At the dawn of the sustainable Moroccan modernism: Bioclimatic approach in early GAMMA group’s architecture

Abstract

During the first half of the twentieth century,the specific context of Morocco served as a breeding ground for developing new approaches for modern urbanism and architecture. While colonial modern architecturesattempted to reflect the local culture and local architectural language by reinterpreting vernacular architecture at the level of typological elements and artisanship, anotherapproach culminatedaround the independence in the architectural reflections initiated by the Group of Moroccan Modern Architects,stressingnew concerns for adapting modern architecture to its context,climate, place and practices.Their approach, by detachingfrom both the colonial culturalist approach and the universalist solutionsof the modern doctrine, inaugurateda new turning point in the history of modern architecturein Morocco, that constitutesthe manifestation of early bioclimatic concerns in modern architecture in the Moroccan context, which translated on both the urban and the architectural scale. The Group of Modern Moroccan Architects,GAMMA Group's interest in vernacular architecture and its reinterpretation crystallizedin their early productions by payingparticular attention to the control of environmental parameters such as sunlight and ventilation, while exploringlocal architectural languagesaswell asmodernones, as their respectiveconstruction methodsand materials. Examples of this approachincludes the use of the patioandits reinterpretation from thelevel of the urban block to public facilities tothe level of the housing cellby architects Michel Ecochard and Jean François Zevaco. At the urban scale, the specific architectural language developed bythe GAMMA Group andlandscapeapproachin large touristicfacilities as the Dades hotel designed by architects Patrice Demazières and Abdeslam Faraoui, as well as in the reconstructed city of Agadir,payedattention to the realities oflocalclimate,topographyandpractices as early attempts towards a contextualizedsustainable modern urbanism in Morocco. This article aims through representative examples,to bring an insight to what could be considered as the premises of bioclimatism in the history of modern Morocco as developed by the GAMMA group, in order to highlights how their contribution to the first reflectionsabout a bioclimatic architecturepaved the way towardsa sustainable Moroccan modernlanguageembedded in its context.

Keywords

• modernism
• bioclimatic architecture
• sustainable architecture
• post-colonial morocco
• gamma group
• patio
• agadir