Architektura bidonvilles w Casablance

The article analyzes the informal architecture of bidonvilles, contemporary shanty towns or slums in Casablanca, Morocco. In the years from 1920 to 1950, Casablanca was an architectural laboratory for French architects and urban planners. New plans of the city expansion by Tardif, Prost, Courtois, and Écochard aimed to structure the uncontrolled sprawl of the city, and define the urban layout of the respective districts. Bidonvilles kept growing as a result of mass migration of the Berbers who were detribalized under the French Protectorate and forced to move from the country to the city. The text discusses bidonvilles as a specific form of transferring “ruralness” to the globalized and overcrowded urban space. It is an expression of willful architecture, “architecture without architect”, erected by the users themselves, out of necessity, without respect for construction standards.