The protectorate: new planning and colonial power
Twentieth-century architecture cannot be read apart from power. Approach the protectorate through archives and the city, distinguishing the description of buildings and planning from an understanding of colonial control and resistance.
A photograph of a place surviving today, not a reconstruction of the period.
City and archive
France’s diplomatic archives date the French protectorate in Morocco to 1912–1956. This names a system of colonial power, not merely a neutral episode of administrative or urban cooperation.
The protectorate was not a single administration everywhere. Spain’s Ministry of Culture preserves records of the Spanish protectorate in northern Morocco between 1912 and 1956. That distinction helps explain different administrative paths in the north and French-controlled areas, bringing Tetouan’s experience alongside Rabat’s.
UNESCO connects Rabat’s modern capital planning with the period beginning in 1912 while recognising older layers. Architecture can be studied for its significance without that becoming a justification of colonial rule.
Archives themselves require reading: who wrote a document, why, and whose voices are absent? Administrative records matter without representing every resident’s experience. The next chapter therefore turns to demands for independence and national action.
The accompanying contemporary Rabat photograph combines monuments from different times; it does not document an event at the protectorate’s beginning. The city seen today belongs to no single historical chapter, however influential.
Story sources: Archives diplomatiques, France · UNESCO · Ministerio de Cultura de EspañaStory sources
Sources reviewed:
- French protectorate archivesArchives diplomatiques, France
- Rabat, modern capital and historic cityUNESCO
- General Administration Archive: Spanish protectorate records in northern MoroccoMinisterio de Cultura de España