Casablanca Art Deco Quarter
The downtown grid of Casablanca contains over 300 listed art deco buildings — more than Miami, more than Napier in New Zealand, more than anywhere outside the original European capitals where the style was born. Built between 1910 and 1940 by architects from France, Spain, and Italy, many of them incorporating Moroccan geometric ornament into modernist facades. The city that resulted looks like nowhere else on earth.
Casablanca has more Art Deco buildings than any city in Africa and more than most cities in Europe. The French Protectorate administration (1912–1956) built the Ville Nouvelle as a showcase of contemporary architecture, and the architects they brought — Marius Boyer, Albert Laprade, Auguste Cadet — worked in the prevailing style of the 1920s and 30s.
The buildings line the Boulevard Mohammed V and the surrounding blocks. Geometric facades, rounded corners, stepped profiles, decorative friezes that borrow from both Parisian Art Deco and Islamic geometry. Many are in disrepair — crumbling balconies, blocked ground floors, decades of exhaust staining. A few have been restored.
The best examples: the Cinema Rialto (Boyer, 1930), the Hôtel Lincoln on the Boulevard Mohammed V, the Bessoneau building (Laprade, 1920s) with its ceramic tilework facade. The post office on Place Mohammed V is a Protectorate-era building that blends Art Deco structure with neo-Moorish ornamentation — the hybrid style that defined French Colonial architecture in Morocco.
Casa Patrimoine, a local preservation group, offers walking tours. The walks are the best way to see the quarter — the details are above eye level, and most pedestrians never look up.
Visitor Information
Explore More
Related Stories
Discover the history and culture of Casablanca
Explore More
Multi-day journeys featuring this place
Curated routes that pass through Casablanca
4 Days
Oualidia Oysters & Lagoon
A lagoon between Casablanca and Essaouira produces the only oysters in Morocco. Four days of birds, salt marshes, and a kitchen that knows what to do with both.
4 Days
Portuguese Coast
El Jadida, Mazagan, and the fortresses Portugal left in Morocco's stone — the empire sailed away but the architecture refused to follow.
5 Days
Contemporary Art Morocco
MACMA, whitewashed galleries, and the young Moroccan artists rewriting their country's visual language — while nobody outside is paying attention yet.
Walking Distance
