Rachid Haloui
The architect behind the house
Architect, teacher, photographer, visual artist, writer and collector, Rachid Haloui belongs to a generation for whom to build is not only to raise a structure, but to understand, to preserve and to pass on.
His eye was formed on Moroccan architecture — on its medinas, its materials, its craftsmen and its memories.
Over the years he has observed, photographed, documented and collected the traces of a heritage to which he remains deeply attached.
villa museum mogador is where all these ways of looking meet.
An architecture of his own drawing.
Collections of his own gathering.
A city he photographed over many years.
And now, a house he chooses to open.
At the beginning: stamps, pictures…
The childhood collections of stamps, pictures and keyrings gave way to collections of books, documents, postcards, pens, inkwells, pottery, bakelite, seashells, model cars, and alarm clocks, mantel clocks and watches.
Then came the wish to share these objects — their magic, and the enthusiasm of the passion behind them.
Building in order to pass on
Rachid Haloui did not adapt an old house to his collection.
He did the opposite: he drew a minimal architecture able to efface itself in order to receive what a lifetime had patiently gathered.
The objects did not come to furnish the Villa once it was built.
They belong to its design.
Architecture and collections grew together until they became inseparable.
The mark
The Villa's monogram is not an ornament added to its architecture.
Drawn by Rachid Haloui, it belongs to the very language of the house. Its incline echoes the architecture, which becomes a question mark.
Inscribed in certain architectural details, it works as a discreet signature: that of an architect who seeks not to impose his name, but to leave a trace and to stir feeling.