The palace of Bahia

The construction of the palace was undertaken by the Moroccan architect El Mekki on behalf of the large vizier Ahmed Ben Moussa known as Ba Ahmed (1841-1900) to place there his four wives and his/her twenty-four concubines.

Under Protectorate, the Lyautey general made his residence of it.

As most Arab palaces, increased little by little without overall plan, the distribution of the courses and the apartments is rather disordered. The plan conceived by the architect marrakchi If Mohamed El Mekki El Mesfioui is a true labyrinth, without any benchmark. No the center, not of axis, not of perimeter, all was designed according to the whims of a powerful man who wanted always more and did not hesitate, to meet his requirements, to upset the voiery by acquiring the close streets and houses, transforming the streets into dead ends and the dead ends in interior corridors. A maze of corridors and staircases connect between them innumerable parts of very unequal size, without precise scheduling.

The decoration of the unit takes as a starting point the styles Arab, Turkish and European. All the ceilings, of a large variety of drawings, are out of wood of painted and illuminated cedar coming from the Means-Atlas, the marbles came from Italy and Meknès, earthenware of Tétouan.

The various parts of the palace are spread out over nearly eight hectares. All this unit is on one level, because, “court of leg and obese”, the vizier pained to climb.

Fact exception the “menzeh”, apartment arranged on the floor, above small riad, which was high on the order of If Madani Glaoui after the death of Ba Ahmed, and who does not visit himself.

The royal family always accomplishes stays in the palace; also, only a small part of the palace is opened with the public. The parts currently open to the visitors are:

• Small “the riad” (1)
• The small court (2)
• The large court (3) and its big room (4)
• Large “the riad” (5) and its two rooms (6)
• The private house (7)

Small Riad is very compartmentalized: it is made up various units conceived according to the model of the traditional residences: closed outside, they open on one or more course interior decorated of gardens and fountains and surrounded by galleries. The various parts are abundantly decorated with painted reasons, carved in wood, and the stucco or carried out in zellige.

The sumptuous garden interior, filled up banana trees and orange trees, is a harbor of silence and freshness on which give several superbly decorated anterooms.

The General, and future marshal, Lyautey, reside general French, had made of this palace his residence at the time of his stays with Marrakech. It is in Small Riad that its particular apartments as from 1912 were arranged.

These four parts, whose ground entirely is paved of marble and “zelliges”, one of the Ba Ahmed private apartments constituted. They was the rooms of his legitimate wives, most beautiful being of course the room of Bahia

From 1912, these rooms were transformed by Lyautey into rooms for the French officers.

Large Riad understands the court of north paved of marble, the Large Court, in which two star basins are arranged, a remarkable garden of rectangular form, occupied of a small basin in the center, like two beautiful rooms and two niches with the refined decoration, which frame the riad.

This unit underwent refittings during construction moreover palace by Ba Ahmed.

The gardens of Large Riad are Moorish gardens, planted orange trees, cypress, daturae and jasmines, reserved initially for the harem of the top dog who liked to come there to take the tea in the middle of his wives.

“The gardens, writing J. Tharaud, were downwards paved mosaics, rosettes and flowers of enamel. Of these deep floors spout out, with the orange trees covered in this moment of their flowers and their fruits, citrons which let hang their Lanterns lemon-yellow yellow, of the cypresses three times higher than the small green roofs which surround the gardens, of the banana trees, of the lilacs of Japan, the date palms, the cassies to the scented gold powder puffs, of the daturae, of the geraniums, a rustic tumble of plants”.

Large Riad, a superb point of view makes it possible to discover the north of the medina and the mountains of the Atlas.

The large court acted as harem and joined together the apartments of the concubines and their children. The apartments of favorite, decorated with painted wood at red bottom, have a height of considerable ceiling. The moucharabiehs (wood nettings placed in front of the windows and allowing to see without being considering) which decorates the upper part of the part are in stucco and plaster, while the stained glasses are made of imported glass of Iraq (single in the Maghreb).

It has a painted ceiling of a great beauty, most remarkably carved palace, out of wood of cedar of the Atlas, painted and enluminé by the largest craftsmen of Fès.

The end of work of this unit is gone back by inscription to 1866-1867. On this date If Foamed, the Ba Ahmed father, was chamberlain and was going to become Top dog.

It is from 1894 that Ba Ahmed made increase the residence of his/her father by the acquisition of a set of houses which were gathered and arranged in a true palace by the Moroccan architect Mohamed Al Makki Al Masfioui, who, inspired by Andalusian art, built the palace in several stages and finished it at the end seven years of work. The best workmen and craftsmen of the country worked there without interruption during these seven years (1894-1900).

The best Moroccan craftsmen and Andalusians worked at this palace during fourteen years, and according to the chronicle, Ba Ahmed returned its last sigh “in the noise of the rammers”. Once finished, the palace exceeded in richness all the monuments of the kingdom, and it is said that the young king, Moulay Abd el-Aziz, were extremely opposed by it (what perhaps explains that it ordered the plundering of Bahia in 1900, as soon as the large vizier Ba Ahmed buried!).

Addresses: street Riad Zitoun el-Jdid, vis-a-vis the souk of the jewellers, beside the restaurant of Bahia.

Paying entry: 10 dirhams.