Dwelling on Absence: Minor Architecture and the Project of Moroccan Habitat

Housing policies and architectural experiments in 20th century Morocco were underpinned by an uneasy relationship between modernity and vernacular traditions. Framed through the lens of “minor architecture”—the non-monumental, collectively produced built environment— this essay by Reda Berrada traces how colonial and postcolonial institutions mobilized surveys, typologies, and mass housing projects to define a “Moroccan Habitat.” From the Protectorate’s preservation of indigenous quarters, to the state-sponsored sanitary grid for low-income housing and post-independence experiments with aided self-help, these efforts reveal architecture’s role as both an instrument of control and a site of negotiation. By focusing on the mediations, contradictions, and absences embedded in these projects, the essay highlights how vernacular knowledge was translated, instrumentalized, or effaced, and argues for a historiography of minor architecture attentive to its values, practices, and enduring capacity to shape the collective imagination of dwelling.