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Living in Morocco: Design from Casablanca to Marrakesh
By
Landt Dennis
Morocco is an exhilarating combination of vivid sensuality and intense spirituality, an intoxicating blend of cultural variety, a place quite unlike any other: Berber, Arab, French, English and Spanish: in what other country does one find such a rich mixture of heritages? Indeed, this diversity is matched in its geography, which runs from coast to mountain to desert. Living in Morocco celebrates the arts of a country at the height of a cultural renaissance, a country where an ancient tradition of craftsmanship has been sustained and recently reinvigorated. The book is filled with images of vibrantly coloured ceilings, decorated courtyards and walls, of plaster of Paris carved and painted in intricate geometries, of tiles so small that 150 could fit in a matchbox. Lavishly illustrated chapters on decorative and folk arts alternate with chapters on Moroccan life today. We visit Chaouen in the Rif Mountains (a city only recently open to Westerners), where the town's smooth, undulating surfaces are painted a bone-chilling, blue-tinted white. We peer into an abandoned kasbah in the Sahara. We absorb the sights, sounds and smells of the frenzied souk. We take time out in the shady blue-and-pink environs of the Majorelle Gardens, laid out by French painter Jacques Majorelle. We explore the story behind the most famous hotel La Mamounia, which has welcomed such guests as Winston Churchill, and most importantly, we see Morocco's arts brough to life in its homes - from former harems to traditional Hispano-Moorish houses. Morocco is an assault on the senses. Glorious photographs make this book a treasure for the armchair traveller, while the luscious documentation of Morocco's houses, arts and crafts make it an invaluable resource for anyone involved in design.
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