Casablanca marked a new cultural milestone on June 23, the bicentennial of the invention of photography, with the opening of the Museum of Photography and Visual Arts in the heart of the city’s historic medina. Designed by renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando, the museum welcomed visitors with its inaugural exhibition, “Casa,” a tribute to Casablanca and its people.
Crowds gathered along the narrow Larache Street as the city’s annual Museum Night festivities got underway, making the museum’s inauguration a centerpiece of the evening and a new chapter for the recently restored medina.
Built on the site of a 19th-century foundouk, the museum blends seamlessly into its historic surroundings while bearing Ando’s distinctive architectural signature.
The inauguration was attended by Mohamed Mhidia, wali of the Casablanca-Settat region and governor of the Casablanca prefecture, Casablanca Mayor Nabila Rmili, Taoufiq Benali, governor and director of the Casablanca Urban Agency, and Anne-Claire Legendre, the newly appointed president of the Arab World Institute in Paris. They were joined by Mehdi Qotbi and members of the National Foundation of Museums of Morocco (FNM), which now oversees the institution.
The museum officially came under the management of the FNM on Jan. 30, 2026, following the signing of an agreement with the Casablanca regional authorities. It is intended to serve both as a showcase for photography and as a training center for visual arts.
A portrait of Casablanca through photography
The inaugural exhibition presents nearly 50 Moroccan and international photographers whose work explores Casablanca’s identity through its people, neighborhoods and urban landscape.
Displayed against the museum’s exposed concrete walls, the exhibition, simply titled “Casa,” reflects the city’s popular, urban and collective identity. Across three floors, visitors encounter portraits of Casablancans in all their diversity, complexity and everyday reality, offering an unfiltered vision of Morocco’s economic capital.
Rather than concealing the city’s hardships, the exhibition embraces them, revealing Casablanca’s melancholy, resilience and beauty through the lenses of photographers who captured its distinctive character.
Among the featured works, Khalid Nemmaoui documents the abandoned grandeur of the city’s historic cinemas, while Deborah Benzaquen turns her camera toward a boxing gym, capturing the determination and aspirations of Casablanca’s youth.
Fatima Mazmouz revisits the colonial history of the former Bousbir district, restoring dignity to the women who once lived there through a contemporary photographic reinterpretation.
Historical photographs also highlight Bouchaïb Al Bidaoui, the iconic performer of the Marsaoui aïta tradition, whose colorful portraits celebrate his artistic legacy and challenge conventional gender roles of the 1950s, when he famously performed in the attire of a female chikha.
The city’s architecture also takes center stage, telling the story of Casablanca’s evolving urban fabric, from the former river that once crossed the city to the neighborhoods that continue to shape its social history.
An international collection
Nearly 50 artists are represented in the exhibition, exploring themes ranging from memory and spirituality to identity, youth and self-expression.
About 20 works were loaned by the Arab World Institute in Paris, while nearly 300 photographs come from Nathalie Locatelli, founder of Galerie 127 in Marrakesh, a gallery dedicated to contemporary photography from the Maghreb.
Locatelli served on the curatorial team alongside Abdelaziz Idrissi, head of the Museums Department at the FNM, Soufiane Er-Rahoui, curator of the National Museum of Photography, and photographers Khalid Nemmaoui and Daoud Aouladsyad.
The exhibition also features photographs by Sultan Moulay Abdelaziz alongside works by leading Moroccan and international photographers, including Leila Alaoui, Lalla Essaydi, Marcelin Flandrin, Fatima Mazmouz, Khalid Nemmaoui, Daoud Aouladsyad, Gabriel Veyre and Yoriyas, among many others, presenting a broad visual narrative of Casablanca’s past and present.
