Jardin Majorelle

The Jardin Majorelle was laid out from the 1920s by the French painter Jacques Majorelle, who spent decades planting it and who used a particular shade of cobalt blue on the villa and pergolas at its centre. After his death the garden declined until it was bought and restored by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. It is small, about a hectare, but densely worked: cactus and succulent beds, bamboo groves, water channels, pots glazed in blue and yellow, and shade throughout. The Berber Museum in the villa holds jewellery and textiles from across Morocco, and a separate museum devoted to Saint Laurent's work stands next door.

History

Jacques Majorelle (1886-1962), son of the Nancy cabinet-maker Louis Majorelle, came to Morocco around 1917 to recover from an illness and settled in Marrakech, creating the garden over almost forty years from 1923 around a Cubist villa designed by Paul Sinoir in the 1930s. Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé bought and restored it in the 1980s, and the Yves Saint Laurent Museum opened nearby in 2017 (Wikipedia, Majorelle Garden).

Highlights

• The blue villa - the cobalt painted house and pergolas at the centre.
• The cactus and succulent beds - the collection Majorelle built up over decades.
• The bamboo walks - shaded paths and water channels through the planting.
• The Berber Museum - jewellery, textiles and objects displayed in the villa.

When to go

Book a timed ticket ahead, especially between October and April, when slots sell out days in advance. The first entry of the morning is the least crowded and the coolest. Summer visits are best early, before the heat builds. Allow extra time if you also want the Saint Laurent museum next door, which is ticketed separately.

What to expect

It is very small and very busy, and at peak times the paths are a slow queue of people photographing the same blue wall. Tickets are expensive by Moroccan standards and the museums are charged on top. Nothing here takes more than an hour to see properly. Anyone expecting a large botanical garden will find an intense courtyard instead.

Nearby

The Guéliz district surrounds it, and the medina and Jemaa el Fnaa are a twenty minute walk south.

Key facts