Place Florence (Florence Square), Fes

Occupying a strategic spot in the New Town of Fes, Florence Square acts as a key junction, which slows you down just enough to notice where you are and quietly organizes the city around it. Trees line the space, benches invite a pause, and a broad boulevard slices through the middle with a planted central island that quietly channels a steady flow of pedestrians. It’s a key urban hinge rather than a decorative afterthought—and locals know it.

The square’s octagonal shape is no accident either. It takes its cue from the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence, Italy, borrowing a touch of Renaissance geometry and dropping it neatly into modern Fes.

Look south, and you’re greeted by the confident presence of the Bank al-Maghrib building. Designed in Art Deco style by French architect René Canu, it leans into symmetry with wide arches and orderly rectangular windows, a design that balances authority with restraint. It’s the kind of building that doesn’t shout, but clearly expects to be listened to.

Now shift your gaze east, across Avenue Hassan II, and you’ll spot the Central Post Office. Its placement here makes sense—this was, and still is, a zone built for communication, administration, and movement. Letters, paperwork, people: all passing through the same urban crossroads.

Drift slightly southwest from the post office, and you reach the Court of Appeals, constructed between 1934 and 1936 by architects Adrien Laforgue and Antoine Marchisio. Solid and formal, it reflects the judicial role it was built to serve, anchoring the square with a sense of institutional weight.

Taken as a whole, Florence Square is less about spectacle and more about structure. It’s a place where design, symbolism, and daily routines quietly converge, revealing a carefully planned chapter of Fes that speaks in geometry, stone, and steady urban rhythm.