REVITALIZATION OF THE CITADEL OF AGADIR OUFELLA (SOUTH OF MOROCCO) | salima naji

An exceptional promontory site overlooking a port structure adapted to international trade, the fortress of Agadir has embodied for more than six centuries the importance of a city. The Kasbah was classified as a historical monument in 1932. However, today, its remains are a painful place of memory, constantly reminding the inhabitants of the terrible night of February 29, 1960. Sixty years after the terrible earthquake, the Kingdom has decided to give a new life to this emblematic site of Moroccan history in compliance with international protocols for post-disaster heritage interventions.
In order that only the fortress emerges at the top of the hill, a burial of all services was adopted: the site of the reception platform includes a cable car, restaurants, an information point, sanitary facilities and spaces dedicated to the safety of visitors. The construction system of treated wood and dry stone of 80 cm borrows an earthquake-resistant mode used in the High Atlas (Morocco) and other regions of the world (Nepal, Pakistan, Himalaya).
The height of nine meters necessary for the operation of the cable car machines has legitimized the choice of a ramp to accommodate all services in two buildings distributed on the slope of the hill. This underground platform constitutes the nodal point of a circulation plan where the different modes of transport meet without clogging the site with cars: the road for public transport, the redeveloped pedestrian paths that reuse the historical accesses and the panoramic telepheric.
In parallel, a participatory approach has been put in place for two years with the survivors and the bearers of memory. The restoration of the walls, the elevation of the visit routes with a planking inside the fortress, the construction of a memorial, the reorganization of the accesses, offer a patrimonial restitution opening the site to the visit and collective memory.