Casablanca Modern City: Mohammed V Square, the Habous New Medina, the Villa des Arts, the Casablanca Financial Centre, and the Contemporary Moroccan Art Scene
The Casablanca modern city route covers the Mohammed V Square as the colonial era civic center, the Habous New Medina as the planned Moroccan urban quarter, the Villa des Arts contemporary art museum, the Casablanca Finance City towers, and the contemporary Moroccan art scene that makes Casablanca the most artistically current single Moroccan city.
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Mohammed V Square: The Colonial Civic Center
The Mohammed V Square (Place Mohammed V), the central civic square of the French Protectorate Casablanca built from 1930 to 1953, is the most formally composed single colonial urban space in Morocco with the Prefecture building, the Palace of Justice, the French Consulate, and the PTT headquarters arranged around the square in the most completely realized single example of the Moorish Revival civic architecture in North Africa. The Moorish Revival style - the application of the Moroccan decorative vocabulary of the zellige, the carved stucco, and the horseshoe arch to the European building program - was the most consciously respectful single European colonial architectural approach to the local tradition.
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Habous New Medina: The Planned Moroccan Quarter
The Habous (New Medina), built from 1932 by the French Protectorate urban planners as a purpose-built residential quarter for the Moroccan population using the traditional medina architectural vocabulary but planned from scratch with the wider lanes, the regular blocks, and the modern sanitation infrastructure, is the most successful single colonial-era Moroccan residential planning project and the most pleasant single shopping district in Casablanca with the bookshops, the traditional craft goods, and the specialty food shops serving the Casablanca educated Moroccan community.
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Villa des Arts: The Contemporary Casablanca Art Museum
The Villa des Arts in Casablanca, the contemporary art museum in the restored 1934 Art Deco villa with the permanent collection of 20th century Moroccan painting and the changing exhibition program of the contemporary Moroccan and international artists, is the most important single contemporary art institution in Morocco and the museum that most completely documents the transition of the Moroccan visual arts from the traditional craft to the contemporary painting and installation art. The Villa des Arts program of the international and the Moroccan contemporary art exhibitions is the most culturally connected single art program in North Africa.
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Casablanca Finance City: The African Hub
The Casablanca Finance City (CFC), the financial district built from 2010 in the Sidi Maarouf suburb with the towers housing the African Development Bank, the international financial institutions, and the multinational company regional headquarters, is the most ambitious single financial district development in Africa and the project that positions Casablanca as the most internationally integrated single African financial center. The CFC is the most concentrated single expression of the Mohammed VI economic modernization program and the development that most completely distinguishes the contemporary Casablanca from every other Moroccan city.
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Moroccan Contemporary Art: The Casablanca School
The Casablanca School of fine arts, the most internationally recognized single Moroccan artistic movement of the 20th century with the painters Mohamed Chebaa, Farid Belkahia, and Mohamed Melehi who developed the Abstract Berber aesthetic in the 1960s and 1970s combining the traditional Berber geometric pattern vocabulary with the contemporary abstract painting language, is the most intellectually significant single artistic development in North African art history. The Casablanca contemporary art galleries in the Maarif district are the most commercially active single art market in Morocco.
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Casablanca Cuisine: The Seafood Capital
Casablanca is the seafood capital of Morocco with the Atlantic Ocean fishing fleet supplying the most diverse single seafood selection in the country including the fresh sardines (the most important single protein source in the Moroccan diet), the sole, the sea bass, the dentex, the red mullet, and the octopus from the Atlantic inshore fishery. The Central Market (Marche Central) in the Casablanca city center is the most completely stocked single fresh seafood market in Morocco with the wholesale fish section and the adjacent restaurant row where the market-bought seafood is cooked to order in the most directly authentic single seafood dining experience in Morocco.