Bahia Pleace, The Most sumptuous of Marrakech
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| Bahia Pleace |
Along the northern boundary of the Al-Mallah district of the city of Marrakech is the Bahia Palace, covering an area of eight thousand square meters. The Andalusian-Moroccan palace is home to green gardens, a mosque, a stable, water basins, a riad center and many spacious bedroom galleries decorated with colorful marble patterns with carved wooden ceilings with delicate hands.
The Bahia Palace was created in the middle of the 19th century on an area of 8,000 square meters. It was built in Andalusian style
A day and a century and a half ago, the Bahia Palace was one of the most luxurious sumptuous dwellings in Morocco, taken by Minister Ahmed bin Musa al-Sharqi (1841-1900), nicknamed "Hammad" and " Grand Vizier ”, like his residence.
Bahmad was the caretaker of Sultan Al-Saghir Abdulaziz, after the death of his father Hassan I, and he was only 14 years old, and Ahmad administered governance and state affairs during this period, during the Alawite state at the end of the 19th century AD. Hammad belongs to a Moroccan family with Jah, close to the Alevi sultans.
Records indicate that Hammad's father, Si Musa, who held the offices of Al-Hajeb and the grand vizier of Sultan Mehmed IV and Hassan I, was the one who ordered the construction of the palace in 1859, then the son came and finished his architecture and took up residence for him and his four wives, and named what he built on behalf of his favorite lover “Bahia.” Hammad served thousands of maids and slaves in this palace.
Hammad is said to have brought the best craftsmen and craftsmen from Morocco to create the Bahia Palace, among them the architect Haj Muhammad bin Makki Al-Masafioui. He also brought marble and gypsum from Italy in exchange for the sale of Moroccan sugar, it was not strange that the building contains beautiful and complex works in gypsum and a form of multiple colors mosaics, decorated with ceiling in wood.
After Hammad's death in 1900, the Bahia Palace was joined to the hangar of the royal palaces, after which Minister al-Sadr al-Azam al-Madawi al-Kidawi built an additional upper floor of the palace.
In 1912, after the advent of colonialism, the French Resident-General, Michel Hubert Loti (1854-1934), took up his residence as headquarters, and made new updates from the West, lighting it up with electricity, equipping it with a radiator, fans, a telegraph, and a telephone. After the death of Marshal Lyoti in 1934, the palace became a place of hospitality, available to French military officers.
With the independence of Morocco, King Mohammed V lived in the Bahia Palace, then became the headquarters of the Foundation for National Cooperation, before King Hassan II transmitted it to the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, to make a cultural and tourist attraction. The Moroccan government sometimes uses it as an official place to receive private guests and eminent foreign dignitaries.
Bahia Palace today:
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| Bahia Pleace |
The gardens are the most pleasant, charming places bordered by rosemaries, orange trees, grapefruit and various yellow, red and purple flowers. A little paradise of freshness for us and the birds.
Inside the palace, rooms emptied of their furniture, zelliges, frames painted with plant, floral and geometric heady patterns. The place is huge.
Today only part of the palace can be visited, another part sometimes hosts the royal family or foreign dignitaries. Concerts are also organized there.
El Bahia Palace, literally "palace of the beautiful, the brilliant",
The palace has two large 2-acre gardens (8,000 m2, the largest and most luxurious palace in Morocco of its time) adjoining two rooms overlooking an interior courtyard. The first was made by Si Moussa and the second around 1880 by his son Ba Hmad then Grand Vizir.
The driveway leading to the Riad is bordered by large leafy trees and tall date palms and lemon trees
Finally, the green and refreshing gardens of the Bahia Palace, planted with orange, banana, cypress, hibiscus and jasmine, accompanied by an alignment of three fountains.
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