• • 20 May 2016
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  •  Edwin Seda
• Commercial , Communal Centres , Commercial Centres , Gated Communities , Conservation Architecture , Contemporary African Directory , Contemporary , Conservation , Editor's Choice ,

The Re Tour project marks a marked emphasis on the maintenance of 20^th century heritage and offers new ways to ever changing dynamic of investment and seeks to solve the ever troublesome matter of preserving architectural heritage vis a vis commercial investment.

It is a project that seeks to approve the old adage "old is gold" and with the same breath conceives a contemporary analogy to revitalization and preservation with provocation. The idea permeates across the building's facade with spaces left much the same and only revamped, and a pseudo modern idea promulgated forth that perhaps seeks to balance the old era and the 20th century modern architecture that the building seems to lean back to.

We can almost see a conscious idea at navigating very tight balance of ideas, at a hectic endeavour towards preserving a building that has for the better part of the 20^th century been left unattended. The resulting answer is a mathematical equation that has been so carefully and categorically solved that it not only provides an answer but also lays forth a formula for future scholars to browse upon.

From the Architects: Situated at the intersection of two of the most important avenues in the city of Casablanca, the building Residence du Parc built by the architect Courtois in 1854, is an archetype of the modernist ‘bar’ building of the 1950s. 

Neglected in the past few decades, the building suffered a slow deterioration until the insurance company CNIA recently bought and rehabilitated the most visible portion of the bar.The aim of the project was to transform part of the building into a ‘tower’ for the headquarters of the company without destroying the essential qualities of the original bar. By playing upon the rhythms and composition of Courtois’ architecture, the new ‘building within a building’ lives harmoniously within the skeleton of the original structure.

As a proposition for the architectural preservation of 20th century architecture, the project of Residence du Parc proposes a new strategy to regenerate and celebrate the rich architectural patrimony of modernist cities such as Casablanca.

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