Bousbir, Casablanca — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Bousbir?

The cultural landmarks ring the centre, not the wall. The Villa des Arts de Casablanca fills a 1934 Art Deco villa beside the Parc de la Ligue Arabe, while the Abderrahman Slaoui Museum keeps its collection of jewellery and posters in a matching villa off Rue du Parc. Sport and worship mark the edges too.

The Notre-Dame de Lourdes Church raises its modernist concrete screen over the Mers Sultan roundabout, and the tennis courts of the Complexe Al Amal hold the ground where the Grand Prix Hassan II once ran.

What is the history of Bousbir?

The quarter was laid out in 1924. Edmond Brion drew Bousbir as an enclosed rectangle inside Casablanca, ringed by a high windowless wall with a single controlled gate, its neo-Moorish alleys built to sell a staged oriental scene to protectorate visitors. The name itself is a corruption.

Moroccan speech turned the first name of the French owner Prosper Ferrieu into Bousbir, and the walled district kept the label until the authorities shut it in 1955.

Where is Bousbir?

Bousbir lies in the central belt of Casablanca, a compact walled quarter set between the Parc de la Ligue Arabe and the Mers Sultan roundabout, close to the Notre-Dame de Lourdes Church in a subtropical band of the northern hemisphere.