CIPA 2003 XIX th International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey
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3. THE ARCHITECTURE IN RAMMED EARTH OF
THE SOUTH OF MOROCCO
Wood and combustive material are in general rare in this region
and consequently quite expensive. Burned lime also used as
binding material is hardly available; however clay that is only
air dried with small additions of straw is an excellent building
material. On the one hand it can be treated as rammed earth or
as air dried bricks. The rammed earth is treated much like con
crete in building a framework. The space between two lateral
boards is filled up with earth, using straw as binding material,
which is then rammed and dried. After a few days, the boards
are lifted up and one proceeds to the next layer. This method is
mainly used to build the basement and the first floor, whereas
the upper floors are constructed with dried bricks. However, it
is important that these constructions are based on a solid stone
foundation. In this way, people erected houses and defense
installations consisting of three, four or even more floors.
The necessity of defense required a very compact way of con
struction and the erection of town walls and defense towers.
Furthermore, the extreme temperatures, very hot summers and
cold winters, required special construction measures in order to
create a bearable living climate. The most important character
istics in this respect are the central courts of the houses with
large galleries on the upper floors and hardly any windows on
the street side. The rich decoration of the façades and the artis
tic formation of the central courts with arches and galleries are
both special features of the houses of the region. The palm
oases and the fortresses and castles called ‘ksour’ and ‘casbahs’
are extremely picturesque and typical of the southern valleys of
Morocco. In the Drâa valley alone, between Agdz and Zagora,
lie about 200 or more such ksour. On achieving independence,
Morocco was also able to pacify the South and the traditional
forts have since lost their significance. The narrow construction
and the relatively demanding maintenance (the wall crown and
the façades have to be renovated practically yearly or after each
heavy rainfall) and the strong development of dust in the rooms
caused the population to leave their traditional buildings and to
move into houses built of concrete erected around the ksour.
However, when these ksour are abandoned, they deteriorate
very rapidly. The question thus now arises whether it will be
possible to conserve at least a number of these testimonies to
this exceptional architecture for the future generations, as well
as whether they should be systematically surveyed and docu
mented.
4. TASK, CONCEPTION AND EXECUTION OF THE
INVENTORY
It was mainly the architect Hans Hostettler, one of the initiators
of the inventory of cultural heritage of Switzerland, who com
mitted himself strongly to initiating an inventory of the ksour
and casbahs of southern Morocco. As already mentioned, this
inventory should contribute to the documentation of the archi
tecture in rammed earth and furthermore supply a decision
making aid for the revitalization of at least a part of these
monuments.
4.1 Geometric Information and Degree of Detailed De
scription
Very quickly, one recognizes that it is necessary to distinguish
between various levels of detailing for the different descrip
tions. On the one hand, it should be possible to present the
individual buildings in scales about 1:200; on the other hand
for the representation of a whole ksar it is useful to use scales
between 1:1,000 and 1:2,000 and representations of the whole
valley should refer to scales in 1:50,000 and even smaller. It is
understood that this concerns mainly the representation of the
information; if one uses an information system for the storage
of the information, it is possible to summarize the cartographic
information in an appropriate way. MGE (Modular Geographic
Environment) by Intergraph was used as information system
with MicroStation as a graphical module. MicroStation is one
of the few systems allowing 3D-presentations to be dedicated to
architectural features. Essentially 2 degrees of detailing are
used, the representation of the ksour and the detailed represen
tation of the individual buildings.
The geometric data of the first degree of detailing are concen
trated on the survey of the characteristic elements of the ksour;
these are the surrounding walls with the towers, the entrance,
the street network, the mosques and other sacred buildings, the
individual living quarters and the peripheral elements (cf. Fig.
1). Meanwhile, the 2 nd degree of detailing represents the indi
vidual buildings specially surveyed such as mosques and other
sacred buildings, individual typical houses as well as the cas
bahs and elements of the defense structure. These buildings are
also shown in general form in the lower degree of detailing.
Fig. 1. Orthophoto of a ksar with its defense walls, the central
part of the village (dark = abandonned) and the new surround
ing constructions (grey = inhabited)
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