Canon · Early 20th Century & the Modern Movement (1900–1945)

Casablanca Prost Plan

1917–1922 · Morocco · North Africa · Hygienist and infrastructural reform urbanism · Planned by Henri Prost
The 1:5000 master plan (plan directeur) of Casablanca from Prost's protectorate-era planning service, showing zoning, the new boulevards and the extension of the European city.
The 1:5000 master plan (plan directeur) of Casablanca from Prost's protectorate-era planning service, showing zoning, the new boulevards and the extension of the European city. · public-domain

Core idea

Boulevards, civic axes; protected medina

Why it matters

Colonial dual-city model

Description

Henri Prost's 1917–22 plan for Casablanca under the French protectorate laid out a modern European city of boulevards, zoning, and public spaces alongside — and separate from — the existing Moroccan medina, pioneering a colonial dual-city planning approach.

Significance

Casablanca under Prost is a key case of early 20th-century colonial planning and zoning, exporting modern French urbanism while institutionalizing the segregation of 'European' and 'native' city — a model applied across French North Africa.

What became of it

Realised as the framework for colonial Casablanca, establishing the zoning and radio-concentric form that still underlies the city. From the 1920s onward, actual urban growth rapidly exceeded the limits Prost had set.

Critique

The plan institutionalised colonial segregation by dividing the city into a European ville nouvelle and a separate indigenous quarter.

What shaped it

Plans it influenced

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.