casablanca;
  • Design & Architecture — the building's vocabulary, from glazed screens to stepped terraces;
  • Gallery — a selection of photographs of the building.

Unless otherwise stated, the photographs published on this site are © Alex Bego / Immeuble Assayag. Any reuse requires prior permission: please do ask us.

Press contact

Are you a journalist, documentary maker, researcher or photographer wishing to devote a piece to the Immeuble Assayag? Write to us through the contact form or at info@assayag.ma. We gladly answer requests for information, interviews or photography.

As the building is a private, inhabited residence, visits are only possible during cultural events such as the Heritage Days. For anything else, the contact form remains the best way in: we will help you prepare your visit with respect for the place and for the people who live there.

An error, a source we have missed, an article to point out? Write to us: this page is meant to be corrected and completed.