Casablanca’s heterotopia[s]
Context :
The former Ghbila prison, located in the Derb Sultan district, is one of the darkest memories/places in the history of Casablanca. Since its construction in the 1920s by the colonial authorities, Ghbila has had several lives; during the protectorate period, the French authorities used it to imprison Moroccan nationalist rebels. After independence, the prison was used during the “years of lead” to hide and torture Moroccan revolutionaries and politicians.
The prison closed definitively in the late 1990s, since then, the wasteland of Ghbila constitutes until today an undesirable centrality in the urban structure of the district.
Walking through the city of Casablanca, one cannot cross this building without noticing its brutal existence, this austere wasteland dominates the horizon of the “Derb Sultan” district, and constitutes a heterotopia within the city with a negative influence on its urban and social context.
Project :
The radical and speculative dimension of the proposal is based on the fact that the project makes present the past of this building instead of forgetting it, paradoxically keeping the tragic identity of the place without erasing it, juxtaposing a madness of raw parasites on the ruins of a dark place, this strictly closed and fortified space will be open to all, with various functions that the citizens choose, not the architect.
This wasteland which was previously an “anti-freedom” monument, and once dedicated to torture and political violence, will be regenerated into a “space of free expression” for citizens! The Ex-prison of Ghbila, totally isolated from society, will become its most intimate reflection!
