Tahir Shah
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From Times Online
February 23, 2008
Bargain hunting in Casablanca
The junk shops of Casablanca are full of antiques from its Art Deco glory days, says writer Tahir Shah
SAÏD BEN SAÏD sits in a pool of sunlight at the front of his shop and waits for the rush of customers, a rush that never comes. In the darkness behind him is a treasure hoard worthy of Ali Baba.
Stacked up on shelves and piled high in orderly heaps, lies an assortment of antique wares - brown Bakelite radios the size of suitcases, gramophone players and gilt clocks, graceful bronze statuettes, espresso machines, vintage posters and chamber pots. What makes the collection unusual is that it comes, almost in entirety, from the Art Deco glory days of Casablanca.
The city, created as a showcase of French Imperial style and might, boomed from the Twenties until the Forties, when it began its gradual and ignominious decline.
The little junk shop owned by Saïd Ben Saïd sits at the far end of a labyrinthine flea-market in the working- class quarter of Hay Hassani, on the western edge of Casablanca.
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With almost no tourists attracted to the city these days, and few Moroccans interested in anything second-hand, Ben Saïd is glum. His passion for Art Deco tends to be met with scorn from his peers, and has not made him rich. “Everyone here has the same dream,” he says. “They dream of living in a new house, filled with brand new things. They look at the treasures I have collected, and they laugh!”
Soon after moving to a ramshackle mansion in Casablanca four years ago, I discovered the junk yards in Hay Hassani, and was drawn into a dream world of bargains. A shameless hoarder, I snapped up what others considered junk - aspidistra stands, tea caddies and porcelain urns, all decorated with zigzag lines, silver sets of cutlery, posters, cocktail shakers, ice buckets, and tin-plate toys.
But the objets d'art are only the start. One morning I was bemoaning the low quality of new washbasins to Ben Saïd. “The stuff you find downtown in the fancy shops is all rubbish,” he said. “You'd better go out back behind the flea market.” I came across a place with a striking resemblance to the end of the world.
There were heaps of twisted scrap metal 50 feet high, mountains of third-hand bricks, mahogany doors and battered window frames, and an ocean of what we might call “architectural salvage”. In the middle of it all I found a lovely roll-top bath, cast iron with ball and claw feet. Inside it was a huddle of newborn puppies. Near by there were more than a dozen enormous Art Deco washbasins, ripped out from a villa before the building was torn.
As the months passed, I sniffed out Casablanca's other affordable antique shops. There must be a dozen or so, scattered across the city, most of them hidden down back streets. It's true that the arrival of a fresh-faced foreigner tends to nudge the prices up. But, in time-honoured Moroccan tradition, a little hard bargaining or feigned disinterest can have a magical effect.
Corrosion from the Atlantic breeze, and cowboy repair jobs have taken a toll on some of the more fragile pieces. But I am constantly surprised at what has survived, and the general good condition of it all. There's plenty of less than perfect bric-a-brac, as well as toe-cringing reproductions of Louis XIV but, for all of that, there are museum-quality gems.
Tucked away in the textile market of Derb Omar is a new and rather well-heeled gallery named Memo-Arts. The showroom has a few exquisite pieces, including a rosewood writing desk with ormolu legs, a davenport, and a pair of Art Nouveau bronze nymphs. In the middle of the room sits a magnificent grand piano from about 1925, crafted by the celebrated Parisian house of Erard.
In the past two or three years a few high-end antique “galleries” have sprung up. Like Memo-Arts, or the impressive Galerie Moulay Youssef, they cater to the richest Moroccan clientele. You get the feeling that people buy from them in a perverse show of wealth, rather than for their fondness of antiques. The same can be said for the two or three new auction houses, established for the local market, where the rich delight in publicly flashing their cash.
Back in the labyrinth at Hay Hassani, Saïd Ben Saïd is asleep with a newspaper over his face. He stirs at the sound of footsteps, the prospect of a customer. When asked if he can acquire a grand piano at flea-market prices, shrugs. “I have a friend with a warehouse full of grand pianos,” he says dreamily. “You can find them in any size. When the French ran away from Morocco, they left them behind in their hundreds. But who would ever want one?”
“I would,” I said.
The shopkeeper scratched a thumbnail to his neck, and glanced back into his Aladdin's den. “Well you are wise,” he said. “If there were others like you, I would be a far richer man with a far happier wife.”
Tahir Shah is the author of The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca (Doubleday, £8.99) and In Arabian Nights, which will be published May 5 (Doubleday, £11.99). Both are available at a discount from Books First 0870 160 8080.
Need to know
Getting there Morocco Made To Measure (020-7386 4646, www.theultimatetravelcompany.co.uk) offers tailormade city breaks.
Three nights' B&B at Hotel Jnane Sherazade in the old town are from £480pp, including flights from Heathrow and private transfers.
Shopping Hay Hassani has junk shops, most in Soco Demoina. The labyrinth has bric-a-brac stalls and fine antiques shops, including Magasin Ben Saïd and Arte Cecil in Oulfa.
Magasin Ben Saïd, Soco Demoina; Arte Cecil, 77, Boulevard Oum Errabia, Oulfa.
Derb Ghalef has hundreds of narrow passages, each cluttered with small shops. Habbous is a picturesque Arab area built by the French. Most shops sell clothing, perfume, and handicrafts, and there are good antiques in a courtyard off the main drag.
Memo-Arts in Derb Omar, and Galerie Athar on the way to Habbous have an excellent selection of Art Deco and Arab antiques. The best plush antiques shop is Galerie Moulay Youssef.
Memo-Arts, 51, rue Abdelkrim Diouri Galerie Athar, 12, rue Ibnou Khalouia; Galerie Moulay Youssef, 54, Boulevard Moulay Youssef.
Bohemian rhapsody
EXOTIC, romantic, decadent... Morocco has long drawn people of a bohemian bent and captured the imagination of artists, writers and film-makers. French painters such as Eugene Delacroix and Henri Matisse were inspired by its landscape. The American writer Paul Bowles moved to Tangier in the 1940s and stayed until his death in 1999. His bestselling The Sheltering Sky was written there.
In the 1950s and 1960s writers such as William Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Jean Genet, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Joe Orton passed through. The Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton kept a home in Tangier for three decades, and was famous for her parties.
Morocco's exoticism, religious mysticism and cheap hashish appealed to Sixties counterculture. Esther Freud's novel, Hideous Kinky, is based on her childhood in Marrakesh with her English dropout mother. The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix hung out there.
But the single work of creative fiction that immortalised Morocco in the public imagination - the 1942 Oscar-winning romance Casablanca - was shot entirely in a studio in the US.
Kate Quill
Its a shame Moroccan residents are denied straightforward tourists visas to the UK I have first hand experience of this and its double standards.
archie, bham, uk