Farewell to a Much Loved Fez Identity - Michel Biehn

Michel Biehn in 2013

One of Fez's most colourful residents; hotelier and collector Michel Biehn, passed away on May 21. He was an aesthete and an artist; a larger-than-life character who made many friends

At the age of 71, Michel leaves behind an abundant legacy of books, exhibitions, and textile collections, plus the interiors of houses and hotels which benefited from his unique and eclectic style.  He was also a gourmand, and wrote several recipe books.

Together with his wife Catherine, Michel was the owner of the boutique hotel Jardin des Biehn - a former pasha's palace in the Fez Medina. The much photographed hotel and its associated restaurant, Fez Cafe, is a showcase for his collection of textiles and objets d'art. The walls are covered with his paintings. It continues to be managed by his son Paul.

"I started to collect textiles about 30 years ago," Michel said in 2013, when I interviewed him about his Veils and Turbans exhibition. "I was at a dinner party with an historian who was preparing an exhibition on Kashmiri shawls. Suddenly doors opened up, and I realised there were all these stories (behind them) about trade, wars, and wealth. So I began to collect more."

Then based in the town of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, in Provence, France, Michel Biehn became widely known as an antique and textile dealer and also an interior designer. His growing passion for collecting and dealing in textiles took him all over the planet, to Asia and the Middle East, until he had accumulated thousands of pieces.

He published some 16 books, including Couleurs de Provence, La Conversation des Objets, Le Cahier de Recettes Provençales, and La Cuisine du Pacha.

A decade ago, Michel's love of juxtaposing colour and pattern found a new home at what was to become Jardin des Biehn. It was then owned by the heirs of Si Tayeb el Mokri, who served Morocco as finance minister and as pasha of Casablanca until his death in 1949. After a major renovation, the hotel opened with nine rooms and suites, and has recently expanded to 14. It has been the site of fashion shows, art exhibitions, yoga workshops and concert performances.

As Christopher Petkanas wrote in the New York Times in 2011:

"He (Michel Biehn) debarked in Morocco with a shipping container filled with a lifetime of scholarly collections assembled throughout the East — nautilus shells with cameo-like engravings of Alexander the Great’s chariot, shapely Syrian ewers, Ottoman ostrich eggs suspended in the most delicate crocheted nets. Consequently there’s a lot of museum-quality eye candy at Le Jardin des Biehn — a striking suzani from Samarkand here, a luscious Yemenite silk robe there. The only other hotel I know that is such a concentrated expression of one man’s taste, designed around the personal booty of a world-class collector, is Alistair McAlpine’s Il Convento di Santa Maria di Costantinopoli in Puglia, Italy."

Michel will be missed not only by his family - wife Catherine, children Paul, Jeanne, and Louis, and his three grandchildren - but by the wider Fez community, in which he had carved an integral niche. He was a kind and friendly man, who enjoyed conversations with friends and guests alike.

Vale Michel Biehn.

Story and pictures by Suzanna Clarke

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