Mohammed VI Tower serves as an architectural link between the two banks of the Bouregreg. At its entrance, a major new artwork now enriches the experience of the site. Designed by international designer, artist, and interior architect Hicham Lahlou in close collaboration with the project owner’s artistic direction, the installation of 396 luminous sculptures turns the tower’s esplanade into a space where art, architecture, and light enter into an elegant dialogue.
Cast in aluminum and enhanced with a bronze patina, the 396 sculptures blend subtly into the architectural setting of Mohammed VI Tower. Their slender silhouettes echo the building’s monumental doors as well as the ornamental refinement of Moroccan palaces and riads. Throughout the day, they capture shifts in natural light and interact harmoniously with the noble materials and landscaped areas around them.
At nightfall, the installation reveals another dimension. Through an exclusively upward-facing parametric lighting system, each sculpture is illuminated from its base, highlighting the richness of its metallic texture and creating a luminous movement that appears to rise toward the tower’s majestic vault. From the forecourt to the entrance of the Waldorf Astoria Rabat-Salé, the space becomes an immersive sensory experience in which light itself becomes an artistic language.
Drawing inspiration from the neffar, the emblematic trumpet of Moroccan heritage, the installation develops organic and plant-like forms that rise like a sculpted score under the open sky. The works reinterpret a familiar symbol of Morocco’s collective memory through a subtle dialogue between tradition and contemporary expression.
Through this creation, Hicham Lahlou places Mohammed VI Tower within a clear cultural continuity, where formal innovation draws on inherited symbols and craftsmanship. The work reflects a desire to bring tradition and modernity together within a single creative gesture.
The installation forms part of a broader ambition to make Mohammed VI Tower a true space for cultural expression at the crossroads of architecture, design, and craftsmanship. For Lahlou, the project was conceived as a respectful extension of the architectural gesture.
“My intention, shared with the project owner, was to create a work that accompanies the architecture with deference during the day, before revealing its full majesty at nightfall. These 396 sculptures are the notes of a parametric luminous symphony rising toward the vault. By lighting themselves, they do not merely bring light; they breathe a vibrant soul into the foot of this icon,” he said.
Designed specifically for this emblematic site, the works by Moroccan and international artists integrated into the tower help shape a unique space where the architectural experience extends through ambitious artistic interventions. The tower thus affirms its role as a contemporary cultural destination, open to the world and deeply rooted in its territory.
