The Maret Building () is located at 128 Muhammad V Boulevard in downtown
Casablanca
Casablanca (, ) is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Chaouia (Morocco), Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a populatio ...
,
Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
. It was designed by
Hippolyte Joseph Delaporte
In Greek mythology, Hippolyta, or Hippolyte (; ''Hippolytē''), was a daughter of Ares and Otrera,Hyginus, ''Fabulae'', 30 queen of the Amazons, and a sister of Antiope and Melanippe. She wore her father Ares' ''zoster'', the Greek word found ...
and built in 1932, during the
French protectorate. Its architecture is a prominent example of the fusion of
Neo-Mauresque and
Neoclassical architecture with
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...
touches. The Maret Building features a colorful ''
zellij
Zellij (), also spelled zillij or zellige, is a style of mosaic tilework made from individually hand-chiseled tile pieces. The pieces were typically of different colours and fitted together to form various patterns on the basis of tessellations, ...
''-covered dome.
Architecture
The Maret Building has 7 floors including a ground floor. Its architectural style is a fusion of
Neo Mauresque (
Moorish Revival
Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of Romanticism, Romanticist Orientalism. It reached the height of its popularity after the mi ...
),
Neoclassical, and
Modern
Modern may refer to:
History
*Modern history
** Early Modern period
** Late Modern period
*** 18th century
*** 19th century
*** 20th century
** Contemporary history
* Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century
Philosophy ...
architecture. A series of horizontal wavelike concrete curves spread out across the main
façade
A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face".
In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...
from the rounded corner of the building. On the 6th floor, there is an arcade that gives contrastive emphasis to the floor below, which is partly covered with Moroccan ''zellij'' ceramic tiles. The tiles are multicolored, but the predominant color is turquoise; it is reminiscent of
Antoni Gaudí
Antoni Gaudí i Cornet ( , ; ; 25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926) was a Catalans, Catalan architect and designer from Spain, widely known as the greatest exponent of Catalan ''Modernisme''. Gaudí's works have a style, with most located in Barc ...
's work. The corner of the building is crowned with a ''zellij''-covered dome.
References
{{Morocco-struct-stub
Buildings and structures in Casablanca