Escaping Casablanca

Abstract

Over the last century, Casablanca has become the economical capital of Morocco. To deal with this ever congesting metropolis, the French Europeans and later wealthy Moroccans, have established an entire region to escape from Casablanca's everyday. The research investigates this relationship between the escape from the everyday into spaces for the holiday. Spaces wherein the political and economical norm are suspended, resulting in an opportunity for play (in contrast to work, labor and action). In Casablanca, beach club structures barricade the relation between the coastal boulevard and the Atlantic as natural common resource, resulting in a condition wherein one needs to pay to enjoy the ocean and its consequent holiday. Through investigating the characteristic figure of the club, the research unfolds its strategies and motives, to subsequently learn from it for a counter-project.

As a response to the disparity between the everyday and the holiday in Casablanca, to the research on the club and to the investigation on spaces of play, the project proposes a strategy to infiltrate the Casablanca with spaces for the holiday. By exploiting the newly established infrastructure of the tram network, the project taps into many daily routines, claiming territory adjacent to the strategically chosen tram stations. These territories are then reserved for the holiday, accommodated in an urban void, guaranteeing the possibility of refuge in the holiday and the livability of the metropolis.

To offer an alternative to the exclusive figure of the club, the proposed spaces for the holiday must ensure to be inclusive, both socially and architecturally. The absolute architecture of the club is broken open and becoming, transformed into a dual project; a pliant surface and a set of autonomous architectures. Together, they provide a protected holiday space separated from Casablanca’s everyday visually, acoustically, thermally, emotionally. While still providing accessibility from all sides due to its resulting porous nature. Therefore offering a true and pleasant sanctuary in middle of Casablanca’s turmoil. Through the duality of the project, a certain ambiguity is achieved, resulting in a range of conditions wherein citizens can celebrate their holiday.

In order to evoke direct associations of holiday within the interventions, the Casablanca’s collective memory is being exploited through abstractions of the coast in architectural form. The pliant surface is materialized in bright white natural stone, mimicking the tactics of Casablanca’s beach clubs, which imported white beach sand to create paradisaical beaches. The white (artificial) surface offers a first inversion of the everyday on which the autonomous architectural elements are imposed, in turn referencing to the beauty of the natural coast. Each element subtly referencing to phenomena of the Atlantic.

Together resulting in a predefined set of elements and rules which can generate precise architectural interventions when confronted with given urban conditions. The project is therefore designed as a tangram, from the scale of the entire configuration to the detail. In the thesis, three sites are fully developed, as proof of concept, exploring the potential to offer an inclusive form of holiday, inverting Casablanca’s everyday life.