Between Art and Architecture, Modernism and Makhzen

This chapter discusses how two architects, Abdeslam Faraoui and Patrice de Mazières, commissioned artists such as Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Chebaa, and Mohamed Melehi, to create artworks for new building projects across a newly independent Morocco. It considers how artists and architects collaborated to experiment with what a distinctly Moroccan modernism could be, and it asks how these artist-architect collaborations intersected with state efforts to promote foreign tourism and repress those it viewed as dissident.

Keywords: Abdeslam Faraoui ; Casablanca School ; colonialism ; craft ; decolonization ; Maghreb ; Morocco ; national culture ; North Africa ; Patrice de Mazières ; post-colonialism ; tourism ; years of lead