Rabat – The art deco Bank Al-Maghrib building at the famous Jamaa Al Fna plaza in Marrakech is set to become a museum.
On April 29, the Marrakech Town Hall, the National Foundation of Museums (FNM), and the Marrakech wilaya (an administrative division) agreed to undertake the project.
“It is a historical place, which we will recognize and honor with a history of Marrakech and the Jamaa Al Fna plaza,” the president of the FNM, Mehdi Qotbi, told Moroccan news outlet Le360.
The Bank Al-Maghrib site in Marrakech will house a permanent exhibition, along with “other surprises” that Qotbi did not reveal.
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The renovation of the building will take at least a year.
The colonial building was designed by French art deco architects Edmond Brion and Auguste Cadet, during their time in Morocco between 1919 and 1935. They also designed the Habbous neighborhood in Casablanca; the bank buildings of El Jadida (a city south of Casablanca); and Oujda in the far north-east, near the Algerian border.
The Bank Al-Maghrib in Marrakech was most recently used as a temporary exhibition space, hosting art shows and auctions.
