Located on the Atlantic coast in the north-west of Morocco, the site is the product of a fertile exchange between the Arabo-Muslim past and Western modernism. The inscribed city in UNESCO Heritage List encompasses the new town conceived and built under the French Protectorate from 1912 to the 1930s, including royal and administrative areas, residential and commercial developments and the Jardins d’Essais botanical and pleasure gardens. It also encompasses older parts of the city dating back to the 12thcentury.
Museum
Bank Al-Maghrib ©Andrew Junev
The new town is one of the largest
and most ambitious modern
urban projects built in Africa in the 20th century and probably the most complete.
The Bank Al-Maghrib is the central bank of the Kingdom of Morocco. It was founded in 1959 as the successor to the "Banque d'Etat du Maroc"
The al-Sunna Mosque, built in the eighteenth century by the king Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah, occupies a strategic place in the modern city.View of Avenue Mohammed V towards Sunna Mosque
Rabat galerie Bab Rouah. The gate itself is a masterpiece of Islamic fortress architecture from the middle ages
The site was probably occupied by Phoenicians as early as the 11th century BC, and the Romans built their southernmost port, Sala Colonia, here in the 1st century AD. But it was not until the 10th century that a local Berber tribe founded the city of Salé on the right bank of the river mouth, and built a ribat (fortified camp) on a bluff at the western extremity of the estuary’s south bank
In UNESCO Heritage list the older parts of the town include Hassan Mosque (begun in 1184) and the Almohad ramparts and gates, the only surviving parts of the project for a great capital city of the Almohad caliphate as well as remains from the Moorish, or Andalusian, principality of the 17thcentury
Yaqub al-Mansur (known as Moulay Yacoub in Morocco), an Almohad Caliph, moved the capital of his empire to Rabat
He built Rabat's city walls,
the Kasbah of the Udayas and
began construction on
what would have been the world's largest mosque
Cemetery al-Shuhada in Rabat (Old City). Tens of thousands of beautifully engraved tombstones tumbling down to the Sea
Today a pleasant residential quarter, The Oudayas Kasbah occupies the site of the original ribat that gave the city its name
During the 12th century, Rabat became the imperial capital of the great Almohad conqueror Yacoub el Mansour, who ruled over an area that stretched from Tunisia to northern Spain. After his death Rabat lost much of its importance, while Fez, Meknes and Marrakech prospered
Rabat did not recover its status
as capital until the establishment
of the French Protectorate in
1912, when Marshal Lyautey
made it the administrative
capital;
and it was only when Morocco regained its full independence in 1956 that the city became capital of the new kingdom
A visionary scheme that will change the cultural and social landscape of Morocco’s capital, Rabat is underway.Atkins designed the masterplan for this inner city site, as well as two of its most iconic buildings - the Library of National Archives of the Kingdom of Morocco, and the House of Arts and Culture - for Wessal Capital, an investment fund for tourism and real estate projects in the Kingdom of Morocco.
Sound: Moroccan music 2016
Text: InternetPictures: Sanda Foişoreanu Sanda Negruțiu InternetCopyright: All the images belong to their authors
Presentation: Sanda Foişoreanuhttps://plus.google.com/+SandaMichaela
Amaranthus tricolor (summer poinsettia)
Ornamental grass
Cork oak trees
Moroccan water seller
Lantana camara (Deer Resistant Plants)
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