Known as "L’hay", Hay Mohammadi is currently a suburb poorly perceived by the majority of Casablanca residents. "This neighbourhood is full of young talents and cultured people. Nevertheless, it is a victim of drug dealers and gangs of thugs who tarnish its image," confides Saïd, a member of a local association. This native of Hay Mohammadi fights with other young people to restore his neighbourhood to its former charm and, above all, to make it a haven of culture and fulfilment for its inhabitants. "Ouled l’Hay were almost all resistance fighters. They have nothing to do with the image they are currently perceived as," adds another civil activist.

Indeed, this popular neighbourhood is a true historical place of the economic capital. It is considered the centre of the Moroccan resistance under the French protectorate and an exceptional breeding ground for talent. Hay Mohammadi has helped shape the historical, cultural, social and political landscape of Casablanca. An avant-garde artistic centre, it has seen the birth of great names in sport, music and cinema. Hay Mohammadi is also a real architectural laboratory, according to the Casamémoire association.

Located in the north-east of Casablanca, the neighbourhood is sadly famous for having hosted the first Casablanca slums and for having housed the Derb Moulay Cherif police station. "Unfortunately little known, this popular and industrial neighbourhood is nevertheless full of incredible heritage wealth. Hidden from view, the life of the inhabitants is woven around living spaces and historical buildings that allow us to retrace the history of Casablanca," indicates Casamémoire. Indeed, architecture students come from different countries to discover the rich architectural heritage of L’hay.

Among the famous places of Hay Mohammadi, we cite the Central Quarries, an important centre of the Moroccan resistance. Late H.M.

Mohammed V paid tribute to the loyalty of its inhabitants by choosing the neighbourhood to make his first visit upon his return from exile. On this occasion, he inaugurated the "Jamâa el malik" mosque and gave the neighbourhood the name Hay Mohammadi. The Central Quarries grouped, from the 1920s, the workers in charge of the construction of the Roches Noires thermal power plant who built shacks there. The Central Quarries became in the space of a few years the largest concentration of insalubrious housing.

After the Second World War, the Resident General, Eirik Labonne, called on the architect-urban planner Michel Ecochard to reform the urban policy of Casablanca and resolve the housing crisis affecting the city. In 1951, he advocated the creation of a neighbourhood unit and a housing grid that measures 8 metres on each side, allowing the construction of 64 m² dwellings with two rooms. This ratio allows 350 inhabitants to be housed per hectare. In 1949, the housing department bought 100 hectares in order to relocate the population of the Central Quarries slum which then housed more than 30,000 people. From 1954, one year after the installation of the first occupants, some patios were covered, depriving the rooms of air and light. The houses began to be raised in order to sublet rooms. This banal phenomenon was aggravated by the fact that the dead-ends were only two metres wide. Thus, the concern for hygiene, essential in these dwellings, was quickly flouted.

In the middle of the sheet of patio houses of the Central Quarries, "ATBAT-Afrique" (Atelier des bâtisseurs) built three collective buildings. The French architect Michel Ecochard then suggested playing on the vertical superposition of the 8x8 metre grid. If the small tower, designed by the architect Bodiansky, has nothing remarkable, the other two buildings explore two modes of composition that aim to make them reproducible "standard buildings".

"On the sidelines of public action, which is not very effective, employer housing programmes for workers continue to expand. Companies take the initiative to build small complexes far from the centre for their staff," indicates the Casamémoire association. At the beginning of the 1940s, Edmond Brion realised the Socica city (Société chérifienne de la Cité ouvrière de Casablanca). This project, realised in an unprecedented collaboration between the private sector, the city and the municipality, had the objective of receiving 10,000 workers from the industrial neighbourhood still housed in huts and shacks and to fight against the proliferation of lamentable "derbs" that were anarchically established in the lands of the industrial zone. However, the Second World War caused a shortage of funds and raw materials, which considerably slowed down the work. Although the City never succeeded, compared to the initial programme, it is today a small coherent neighbourhood with its own functioning. Recently, some inhabitants have acquired their housing.

The Assaâda cinema is one of the emblematic places of Casablanca of the "post-independence" era. Its enclosure housed a good number of political meetings and saw emblematic leaders parade. The Assaâda cinema was also a performance hall where the great names of modern and popular Moroccan song performed. Today, it is one of those dozens of cinemas that have definitively closed their doors. For three years, the old Casablanca Slaughterhouses, built in 1922, have been converted into the first Cultural Factory of Morocco which occasionally hosts shows, conferences, artist residencies, workshops, etc.

-* Ouled L’hay

-* Nass El Ghiwane

-* Lamchaheb

-* Tagadda

-* The choreographer Lahcen Zinoun

-* Mohamed Miftah

-* The TAS team and its players Bouassa and Noumir

-* The boxer Abdelhak Achik