Mouassine Museum, Marrakech

The Mouassine Museum resides within the historical medina of Marrakesh, specifically nestled in the Mouassine neighborhood. This establishment finds its home in a meticulously restored 16th to 17th-century dwelling, which notably includes an upper-floor apartment recognized as a douiria.

Located in the Mouassine district, which developed greatly during the Saadian era (16th-17th century), it went through significant changes. In the 1560s, Sultan Moulay Abdallah al-Ghalib moved the Jewish community to the new Mellah district near the Kasbah, freeing up land. This area was then transformed into innovative "model" neighborhoods, centered around the newly built Mouassine Mosque. This drew bourgeois and aristocratic families, resulting in a concentration of Saadian-period structures.

Today's Mouassine Museum building once functioned as a residential domicile. Erected in the 1560s by an aristocratic Sharifian family, this structure's origins coincide with the inception of the neighboring neighborhood during the Saadian rule. Intriguingly, some of the painted sun motifs within the dwelling seem to trace back to the reign of the later Alaouite sultan, Moulay Isma'il, in the late 17th or early 18th century.

Climbing a short staircase takes you to the upper douiria, a space on the building's upper level. This area opens into a square salon with a wooden ceiling featuring a central skylight. Two sides of the salon have cozy alcoves sheltered by wooden canopies. The other sides lead to chambers that could be bedrooms or extra salons. The central room is richly decorated with carved stucco in geometric patterns and Kufic letters, along with intricately sculpted and painted wooden ceilings. The side chambers also have painted ceilings with motifs from the era of Sultan Moulay Ismail (late 17th to early 18th century).