Exhibition Learning from Casablanca opens at first day African Perspectives 2011
Casablanca served as laboratory for European architects to experiment with modernist mass housing in the 40’s and 50’s. The visions of modernist architecture spread all over the world, suggesting new structures in housing, work, transport, and leisure.
The spatial structure in Casablanca has been extremely transformed and appropriated by the inhabitants over time to respond to the requirements and aspirations of everyday life. The exhibition Learning from Casablanca shows the results of multi disciplinary studies undertaken in the previous year by students from Morocco and various parts of Europe. Films, multimedia presentations, posters and models present the stories behind the transformation.
The ‘debates on tour’, organised with the Netherlands Architecture institute as part of African Perspectives 2011 on 4 November at the Sacre Coeur and on 5 November at the Ecole Superieure de l’Architecture, will use these unplanned developments as starting point for a debate on the possibilities of adaptation in contemporary planning issues.
Learning from Casablanca is developed by Casamemoire and African Architecture Matters, with contributions from the Ecole Superieure de Casablanca, Université Hassan II, Delft University of Technology, the universities of Utrecht and Stockholm, ARCAM, the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Morocco and the City of Amsterdam. The project is generously made possible by the Netherlands Architecture Fund.
