Friday, July 01, 2016

A "Grand Theatre" for Fez?

Back on June 19th, The View From Fez reported that Fez was to get a new "Arts Institute" with a budget of 60 million dirhams. In the same article we mentioned the possibility of a theatre and museum being built. Now we can confirm that buckets of money are being set aside for a "Grand Theatre"
The theatre budget is around 100 million dirhams (MDH) and the construction of the Grand Theatre of Fez, is intended to give new impetus to the artistic and cultural activity of the spiritual capital of the Kingdom.

Will the Fez Theatre be as "grand" as the one intended for Rabat?

This ambitious project was recently adopted at the regular session of the Council of the region of Fez-Meknes,  and will be funded by the Ministries of Culture (25 MDH), Interior (22 MDH) and Habitat, town Planning and Urban Policy (22 MDH), the council of the Fez-Meknes region (20 MDH), the commune of Fez (9 MDH) and the Council of the Fez prefecture (2 MDH).

The Council of the Fez-Meknes region also adopted other projects with an investment of 366.5 million dirhams, including the construction of a museum for a budget of 80 million DH and an Institute of fine arts of Fez (60 MDH).

However, to put things in perspective, the Fez Theatre may not be all that "grand" when compared to Rabat, where the estimated cost was 1.677 billion dirhams. The Rabat project included an amphitheater that seats 7,000 people, and an auditorium (1,900 seats).

Hopefully a little more money can be found so that an architect of the calibre of Zaha Hadid, who designed the Rabat project, can be employed to create something special for Fez. Miracles happen and, as they say in Fez,  fil al-Maghrib, la tasstaghrib - when in Morocco prepare to be surprised! 

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