Place R'Cif - A Public Space Comes Alive

After the creation of a new public space it is always interesting to observe how local people use it. In the case of the new public area at R'cif in the Fez Medina, the large open space is turning into a popular night-time meeting place. During the day the trees are still too small to provide reasonable shade, but the evenings see the square crowded with families and people of all ages playing football, chatting or simply sitting on the amphitheatre-style seating, people watching.

Place R'cif - a great place to hang out

Girls v boys football

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Postcard from Casablanca

In the search for stories for The View from Fez, the team takes to the road from time to time. Helen Ranger reports from Casablanca.

MEDINA UPGRADE
Over dinner at the Blue Parrot above Rick's Cafe, owner Kathy Kriger told us that she had recently been appointed to head a committee formed by the governor of Casablanca that will oversee the ugrading of the city's small medina.

Casablanca medina

Kathy reported that the run-down medina by the sea has a Spanish church and a synagogue, as well as a fondouk that could be restored in addition to the housing and shops. But this is not simply to attract tourists to the medina; it's a project to uplift the community living there. She spent some years restoring the magnificent art deco building that houses Rick's Cafe, and feels greatly honoured to be appointed to this position.

The medina was the original settlement at Casablanca. It was the French who built the ville nouvelle during the protectorate years and most people who live in the city now are not original inhabitants. And the city continues to grow - there are innumerable building projects and a tramway is being constructed that should be ready in a couple of years' time.

The committee asked King Mohammed VI for funding for the project. His Majesty recently visited the medina, and decided that as it was such an important project, he would allocate a great deal more than was originally requested.

Kathy Kriger

See all The View from Fez POSTCARDS HERE.

Tanning industry in Fez makes changes

In December last year, The View from Fez reported on a plan to upgrade the famous Chaouwara tanneries in the Fez medina (read the story here). The tanneries are a massive tourist attraction and most people visiting Fez get to see them, sniffing at a sprig of mint to ward off the awful smell. But most people don't realise that there are, in fact, 58 tanneries in Fez and most of them are in the industrial areas of the city, not in the medina. And that new tanning methods are relieving the environmental pollution that the industry produces.

the tanneries now

Euronews reports that while tanning is an ancient art in Morocco, it creates devasting pollution. Chaouwara, the report says, "is part of this tradition. It is one of the three tanneries in the Medina that continues to use organic materials, a method that is dying out as modern tanneries use chemical processes. Waste products all go to the same place, the Sebou river system, which also gathers all the city’s untreated water and other local industrial waste.

“Most of the raw materials we use here are natural products, quicklime, grenadine, pigeon droppings, wheatbran, or tree bark,” says the Tanner’s Association President El Ghali Rahali.

The new generation tanneries are much dirtier, and have moved to the modern industrial outskirts. Modern techniques have increased production, although purists scoff that tanning quality is not what it was with the traditional methods. The Sais tannery can process 2000 sheepskins a day.

“Here we work with sulphur, quicklime, sulphate, formic acid, sulphuric acid, and chrome; it’s a tanning revolution. In the past we needed between 40 days and two months to finish tanning a skin. Here we now need only two or three days,” says El Ghali Rahali.

Chrome-laden water from this tannery and 17 others like it in the Dokkarat district does not go in the river. Three kilometres of piping take it to Morocco’s first chrome removal plant, which opened in 2003. 50 cubic metres of water can yield around two and a half tonnes of recycled chrome.

“We can handle about eight cubic metres of water a day that come here from the Dokkarat tanneries. This recycled chrome, once separated with sulphuric acid into a liquid form, is sold back to the tanners who can use it again. At four dirhams, or less than half a euro, it makes economic sense, too, as non-recycled powdered chrome costs between 11 and 13 dirhams a kilo,” says the director of the Sais tannery Mohammed Berrada.

The setting up of the chrome removal station is just part of a far more ambitious programme; to restore Fes’s sewage system and, between now and 2012, build a new sewage works. The project will cost 90 million euros, and should slash pollution going into the Sebou, one of Morocco’s dirtiest rivers.

Getting rid of the chrome first is vital, as it inhibits the treatment of sewage. Today around 40 tanneries still pump untreated waste into the Oued Sebou.

“Around 100 tonnes of chrome gets dumped in the Sebou every year. The chrome removal plant can only deal with around forty percent of this,” says the head of the Radeef cleanup operation Saidi Bouchra.

Eventually the plant should be able to deal with all of Fes’s tannery waste water, alongside the National Programme for Water Treatment, whose objective is to cut industrial and domestic water pollution by 60 percent by 2020."

WHAT OF THE UPGRADE?

No news yet, then, on the fate of the Chaouwara tanneries and whether they will be transformed into gardens for the benefit of residents and visitors alike. But there have been some moves in the right direction - the skin-washing facility in Derb Bouhaj was closed a few months ago thanks to complaints from residents and, no doubt, as part of the move towards more efficient industrial practice.

will the tanneries look like this?

R'cif facelift continues in Fez.

The disruption of traffic at R'cif continues, but all in a good cause. The new bus and taxi ranks are in place (even if the taxis ignore them) and work continues on façades. The new face of R'cif will look very elegant ; once work is completed.

The arch being hauled into place
(click image to enlarge)

The exciting news is that the main new gate is well under construction. Today saw the erection of a major arch which will become the entrance to the public pedestrian space. While this is exciting, locals say it may well be another 18 months before work is completed. In the meantime The View from Fez will keep you updated.

If you have not seen the grand plan, check it out here: R'cif Facelift

Fez facelift

In addition to all the splendid new fountains gracing Fez, there are also plans afoot to upgrade the central square, Place Florence.

Plan for a re-vamped Place Florence, with Boulevard Hassan II on the right

The square, less well-known as Place Yacoub al-Mansour, does look pretty seedy at the moment, with its dusty trees and bare concrete. It's not at all in keeping with the elegant swathe of palm trees and fountains along Boulevard Hassan II, so this will be a very welcome addition to the Ville Nouvelle.

This plan has been submitted by the Mikou Design Studio, owned by Fez-born sisters Salwa and Selma Mikou. It's gratifying to see yet another proposal from Moroccan women architects and urban planners - Aziza Chaouni's plans for the tanneries and R'cif (see the story here) is another example.

Artist's impression of the new square

Mikou Design Studio explains that Place Florence is situated in a strategic area in the new town, and has important pedestrian flow. The remodeling of the square aims to create a space for encounters and meetings at a pedestrian scale and the scale of the neighborhood, but also a place clearly identifiable as a representative part of the modern Fez.

"This symbolic place evokes Florence to the people of Fez, inspires and moves them", says the design team.

"It is a vehicle for dialogue between cultures and recalls the journey of architectural forms. In designing the square, we were inspired by a strong and symbolic figure in the Florentine urban landscape, the octagonal form of the Baptistery of San Giovanni. We felt it essential to bring strong architectural elements to Place Florence to give it an urban presence and limit it spatially.

Salwa and Selma Mikou attended school in Paris and Lausanne, and received their diplomas in Architecture and Urban design in 2000. Since then, they have worked in Paris, Doha, Los Angeles, Seoul, Beirut, Rabat, Kuwait and London. They founded Mikou Design Studio in 2005.

How many streets are in the Fez Medina?

They warned us a thousand times as we entered the ancient medina in Fez: do not take your eyes off the rest of the group. Otherwise, a 9th-century maze of 12,000 lanes, alleyways and dead-end streets would swallow us up, and no one - not even our omnipresent, all-knowing tour guides - would know where to find us. - Sarah Maguire, Sydney Morning Herald

Photo: Suzanna Clarke

"There are more than 9000 narrow streets in old Fes creating a maize that you are bound to get totally lost in. It's useful to get a guide at least for a day." - About.com

"Fes el Bali contains more than 9500 alleys and lanes" - Frommer's Morocco

"Classé au patrimoine mondial de l'Unesco, Fès el Bali regorge de monuments et de lieux historiques éparpillés dans les 9500 ruelles de la médina." - linternaute.com

How many streets and alleyways are there in the Fez Medina? It is an interesting question that does not appear to have a definitive answer. The most quoted numbers in the better guide books are 9000 and 9500 but could it simply be an urban myth that has turned into fact by repetition?

Photo: Suzanna Clarke

Does it matter? Well, that is up to you to decide. In the meantime, your challange to day, should you choose to accept it, is to go out into the Medina and start counting. Get back to us when you have completed the task.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

Fez gets a face-lift.

No matter where you go in the Fez Medina or in the Ville Nouvelle, it is very obvious that there is a tremendous amount of new work being undertaken. Much of it is related to tourist infrastructure, but it is pleasing to see that local concerns and issues are not being overlooked.

The plans for the changes are on display at R'cif

One good example is R'cif. Not only is this a very busy entry and exit point for the Medina, but it is becoming increasingly popular as a set down and pick-up location for large tourist buses. With so much traffic the congestion has been a real problem, both for locals wanting to catch taxis or buses, and for taxi and bus drivers as well.

Construction of the bus area at Cinema Amal

Now there is a new plan for R'cif, which includes a number of great initiatives. The bus and taxi turning circle outside Bab R'cif is to become a pedestrian area with a fountain and benches for the locals. Taxis will move to a new area alongside the R'cif souq and a bus turning circle is nearing completion beside Cinema Amal.

One of two taxi lanes being built by the R'cif souq

These are welcome improvements and despite the inconvenience of the road works, the local people are very happy about the projected results.

Traffic congestion at Bab R'cif - soon to become a pedestrian zone.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

Fez Tanneries rehabilitation plan wins gold.

Some months ago The View from Fez ran a story about Aziza Chaouni, the Aga Khan Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Aziza and her colleagues drew up a plan to rehabilitate the Chouarra tanneries by closing them and turning the area of the pits into public space. The famous pits would be transformed into planters for flowers - see story here. TANNERIES PLAN

Now we can pass on the news that the design has won a major award - the Gold Holcim Award. The gold award includes a cash prize of $300,000

Almost 5,000 sustainable construction projects and visions from 121 countries entered the five regional Holcim Awards competitions in 2008. Winners of the Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards in each region automatically qualified for the Global Holcim Awards competition in 2009. The global jury was headed by Charles Correa (architect, India) and included Peter Head (structural engineer, UK), Enrique Norten (architect, Mexico/USA), Saskia Sassen (sociologist, USA), Hans-Rudolf Schalcher (civil engineer, Switzerland), and Rolf Soiron (economist, Switzerland).


Gold Award: River remediation and urban development scheme, Fez, Morocco / John Ferri, Takako Tajima, Aziza Chaouni, Dan Brunn.

The View from Fez congratulates Aziza and her colleagues.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

Urban development in Fez - have your say!

The View from Fez would love to hear our readers reactions to an urban planning concept featured on the blog: A Daily Dose of Architecture.

In a nutshell, part of the project aims to rehabilitate the Chouarra tanneries by closing them and turning the area of the pits into public space. The famous pits would be transformed into planters for flowers. The architect putting forward this very well researched proposal is Aziza Chaouni, the Aga Khan Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.

Aziza Chaouni

Aziza Chaouni was the recipient of a 2008 Gold Holcim Award for Africa Middle East, and her River remediation and urban development scheme for Fez includes a bold move to return the Medina's Al-Qarawiyin University from the suburbs to the Medina. There is also a transport hub and some wonderful public spaces. However it is the final part of her scheme, to change the function of the tanneries, that is the boldest and it is only natural that such a plan is going to have its critics, because, as one commentator put it:

Chaouni tackles the existing leather tanneries, proposing to use the pits as reclaimed green space. This decision is questionable as it replaces a piece of economic infrastructure with something that doesn't apparently offer economic potential. Perhaps flowers and vegetable can be grown within and then sold in the medina.

But it is not simply the economic impact of closing the tanneries that is an issue. The extraordinary historical importance of the site - a tannery that has been in operation for close on one thousand years - must also raise some issues.

The Tanneries now

There have been rumblings for a long time about the need to close the tanneries because of the toxicity and pollution caused by the chemicals involved. While the cleaning up of the Fez river is of great importance, there are those who say it can be done without closing the tannery. Other means are available to dispose of toxic matter and going on past experience it is uncertain how well maintained a "tanneries garden" would be after its initial construction.

In the proposal the Moroccan architect paired with LA-based urban planner Takako Tajima. The scheme addresses three sites in Fez, the tanneries, a playground, and a transit hub.

The transformation begins...

The end result.

John Hill from The Daily Dose of Architecture says... To me this project is as an exemplary model of urban design, as it acknowledges both the greater context in which people live as well as the immediate pieces of the environment in which they interact. That it does so in a respectful manner makes it all the more commendable.

Along with the playground and transit hub sites the project aims to improve the water quality in the city and increase the amount of public open space within the Fez Medina. That the two are intertwined is fairly obvious but worth stating, as water management today still fails to consider social opportunities alongside environmental ones. Chaouni and Tajima's project incorporates a number of tried-and-true sustainable methods for water treatment, ones that allow public spaces to form in the dense fabric of Fez.

Holcim Awards Gold 2008 for "River remediation and urban development scheme, Fez, Morocco" (l-r): John Ferri, Takako Tajima, Aziza Chaouni, Dan Brunn

A remediation and urban development scheme for the river precinct in Fez, Morocco received the top prize of USD 100,000 and the Holcim Awards Gold 2008 trophy for combining a comprehensive socio-cultural and economic program within the core environmental remediation initiative. The landscape design by Moroccan architect Aziza Chaouni and American-resident Japanese planner Takako Tajima includes water quality improvement, remediation of contaminated sites, creation of open spaces and the enhancement of existing resources for economic development.

Head of Jury and acclaimed architect Joe Addo, praised the approach of coupling environmental remediation with a comprehensive socio-cultural and economic program. “While mitigating the threats of pollution and declining water supply to this historic lifeline traversing the medina of Fez, community-supported programs such as a leather craft center, recreation facilities, water-cleaning wetlands and botanical gardens will restore vitality to the city in a truly sustainable way,” he said.

Will we see a "save the tanneries" t-shirt?

Aziza Chaouni's websites: Extramuro & Kuochaouni
Images from the Holcim Foundation.
Our thanks to John Hill from A Daily Dose of Architecture

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

Jnan Sbil update

The gates are open ... but you can't go in. Not yet, anyway.

The Jnan Sbil gardens on the north-western edge of the medina were always a favourite place for Fassis, where lovers and retired people could while away the hours among the palms, eucalyptus, weeping willows, citrus trees and bamboo. The park was opened to the public by Moulay Hassan in the 19th century. Two rivers - the Oued Fes with its water wheel - and the Oued Jawahir (river of pearls) flowed through the garden and there were three cafes. On the western edge near Bab Makina, the Nouria Cafe is still open and is a very pleasant place for tea or lunch. A broken-down waterwheel is still visible from the cafe.

But over the years, the gardens fell into disrepair and became not such a good place to go. A few years ago, ADER (the Agency for the Dedensification and Rehabilitation of the Fes Medina) was tasked with renovating the Borj and the walls surrounding the gardens. The Borj is now a museum of the natural environment and attracts lots of school groups, and the walls have been completed.

Renovated garden walls

The Mohamed VI Foundation for the Environment is now tackling the renovation of the gardens themselves. Directed by architect Rachid Haloui, this demanding project consists of three or four separate parts. The first two parts are expected to be completed by the end of October this year. These comprise the Andalous garden and the bamboo sections which are the oldest plantings of the garden and the most interesting. M Haloui reports that it has been extremely difficult to cope with the lack of water these days, even for the existing plants.

It doesn't look like the gardens will be open any time soon, but The View from Fez is looking forward to having the city's green lung restored and open for the public's enjoyment.

the central layout so far ...

photo credits: Helen Ranger

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

New commercial centre for Fez

Have you been wondering what is going on behind the hoardings on Avenue Allal Fassi?


Fez is to have have two new commercial centres, one in the new city at Champs de Course and the other on the road running down the hill from McDonald's to the medina. For this latter development, the two petrol stations on Avenue Allal Fassi are already being demolished, and the small business making cane furniture has had to move. Behind that little business is quite a large community of shack-dwellers that's invisible from the road; who knows what will become of the people living there?

The scrubby hills to the south of Avenue Allal Fassi will be the home of a new development due to open at the beginning of 2010. In the 22 000sq m centre, there will be a 6 000sq m Label' Vie supermarket, 80 shops and a food-court with 10 restaurants. The developers are Best Real Estate. Click here for a sneak preview of what it will all look like.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

Beautification of the Medina

There's lots of work going on in the medina, particularly in Serrajine near Bab Boujloud where all the pavement restaurants are, and along Rue de la Poste. Lumen takes a look:


Walls are being rebuilt with traditional bricks and then coated with harch and mahtoub. The result is very good.

Mamounie, or wooden trellis work is also being added, giving the street welcome shade. The old bamboo mamounie has been replaced with wood in the Attarine district of Tala'a Kebira, too, and looks very much better.

Pavement cafes at Serrajine

And the repair and refurbishing of the city walls continues apace. Down at Bab Guissa, the 12th century gate is undergoing renovation. The project of restoring six kilometres of the historic city walls and beautifying the infrastructure has been going on now for some 18 months and is estimated to cost 2.3 million US$. The aim is to improve the living conditions of the people living in the Medina, enhance the city's architecture and promote tourism in Fez.

Bab Guissa gets a revamp

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

Important Urban Issues in Fez

In case you missed it, here's what The View from Fez reader, Girl in the Crosswalk, wrote as a comment a couple of days ago in response to our report on civil action in the face of price hikes in basic necessities:


You are probably wondering why I’ve been lurking about your blog so much. I’m taking a class on Urban Development and Issues in the Middle East and we have an assignment to write a paper based on a blog about a city. I’m going to be following your blog for the next few weeks for my paper, although I’ll probably keep following afterward because it’s very interesting and informative. I was just wondering, though, what do you feel the biggest urban issues are in Fez? (Only if you have time to answer such a question though.) I’m trying to figure out what to really look for in writing about the urban issues and what’s being done to cope with those issues in the city. I am particularly interested in the Berber culture though, so any types of urban issues that may have to do with that would be really interesting to learn about.

Best wishes,

Girl In the Crosswalk

Well, firstly Fez and Morocco are NOT in the Middle East - we're in North Africa and/or the Maghreb. That aside, Girl in the Crosswalk poses an interesting question .... what are the biggest urban issues in Fez? Here are a few ideas:
- a serious problem with falling-down architectural masterpieces in the medina, the very basis of cultural tourism in Fez. What's to be done? Should there be a national inventory of culturally important buildings and their contents so that they can be protected against vandalism and eventually restored?
- urban pollution all over the country: plastic bags are the national flower and people throw rubbish everywhere without a care (or a thought), to say nothing of the ghastly pollution that throttles Fez, from the belching buses (government vehicles at that!), the taxis and trucks and private cars with faulty exhausts to the oily black filth emanating from the potteries - where is it all to end? Can any form of recycling ever be introduced in Morocco? Would the government ever consider tax benefits for solar power users?
- Literacy - or illiteracy - is an urban problem too. How important is it that people can read and write? Does it matter if they're over 50, if all the efforts to educate people are aimed at children currently at school?

So, Girl in the Crosswalk, here are a few ideas for your paper. And The View from Fez readers are invited to put their points of view. What do you think are the important urban issues in Fez?



Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news

The strange case of the "not missing" orange trees

The second project undertaken by Fez Riads is the upgrading of the plant boxes in the Kissariat Senhaji, between Tala’a Kebira and Tala’a Seghira. Just to remind you, these projects are funded by the guesthouses featured on the Fez Riads website www.fez-riads.com and supported by the visitors who stay in them.

The sad plant boxes before work started.

Towards the end of February, Jamal carted a lot of manure and rich earth from the countryside, dug over the plant boxes and added the new mixture. Then we bought five orange trees from the plant nursery in the Mellah, hired a ’honda’ to transport them, wheeled them down the medina streets in several carossas and Jamal planted them.

The hairdresser in the square, Si Ahmed, agreed to water the plants carefully, and his extra water bill is paid by Fez Riads. We also bought him a hose for easy watering. We still need lots more plants and Jamal has plans to bring some oleanders from the countryside. But it’s starting to look much better already.


Despite some people’s doubts, all has gone well for the last three weeks. Children have not broken the trees, no-one’s stolen them, and the local shop-owners and flat-dwellers seem so pleased with the results so far that they’re fiercely protective. Last night some inebriated souls decided they’d rip out the trees to sell them (and maybe buy another bottle of rotgut). The hanoot owner came to the rescue! He prevented the drunkards from doing any damage, and has made a statement to the police. The trees are still there, sprouting new growth and blossoms.


Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news