Colonialism, Architecture, and Cultural Heritage

This research explores the impact of French protectorate (1912-1956) on architecture and heritage management in Marrakech, Morocco. It analyzes the changes adopted not only in architectural patterns and the way heritage in managed, but also the way space and heritage are perceived and thought of by their different users. Rather than relying on the traditional binary dualities of colonialism vs. post-colonialism and colonizer vs. colonized usually used to describe the Moroccan historical experience and its contemporary consequences, this work instead seeks to open new lines of inquiry from historical, social, and spatial perspectives, and also to introduce voices not usually heard in the formal and official level. The aim is to understand the changes brought by the French on space and heritage management and, more importantly to understand contemporary Marrakech medina "from within" with all its nuances and complexity. The argument is that the colonial context of Marrakech medina was not made of two completely separate societies, colonizer and colonized, but rather came to be a single social and cultural field where all people were linked, contributed in a way or another.