Khouribga. Engineering, Architecture and Contradictions of a Moroccan Mining Town

For more than a hundred years, the discovery of the mineral deposit and subsequent mining activity on the Ouled Abdoun basin, located south of Casablanca near the current city of Khouribga, have dramat- ically altered the harmony of the existing landscape, introducing new dimensions in time and space through the construction of industrial plants, road infrastructure, and new cities. Although some excavation and survey work had been carried out as early as 1912, only in 1919, as a result of the work conducted by the Moroccan Mining Service, the importance of the phosphate deposit in the Ouled Abdoun basin started to become clear, and on August 7th, 1920, the Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP) was established through a decree promulgated on the initiative of Marshal Lyautey.