Abstract:

Perched atop a hill, the Kasbah of Boulaouane, a fortress commissioned in 1710 by Moulay Ismaïl, had become merely a place of passage. It gains a new purpose through Al Aïn, a cultural and memorial center of over 10,000 m² dedicated to preserving and transmitting Moroccan craftsmanship while supporting the local economy and regional tourism. Al Aïn (“the eye” in Arabic) suggests both a gaze toward the horizon and an oasis. Once a site of tribute, the kasbah becomes a place where visitors come to draw knowledge. Conceived as a Moroccan-Andalusian garden, the project places water at the heart of the composition, symbolizing encounter and renewal. Based on a sustainable approach that harmonizes heritage and contemporaneity, the intervention reveals rather than erases. A central patio, conceived as an agora, structures the project: the former palace becomes a memorial, the granaries host exhibitions, and the mosque and stables are rehabilitated. Workshops, an amphitheater, and a panoramic restaurant complete the ensemble, organized around courtyards inspired by traditional dwellings. The new gateway faces the historic entrance, and two glass and corten steel volumes provide access to the lower levels. Stone, earth bricks, and rammed earth dialogue with white concrete, corten steel, and glass, rooting the new intervention in the site’s continuity. From the outside, only the tower rises like a beacon, embodying a harmonious coexistence between memory and contemporaneity.