ABSTRACT
The French urban and architectural legacy remains strikingly prominent in Morocco and has withstood both rapid change and local tradition. Yet it is neither rooted nor fully immersed in the Moroccan urban and social fabric. This French urban experience is unique and deserves to be examined in order to gain some lessons from it. A simple glance at a major Moroccan city plan designates two main urban patterns: the colonial that forms the Ville Nouvelle, which became, in most cases, the centre of the whole urban agglomeration of Moroccan cities; and the médina,1 the historic native city, confined within its walls. The colonial white concrete high-elevated buildings, which follow a radial and geometrical street design, contrast with the médina’s reddish-backed bricks walls of compacted and overlapped buildings linked via twisted alleys and thoroughfares. These patterns reflect an urban duality that has its own melody.
