Skoura

Skoura

Architecture, land and palm trees in Skoura

A very arid area extends between the southern slope of the High Atlas and the Sahara desert. Life there is concentrated along the channels through which water descends from the highest peaks.

In these oases, there is an architecture that, despite the austerity of the materials with which it is built, land and palm trees, is of great beauty and in harmony with the natural environment and climate. There are three types of traditional habitat: the qsar or walled town, the tighremt or fortified house, and the qasba or fortress of the tribe leaders. In addition, there are numerous shrines where the local saints are buried and worshiped and multiple collective barns for the storage and protection of food products.

During one fortnight of October 2001 and then another in March of the following year, we conducted two workshops in the oasis of Skoura with architecture students from the School of Valencia, with the purpose of inventorying its traditional architecture.

In May 2006 the Caja de Arquitectos Foundation published the book "Land architecture in southern Morocco. The Oasis of Skoura" finalist in the call for the FAD 2007 awards in the category of thought and critique, in the words of the organization: because it is a book that comes from research in the field, something unusual today, presented as a statement of the necessary correspondence that should exist between the place, materials, building systems and typologies.