Habous Quarter

The Habous, or Nouvelle Médina, was built from the 1910s and 1920s on land held as religious endowment - which is what habous means - as a planned quarter to house Moroccans coming into a rapidly growing Casablanca, designed by French architects who took the vocabulary of the traditional medina and laid it out on a modern plan with straight arcaded streets, squares planted with olive and orange, and regular blocks. Whether that counts as respectful or as an imposition has been argued since. What it produced is a quarter that works: arcades of bookshops, several of the best pastry and pâtisserie makers in the city, olive and spice stalls, craft shops less pressured than a real medina, a mosque, a mahkama courthouse of the 1950s, and the royal palace gates. Friday brings the couscous lunch trade. It is walkable, shaded and unusually pleasant for central Casablanca.

What you actually see

• A designed medina - traditional vocabulary laid out on a straight modern plan from the 1920s.
• Arcaded bookshops - one of the better concentrations of them in Morocco.
• Pastry and olives - several of the city's best pâtissiers and spice stalls.
• The Mahkama - a 1950s courthouse of carved and tiled halls on the quarter's edge.

When to go

October to April; Friday for the couscous. Half a day.

Honest expectations

It is a planned quarter, not an old one - people expecting a medina find it too regular. The Mahkama's opening is irregular. Craft prices are fixed and higher than a real souk. Weekend afternoons are busy.

Nearby

The Mahkama du Pacha is on the quarter; the royal palace gates are beside it.